Traders! I have a few questions on prop trading firms in Toronto and making transition from prop shops to banks. This is a long post, but badly need your advice. Your advice or comments are much appreciated. I worked in corporate finance for 3 years in Canada, but have been out of a full-time job for a year due to family matters. Now I am in Toronto, very interested in trading. But w/o any trading experience, I won't be able to land a position in the bank. I am seriously considering joining a prop trading firm in Toroton, learning as much as I can and making a transition to banks in 2 years or so. Q1: I heard making such a transition is very difficult. But what if there is a good track record of trading performance you can show, also aren't the psychological and technical parts of trading highly transferrable? Q2: If the experience with a prop trading firm alone is not enough to land a trading position in banks, what else you suggest me doing to improve my odds (trade some specific products in my own time? develop a good macro view? etc.) Q3: I am looking at Everest Capital, Globus Trading, and Title Trading. What I really want is a good training/mentoring program that can help me get started and pay less unneccessary tuition to the market and develop trading skills that are transferrable. It just appears to me that Title is a HFT shop, and I will probably rely on their software to make every single trade, which will make it difficult for me to work for someone else. What could you comment on these shops regarding what a complete newcomer would need at his start. Any other shops you know to recommend? except Infinum and Orbixa (Infinum is too quant-focus to me and Orbixa, don't feel comfortable working with a successor of Swift given the SEC issues) Sorry for the long post. Any advice or comments related are much appreciated! Thank you so much for your time.
I know you PM'ed me but I thought it would be better to respond here directly. If your plan is to get into an investment bank, whatever you do, don't go anywhere near a prop firm. It's a deal killer. Trust me on this. Not saying it's never ever been done, but the odds are against you. Especially those prop firms you listed. There is a huge difference between prop firms and investment banks. Different cultures, different trading, different people. It just doesn't work. Nothing wrong with going the prop firm route, but make it your goal to get into a good one and be the best trader you can be there. Good prop firm traders make as much if not more then guys at investment banks with much more freedom. So not sure why you even want to go work for an investment bank anyway.
Thanks so much Mav for your reply. I think working in a BB gives me the opportunity to work with a large group of elite traders, and to be better connected in the financial world. If one day, I go on my own, the strong brand name of my former employer could be beneficial. I guess prop shops here are just not at the same level as those in US. Your response pulls me back to my originally planned route, get a job and learn to trade on my own, which is not my preferred option but I will rethink hard about it! Thanks again Mav
Do your MBA or MSc, and you'll get in a Canadian bank. Don't look at prop firms they will kill your chances and future career. Even if you can take a bigger cut of the profits, if you end up making nothing you'll be stuck with no job prospects. In a bank if you don't succeed as a Trader you have good chances to transfer into another position. Don't forget in a prop firm you'll have to build your account and you'll receive no salary which will put lots of stress that might hinder your chances. You'll need cash to sustain your expenses for at least a 2 years for you to get profitable. The 2 years cash you'll need for your living expenses for a prop can be used to finance your MBA or MSc. Go in a Canadian bank then when you're profitable and saved up some good money make the switch to prop to keep your profits.
I love how everybody in this thread makes it sound so simple to get a job at a Canadian bank. I finished my MSc in Quant. Finance and I just started work with a guy finishing up his post-grad in Finance and we're both working at a prop. firm. Neither one of us can get first round interviews at Canadian banks or firms.
You are living in TO ? right about me I'm 26, I left WTS prop shop in Montreal last spring because I was completing my CFA and that was a good decision. Now I am a clerk and I have a very modest salary in a sales/trading company. I assist traders. I'm ok with that because that's a business where everyone knows everyone. A little bite like bank. think about it the more you are in a specialized trade the less there are jobs. Like physical nat gas trader. They are a small world in Calgary. Professors at Rothman BS can't teach it to you. Exciting trading jobs are not teach at prop firm, universities. Nor, I think Joining a prop firm could determine or help your entry to a bank. I tell you the way my friend got his job at RBC capital market in toronto as an analyst. He is succesful where many aren't. but He has worked 3 yrs as a cashier at 12$/h and completed his CFA and had no social life. That a way to get there. Get a fcking tiltle, FRM, CFA, CQF, CQF, CIM, Pl. Fin They are stick with it. That's what those banks really wants. Prop firm on my CV was a killer. I tell you my experience with banks HR: TD,HSBC: they take only (with exception) people with banking +5 yrs experience. BMO: you may get an interview there I got one. SCOTIA: you need the title CIBC: Be bilingual, you will pass a lot over people Desjardins (saving union in Qc): you can get your interview but they have 4-5 next steps. Beside it, banks want you speak 3 languages, they want a social guy, they want people with selling experiences, they want Title, securities course. It is very complicated to get a good position instantly, that what I m trying to explain to people who think finance is easy. Be very patient, but not too much, don't restrict your search to banks. Banks are short-term minded. even if you have the brightest idea or having talents if they don't need you what do you... If I lived in Toronto GTA, I will go meet potential financial companies each week to see if my motivation can help their business. For someone who is starting his education (that's not your case) the best advice is to try non-conventional applied finance like Stats/Computer sciences actuarial sciences that's where they need People. I know 3 or 4 traders in Canada, the characteristic I found is they land there before the crowd I'm in. Yesterday it was HF trading, Oil, ETF ... now it over it's a new kind of trade where everyone will be catapult in. I have read the book the biggest trade ever (about the CDS market). These guys were before the crowd. I think that I should find a specialty before the job market or the financial market, that's my challenge!
Inktommi said: %Don't forget in a prop firm you'll have to build your account and you'll receive no salary which will put lots of stress that might hinder your chances. You'll need cash to sustain your expenses for at least a 2 years for you to get profitable. The 2 years cash you'll need for your living expenses for a prop can be used to finance your MBA or MSc. Go in a Canadian bank then when you're profitable and saved up some good money make the switch to prop to keep your profits.% This is honestly the answer. Also, you can crash in a bank job or in a Prop shop. The little difference is that you dont have a salary in a prop shop.
Getting a job in a Canadian bank is doable if you are in Toronto. I guess you and your friends are not in Toronto To the OP: getting a Msc or MBA, then a job in a bank sounds like a realistic plan. But, given the fact that most of the Canadian banks are commercial banks, the chance of getting a trading job is still small. You will likely have to spend some years in a middle office, then front office trade support before becoming a trader. However, even if you're not a trader you still make a comfortable living