Hello, I am currently a junior at Georgia Tech working towards a B.B.A. in Finance. I hope to into investment banking. I plan on getting an M.B.A. (Finance) in the future, or possibly a Masters in Econometrics. I was wondering what would be the best programming language to learn in my position. I was originally looking to learn Fortran (an invincible, very powerful, and well established programming language). However some people recommended MATLAB, C, or C++. I was wondering what people here would recommend to learn. Any input is greatly appreciated, Thanks in advance. -Crandall
You might read some investment banking help wanted ads and notice what computer languages are required.
If you are committed to learning a language, C++ is the way to go. Most algo firms use this for their production level development. This is assuming that you are already a master of VBA in Excel - not the best programming language but by far the most widely used programming tool on Wall Street, especially outside of the pure high frequency quant desks
You cannot go wrong with C/C++. Once you master it, switching between languages is easy. Every trading platform has its own API or scripting language. Just get the basics down. If you are looking for a good intro to programming, try PHP. Free and much of the syntax can move you to C/C++.
I heard Jane Street uses just OCaml. Not sure if that's a beginners language, though, and it might not be used broadly.
But it can only be used within the SAS set of software. It is not a general purpose programming language.