several different people have suggested to me that I get an internship at a trading firm. Since my current major is business management (although I'm planning to take enough finance classes that I will likely get a second major or minor out of it anyway), and I am already dreading a business internship away from trading, I think an internship at a trading firm could possibly be the best option I could have. However, I am not extremely familiar with trading firms. I am aware that certain hedge funds allocate small portions to day trading, but all in all I don't know about much. Can you give me examples of trading firms, so I can look them up and find out more?
I think that as an undergraduate major Business is not the most useful thing when you want to get into trading. Industrial Engineering is good, so is History or Philosophy, at least from what I have seen in people who are successful and have gotten a degree. You have a lot of advice coming to you from this thread and I've already put in what I think..but I'll expand a little bit I suppose. I'm 31 years old, by the time I was 21 I had my first million dollars. I've had all the money I ever need, and for a long time I thought it was the only thing in the world that mattered. It took almost dying twice to learn that its not. I'd give anyting right now to not be scared to death every time I go to the doctor that we are going to find a lump someplace there should not be one, or that a blood test is going to come back bad. All of the money in the world wouldnt make that go away. When you do look your own mortality in the face the money you have made doesnt mean shit. You care that you have provided for your family, that your kids will be taken care of after your gone..but after that the money means nothing. I spent most of my time in college going after money, and was successful. Now though I wish I'd spent more time on relationships with my kids and my family, but if you screw up your priorities you lose a lot.
Try to get an internship at a place like Merril, Goldman etc. You will learn a lot about the markets and how institutions trade. Knowing the way they operate, particularly the restrictions they operate under, can prove very valuable to you.
Sorry Brandon, I have a lot of respect for your posts but this is where we disagree. If someone aspires to be a corporate mindless clone they are more than welcome to head that direction but anyone with a few months of free time can "become familiar" with the mindset of the Goldmanâs' and Merrill' by reading about the corrupt environment they operate in and are regulated in without the brainwashing. Getting an apprenticeship in the pits is an education that is truly valuable as long as one doesn't overdo it. If I were 18, know what I know now and had an interest in trading full time I would become a student of the markets/charts not clone at a company. I started learning this at 37 and 14 years later am a highly successful trader. I consider I have a PhD in charting. If I could have started at 18, with an open mind, I guarantee you that I would a force at 32. 14 years at Goldmans . . . if they are still around . . . and you will be a mindless grease spot.
I agree with that, you certainly dont want to stay too long. However, a few internships where you make a good impression can be very valuable. First of all you learn exactly how they operate, both good and bad. You learn the restrictions that they operate under and how that can benefit you, you learn how they look at things and when they are likely to upgrade things (they hardly ever downgrade anything unless they have no Ibanking relationship with the company and no hope of getting one in the future). You also get great contacts. I brought in Anthony as a partner in my money managment business two years ago which was a great thing. It was right before I got sick and he has done a wonderful job keeping the business going, but he also made great contacts. He is an IE grad from Columbia, so he has a good alum network to tap into (which is why I say to send your kids to an Ivy League school if possible) and he did internships at Merril and Bear Sterns. The contacts he has from all there experiances have been very good and helped us triple the size of our AUM in the last two years.
As PF suggests, there is an alternate route and it is stress free and a lot of fun. My suggestion to read "The Predictors" was to enable the OP to have a quick survey of how easy it was for a bunch of characters to miss the clues for going the easy route for making money. Certainly the OP is not going to deveate from his orientation; he has simply made his mind up based on the CW. In school, he probably is surrounded by this type of thinking. Changing capital by an order of magnitude in equities trading takes about 100 days. (100 days is 20 calendar weeks.) Its too bad that a summer isn't 100 days long for college students. Commodities trading is much much quicker but it is important to do the slower equities trading first. Over a 10 year period with high school students (They were exposed to FA and TA concurrently) I didn't run into anyone who couldn't trade. They traded two quarters after learning the financial indusrty as a precursor. Their average pre post SAT shift over 10 years with a 100% sample was 123 points (30 points is a common shift). +/-1 sigma on the +/- 3 sigma scoring regime is 200 points and includes 68% of the total population. For kids money is like religion and they gravitate to trading like crazy. Admission to the course was predicated on being in the lower portion of the class and not wanting to prep for the top tier schools and major in science or liberal arts in those schools. The equivalent alternative course was a combo of theortetical calculus and physics. It was a two year course as well. There were always parental complaints whereby parents wanted their kids in the other stream; kids did a lot of the deciding through the Faculty advisor system. S&P provided a full brokerage service as a courtesy the last 5 years. It was completely maintained by the students (including summers.) The OP has 150 papers on edges, etc. He says he is a little mixed up on how he is going to proceed in getting through them. A folder delete would work. All the charting those students did was by hand since the PC had not been invented. They had an exchange program on charts since this was at a time before copiers existed. IBM did contribute computers from their trade-in program but it was tough, at first to up the amperage required to run them and the AC required. Card punching was a scream. Kids built relay oriented computers and the amperage on these got fairly high, too. One of them did wars like the civil war and the exploits of that short french guy..lol It took two VW vans to take it to science fairs and the judge couldn't understand it. Oh well, the OP is on his way into the CW world. Best of luck. Read pages 81 and 84 for the first two humor notes. The kids mentioned above were nailing 10 to 20% a month in the early 60's.
What broker are you going with? For only a few grand, The FX (forex) market might be better for you. More bang for your buck (much more leverage) and you can day trade with NO restrictions, but stocks are always more fun to talk about with friends, but money's money, so at least consider it.
I'll be going with TradeKing to start. Forex Futures and Index/Stock futures are something I would like to trade down the line, but for now I'm starting with options once I develop some working setups.