I agree with the general tone of the responses on this board...But I also believe the original question is something that a 22 or 23 year old would ask because he is under the assumption that a college degree means something when it comes to trading...As many have pointed out, the Ivy League education thing does get one in the door of the big investment banks and, in certain cases, does give some guarantee of a big six figure payout somewhere down the line...But the truth of the matter is, the majority of the time spent on this site, is dedicated to trading, proprietary, nuts and bolts, do it yourself trading, not the sort of market making, brokering stuff that alot of the Wall Street crowd does...I think there are several people on this site who have discussed the merits of one vs the other...Obviously, the guaranteed salary is the upside, but the downside is the office politics, the bureaucracy and all of the other bs that goes along with ANY job... To answer the question about colleges, intelligence, SAT scores...I do not want to get into SAT scores or anything like that...I went to the "toothpaste" school in upstate New York...The education itself was about the same as the high school I went to, which was 10x more competitive, and a truly intellectual environment...In all honesty, the thing that prepared me the most for trading was playing competitive golf for about 10 years in college and as an amateur...To me, competitive golf and trading are so similar in the mental aspects that it is sometimes startling...The same nervousness, the same ability to "pull the trigger", to visualize the target, to try and correct a "bad run" and stop the bleeding...In fact, I believe all traders can learn alot about how the game should be played by simply watching Tiger Woods play a tournament start to finish...The way he positions himself on Thursday's and Friday's...How he tries to make his move on Saturday's and how he plays with a lead...The difference between a guy like Tiger Woods and a Phil Mickelson is management, plain and simple...Knowing how to take calculated risks and make them pay off...
I think that's probably true of ANY competitive sports or activities. Someone once said,"You don't trade stocks! You trade against people!" Markets are afterall made of lots of people buying and selling. So, competitive sports help - not just golf. And not just sports, even chess, poker, blackjack,etc. probably all helps. trader99
Trader 99: yes, I agree...all competitive sports or games definitely expose one to the competitive nature of trading...Golf was just my way of understanding it...
Good point, I don't think its the fact of whether or not someone has an Ivy League education that counts... its how much work was put into that education, and how competitive the student was against the other top students in the world... but you can have these qualities from sport, the arts and any line of work... a modicum of intelligence, a strong drive, good discipline and many other hard to discern qualities, combine to produce the right psychological approach...
trader99, i'd probably go back to the institutional world whilst you still have the opportunity to do so (i think the longer you're out of the business, the harder it'll be to be to get back in). make some decent money, save hard, and in a few years you'll have the freedom to try prop trading again without worrying about what you're missing out on in terms of a regular salary (plus you'll have a greater chance of success with a few $$$$ stashed away).
To the oft to heard bragging about ones trading prowess in the 1997-1999 era, a friend of mine would always give his standard reply: "Big deal, housewives are kicking your ass."
Vulture, You may want to check out the book The Legend of Bagger Vance, great book on the mental aspects of the game of golf... PEACE and good trading, Commisso
Tri, Nice to hear from you Yeah I too like that book very much... Leonard has another book out The Way of Aikido which is also very good... PEACE and good trading, Commisso
When people throw out ridiculously low numbers for the possibility of trading success, it shows that they do not understand simple probability and mathematics as applied to trading, as you point out. I'm not a magician or a mission impossible type, I'm just using probability and mathematics in my favor. I'm selective enough in my entries and exits, using criteria that makes sense in the real world and has demonstrated its long term viability- that the odds of being profitable fall in my favor at the end of the day/week/month etc. It's really not rocket science. When I started out years ago I was intimidated by the 90% losing rate or whatever it is. But then when I realized how much emotional and psychological baggage there is to overcome, I realized that trading must be easy once you get past the psychological stuff and the lack of sufficient capital or time devoted, because those three factors alone knock out a good eighty percent of newbies. Someone said somewhere that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic for those who don't understand it. The same goes for a trading methodology that is profitable. If the odds are in your favor every time, you are like the house. You will make money. And if you keep your risk low enough, the odds of a blowup are on par with the odds of any other catastrophe in life- hit by a car, cancer etc.- and thus not worth worrying about. People I know who don't trade are flabbergasted by the fact I can do something that traditional wisdom says is impossible- but the truth is that if I sat them down and spent some time explaining the process, they would see it's little more than a consistent application of mathematics, observation and common sense. Doesn't mean THEY would be able to do it- psychology is the huge nut to crack but they would see it's not magic, just something that they didn't have a working grasp of.