I have almost 3 years experience trading the markets. I do not have any type of license. To be completely honest I lasted 3 months trading the ES with a $1500 account and paying my bills that total $2000 a month. It was a matter of time not being able to hold over night before I got under the 1000 mark paying my bills and couldn't trade. Is there any places that would be willing to put me to work trading?
Typically, you leave your CV and track record with specialist head hunters and they come calling on you as the trading firms forward hiring requirements and postings to said headhunter. The trick, of course, is getting the head hunter to buy into you as a valuable piece of ass to pimp around. If a head hunter places one ticking time bomb with a valued client - their world collapses because it is such a small niche market.
This is very reasonable.... especially the second part. To the OP - I hate to say this because you seem well intentioned - but I can't see it happening base on what you are draw as your background: There are usually two routes to the trader (I'll use the term to mean execution traders, sale side traders, proprietary (as in Apollo type, not where you put down a deposit) account traders/portfolio managers): (1) You join through a training program/analyst program; You won't get into those unless you are a newly minted bachelor or MS with solid schooling and internship experiences. It's extremely competitive. (2) You work your way up from the backoffice into an execution trader role; This is the traditional route in, but dying because execution traders have less and less to do every day. There are TONs of people grinding it through vast backoffices hoping for a shot. Finally, there are always the lateral moves (ie: strategies moves to trading; etc) - but you have to be in the business already. In all cases, your background of pushing a few lots of contracts in your personal account for a few years will do little. Sorry to be blunt.
Any more info? What happend over those 3yrs; returns, drawdowns etc? What was the most you were trading with?What markets did you trade? Did you go to school, where ?(not relevant to trading but may help on your CV) Do you have any other relevant work experience? To be honest, it's going to be tough unless you know someone or get lucky. (on a side note: if you were making money and withdrawing it for bills you do realize you're going to have to pay taxes on those gains, right?)
There are a few more options I can think of. Since futures require little money to get going... 1. Work until you build your funds back up to trade your own account. Keep your day job and trade whenever you can. 2. Approach friends / family / acquaintances / investors and see if they would be willing to help fund your trading. Of course, you better have a really solid system with a track record and that makes money consistently. 3. Never give up. If you really can make money from futures trading, finding the capital will be the least of your worries. Edit: I forgot one....create a website and sell your system online to generate additional funds.
Genuine trading talent is very scarce and valuable. If you have it, and can demonstrate that convincingly, then there are many people who will give you a shot. Piking ES for 3 months with a $1,500 account before blowing up is not a convincing demonstration, sorry. My advice is get the best salaried job you can in the markets, and learn on the job. Aggressively seek out mentors, and study a lot on your downtime. Once you save enough, re-open an account, and trade it, keeping a meticulous trading diary and records. Go over it with your mentor(s). If you get good enough, they'll put in the word and you have a chance to get some capital to trade with under supervision. Then you can keep going and if you perform you will succeed eventually.
I wonder about this last suggestions though - get a job in the markets and learn as much as you can - that sounds great, something I am working towards now. But then you also say to trade your own account at the same time. That is what I want to do, but my worry is if I am in the industry, I will be forbidden from trading my own account. That is really discouraging.
Yeah - you won't. Compliance at most firms really frown on this kind of stuff. But look on the bright side: a few years in the actual business, you'll see there's a whole lot to it then making 'trades'. You'll be better off for it - or you may decide this finance thing isn't for you and you'll get out when you still young and haven't spent 10 years staring at an squiggly lines on the retail-platform-of-the-week.