Are you working for a top tier brokerage house? Do they have a trading operation? Even if you dont,you may be on the right path.. Read up a bit on William Oneil,Dubin and Swieca and a host of others who have come from your side of the business.. T
I have been also looking for a trading job. Unfortunately I have no college experience as i took over a family construction business shortly after high school. My construction business got hit fairly hard in 2008. So i started to get serious with trading. After 4 years of hard work i have come up with several strategies that consistently turn profits with low draw downs (basically low risk per trade compounding strategies). I have an obsession with trading. A true passion. Unfortunately every time i am able to build my accounts up something comes up where i have to take the money back out. Helping parents, vet bills, cost of living. It seems impossible for me to build an account with the luck i have been having. Which is the reason i have been looking to trade for a hedge fund. As others have said it's near impossible to do get a job with no college degree. I have applied to at least 30 different hedge funds and have had no reply. So i started to look into prop firms. It seems to me that they all want money for training understanding that this is how they produce capital. I spoke with a few of these prop firms. One guy from a prop firm told me that out of the 200 traders that started the training program only a hand full did not make it to trade there capital. Which was a total red flag to me. I have been in the game for long enough to know you can't get trained for two months and become profitable with this training alone. For me it took 2 years of every day research for things to start to click. Like Frank said earlier if your truly a profitable trader build your personal account up and trade your own money. The problem is it's hard these days to build your account up through the cost of living. I am 32 years old and feel time is moving at light speed. I just want to show my skills and get a job trading shit i'll mop the floors clean the windows just to have a chance to possibly trade some real capital. Just wondering would these prop firms would be a good place for me to start? And is there any way you can get by the training and start trading there capital with some demo trading results? I would be willing to pay for the training but 5000$ to pay for training. And then 5000$ for risk capital. I could be trading 30K including margin with my etrade account. Anyone know of a good prop firm with a reasonable trading fee? Or are these prop firms a scam that get you to pay for training then find a way to let you go before you can trade there money? Any opinions on what other options that may be available or what i should do next would be highly appreciated? Assuming you believe i am a good trader with a good head on my shoulders. Thanks guys!
I am trading and have found edges come and go, unlike your cushy job. You may want to save up some cash before you start trading based on a year or so profitable edge.
my 0.02 is to stay away from training/prop firms and just slowly build your own account (yes i read what you said re having expenses come up but this would happen even if you went the prop route). re your expenses - i strongly suggest if you haven't already done this to look at EVERY expense you have and see if you can't do one of two things: eliminate it completely or reduce it. for ex. i used to drink 2 red bulls a day then realized it wasn't healthy and cost a ridic sum of $ so i switched to water in the morning which rehydrates you and helps focus which is what red bull supposedly does. there are many more examples which i'm sure you could come up w/ on your own but you get the point. the passion is the most important thing so that's good you have that. it's good that you're willing to work non trading related jobs to build up capital to trade - you don't want to say "i'll wait years for the "right" job when you could've been earning money doing something else in the meantime. a lot of people here are et, including me, having done this. just do your research/read about mkts before/after work and/or on any breaks if you have a smartphone. you have even monitor open positions during work w/ a phone and it won't take away from your work. if you've found an edge which you seem to have i'd recommend just continuing doing what you're doing.