I completely agree. As someone else said in this thread, motivation is a key thing. Do what you want to do, go where your heart leads you, one man's meat is another man's poison. I studied english and philosophy. Real world money making application? Pretty much none, aside from sharpening the thinking skills. But I loved it anyway, for the sake of learning and the knowledge itself, the natural curiosity that surrounds truth and beauty and logic, getting a better feel for how the world works. As far as the application of education to trading, I think having a college degree is kind of like being able to play classical piano. A potentially enriching and life enhancing skill that takes years to achieve, demonstrates discipline and character in its owner, and offers a sense of happiness and accomplishment- but has an indirect correlation to trading at best. Not good, not bad, just another reflection of who the person is at the end of the day.
I agree 100%...In fact, I would go so far as to say that if one has the proper education and has developed enough analytical skills, then the actual need to return to school to develop another skill set is pretty unnecessary...The real problem is that a high percentage of the population is "institutionalized" in their thinking; they believe that to learn how to speak Spanish, to learn how to program a computer; to learn how to become a businessman(entrepreneur) requires that they go back to school, read some textbooks, listen to a professor (who may or may not have any practical experience in his area of expertise) and then go out and try to practice this new skill set... I have also read, with interest, the number of people arguing the pro's and con's of a formal higher education...I realize that the majority of people on here have a college degree and that a few have an Ivy League education...The cost of an education is a serious issue and the simple fact that many have gone into massive debt to pay it off should tell us something...Is it worth it? that is a very subjective debate and depends almost entirely on what people do with it...But the real question going forward is how practical will this Ivy League education be when it reaches 40,000 or 50,000 per year, which at the pace that private education costs are rising should happen within the next 5-10 years...What happens when the parents who are trying to subsidize these costs cannot get their 15% return on investments, when the students themselves have to take 150,000 worth of student loans and grants to finance these educations...What happens if the economy continues to nose dive and all of these Ivy Leaguers cannot get their six figure salaries right after college? Again, I believe that so much of what is deemed as necessary or worthwhile is relative to the economic environment...The fact that these institutions of higher learning have no ability to control their costs and simply pass these higher costs onto their "clients" each year is going to have some sort of whiplash effect at some point...When I entered college in 1990, the costs were less than half of what they are now for the same college...And in 1990, the costs were roughly 3x what they were a decade earlier... I also distinctly remember the recession of 1991-92 and the number of college graduates from top tier Eastern colleges who could not get the "premium" job following graduation...At that time there were numerous students who had to question the purpose of going to a very high priced elitist college/university if there was no "pay off" to the high expense...What happens nowadays now that prices are more than double what they were a decade earlier?...
The effects of economics, politics and technological progress on society as a whole is a fascinating subject IMHO. I don't want to post thoughts on that here because I'm already longwinded enough on this board...but for anyone else interested in this type of subject matter I highly, highly recommend "The Sovereign Individual" by James Davidson and William Rees-Mogg. (Whether you agree with them or not, they will make you do some serious thinking.)
I am an aspiring trader still in college, just curious how a market-maker can screw, ive heard of this before, Thanks.
Oh, the places a thread can go....regretting that last wisecrack already LOL hey candle, what happened to the rabbit and the turtle?