I can totally relate to what you're talking about. I'm a graduating engineer and it seems the job market sucks more than ever, and if you're not some drooling moron who can't bullshit his way into finding a job then good luck pal. Then on top of that getting stacked up against hella outsourcing and wage arbitrage. These problems are just as important as any coming from this financial meltdown business. A resolve to those issues would save the day for plenty of Americans.
You definitely have to use it or lose it. Actually, you lose the details but if you really understood a subject....you seem to keep the understanding. Hope that makes sense. I have a degree in civil engineering and a degree in finance. I remember making A's in both semesters of calculus, never understood what I was doing, and don't remember anything about it. However, I did reach an understanding of steel and concrete design, and even though the details are long gone, I feel I could go back and relearn them quickly. I'm 65 yrs. old, retired from my own small building construction business where all I needed to know was how to add, subtract, multiply and divide. Am now revisiting some finance and economics and trying to pick up some cash trading stocks and futures. Different strokes for different folks....there are only 24 hours in a day......you can't do it all....hopefully you find things to make money that you find interesting. Good luck, Stosh
Yeah, it is called a "hobby" and it may turn out to be more satisfying than your JOB. And it has to be scheduled time, written on your calendar and inviolate. Otherwise, it is just a diversion and no more important than watching the idiot box. Self esteem comes from doing something that you know, deep down inside of yourself, that it is worth esteeming. A job is to make money. A career is a job dressed in a suit. If that something is your intellectual stature, then the effort will be well spent. You gotta define it, set your time limits, know your expectations and execute- oh yeah, just like any trade- except this time the trade is effort for brain power. By the way, the shorter your time frame the less brain power you need, it is all about execution. So if you find yourself drooling, try scalping.
what the hell does math have to do with trading??? The only relationship between trading and math is that the prices are numbers......other than that math has no value in trading as long as you can add and subtract. If a market is 10 bid @ 10 1/4 and now its 11 bid @ 11 1/4 please tell me how math can help you there other than figuring out how much you have made or lost off of that move??? Stop thinking you need to be a rocket scientist to make money!
if trading is your passion, then the math you need to learn/use to support your trading should be just a labor of love. that's what i was trying to say.
Even that is not so simple. You can read econometrics books till 5am, like I am now, and still only have a mess of ideas. Very, very difficult to do this outside of a university. For example, in Tsay's book, he has software examples from SCA. I go look on the web page for that package, and the student edition doesn't do multivariate time series and the pro edition is $1000 right off the bat. A hefty price to pay to learn, and only for exploring theoretical ideas. I've been through this cycle before. One thing I am going to do is just enroll in school through those 'continuing education' things they have at universities. Just take 1 class a semester and keep running with it, so I don't turn into a total piece of worthless crap. The tutoring idea was fantastic, but there are not many people who need tutoring in econometrics.
Become a chess IM Become world scrabble champion Learn the US tax code Develop a trading system that can trade across all markets, in all conditions.
From your different threads, you look like you are already paralysed by your knowledge/background... You really need to dumb down to trade profitably. When I first started trading, I wanted to know everything, backtest everything, quantify everything... It took me a lot of time to escape that state of mind and start trading profitably. It's not about knowing evrything, it's just about finding one thing that logically put odds on your side. Your programming knowledge will help you in automation but math? not sure...
Even tho I have an undergrad degree in math and went into the medical field, I second these comments. To the OP, you can also audit classes. I think the best suggestion in the chain was to tutor. Tho not at your level (grad), I did that as well. The pay is good and it keeps you on your toes.
Set a goal for yourself that eventually will be overcome by outside motivation. What I mean is, find something that you aren't required to do, but that will have deadlines, demands, etc, accompany it after you get it going to a certain point. Examples: enter a software competition, start a team with others to solve an unsolved math/science problem, start a blog and make it popular enough so that people begin to ask you questions you need to answer. Another example of this would be to join a message board that focuses on solving or helping with math problems and become active on that board. If you become an active member, you will feel motivated to stay active. It sounds, though, like your question might be more of a time issue than a how-to issue. Unfortunately, there's never going to be enough time for everything you want to learn and be an expert on. You've just got to prioritize. Sometimes its smarter to concentrate on learning things that will accelerate your career or life, instead of things that make you feel smart.