Hi, I am living abroad (in Asia) and looking forward to getting job somewhere in East asia like Japan, HK, Singapore or Australia,...getting hired in East Asia by large financial firms like Bear stearns, mrryl lynch, Man, ABN amro,..... What are my chances of getting job in trading industry if i have good practical command in writing models and quantitative analytics in EL, Excel VBA, and in process of learning C++ like applying functions in other languages that accepts external DLL, writing Technical indicators.... I don't have any financial degree yet, but looking forward to pass my series 7, 55,..also what other exams like CFA, CMT,..... etc you can recommend? I have live account trading experience of over 3 years in both real account (1 year) and real time demo & hypothetical results(2 years) What kind of monthly salary should i expect for my knowledge in the begining, (I know traders with my qualification in US expect higher than me, but i can settle for less) as they want to know your expectation on salary? Thank you P.s Please excuse my English
I have some knowledge of the financial markets in south east asia. I am confused, title of your post said you are looking for a "programmer" job, and yet body of your post keep on saying "trader". I have no idea what is it exact what you want. If you graduated from a top university, regardless of your discipline, and have a CFA, you have a shot (problem is that I heard that China is producing CFAs like mad, almost 5000 a year according to AMIR). Of course, like all asian businesses, it is who you know, if you have family connections, it would easy. Second, if you are looking for a programmer job, you won't touch trading at all, instead you will be building systems for traders to use, this type of job is easier to get but the pay is 1/4 to 1/3 of what traders make, or even less.
You can't come up programimng any good idea if you aren't practicaly experianced trader. And i understand that most financial firms much prefer you to be both. Also i read in another thread here that if you have CFA, CMT,... if you can't back it up practicaly, it means not much to them
Is that 5000 CFA from US or chinese government? who is Amir? where did you read this? And where do you live In asia? Because i don't think family connection should matter to a financial firm when it comes to trading the firm money
I have no idea why I am replying. I have taken some interest in Asia, particular due to the growth in derivative markets. AIMR is the association that administers the CFA certification. CFA degree is not issued by government, rather citizens of any country can take the CFA tests. The data I provided can be obtained from the AIMR's annual test taking statistics. First of all, most of the financial services firm in Asia are focused not on proprietary trading, rather on mostly banking, sales trading and agency trading type of functions. Only recently in the last 2-3 years have the ibanks started to do proprietary trading, it is extremely difficult to become a prop trader for an ibank in general. When I was in asia recently, and Citadel was hiring traders like crazy in Hong Kong, however, the requirement is very tough (great employment history, track record, etc), and due to the scarcity of asia focused traders with a lot of experience, the pay packages are actually higher than the comparable individual in the US. For US based FS firms, familily connections is not important at all, but requirement is very tough. But for asian based firms, it is almost entirely about who you know. A friend of mine who went from working for JPMorgan to Nomura, and found the culture shock almost impossible to bear.
Thank you for providing info on Amir. Was citadel hiring then for Trading post or sales those days?Speaking of skill level, what do you mean by track record, which is guess isn't "Great" trading record? Because i have the assumption anyone with little consistency over 1-2 year, will have no difficultly raising funds for himself, or finding very highly paid position like %commission from trading profit on extremely large account. Well, as i said these are my assumptions, that you don't necessarily need good track record, but be innovative and fast learner, once having right tools and resources available to you. Please correct me, thank you