Ok, so you are an engineer but want to spend another 2-3 years in grad school studying engineering? Ok here is where the logic does not make sense: * The little math you learn in addition to what you are already supposed to know in a grad engineering program is minimal. Most math, in fact, in a grad school engineering program is not taught but rather expected as prerequisite, at least what goes for top schools. I underwent one of the best quant grad school programs almost ten years back and most math and programming knowledge was expected. The first stochastic calculus course directly targeting derivative pricing problems expected full knowledge of measure theory, basics of ito calculus and obviously advanced knowledge of probabilities. * For general retail-oriented based trading any grad school level math is total overkill. You are not gonna value exotic options. Any vanilla option type of math can be understood with undergrad level math, plus a little measure theory and ito calculus. Seriously, you want to pay 70-80k per year which is how much top grad school programs cost for very little in return in regards to trading value-added? * Of course if you derive value added from such program for your current engineering job, great, but it has very little to nothing to do with anything trading related. Hence my question why you posed such question on this forum. Maybe you want to stop being so arrogant and tell people they must not understand your question or issue just because they look at things from a different angle.
I'm not an engineer, I clearly stated that I'm starting a degree this fall. Education is free in Norway. My only expense is the cost of living and study material, which I finance through loans and savings. No need to make assumptions. Read what I write and answer what I'm writing and there will be no confusion. Thanks for posting.
Apologize, I misread the following statement of yours: "If you put your mind to it and make an effort, could you be willing to imagine a scenario where someone has a full-time job in for example engineering and trades his own account on the side?". I inferred that you currently work in engineering or so. But none of that changes a thing. The answer to your question is: You can implement your own trading systems, write testing platforms, connect different technologies, in summary get ahead of the pack, IF you are a PROFICIENT programmer. To become one studying engineering on a grad school level is a total waste of time. You learn most likely more by learning on the side while continuing what you are currently doing. Still your question or setup makes very little sense to me, your plan of undergoing an engineering program should be completely segregated from whether you can become a good programmer and again segregated from how you apply that to your own financial trading approach.
Total waste of time? Really? To be clear, it's not a classical engineering degree. I believe the US title would be "Masters Degree in Applied Mathematics and Fluid Mechanics". Compared to a classical engineering degree, it's much more math intensive and have several separate programming subjects. Having spent the last five years and a load of money on extensive market study, I have no desire to devote my full-time attention to this endeavor any longer. In fact, proprietary trading is virtually non-existant here in Norway, so getting an interesting job as a trader is virtually impossible. There probably do exist a few, but they are rare, so nothing to base a career on. My choice of engineering program is completely segregated from my trading, I was just hoping I could derive some added benefit from it and particularly the programming part (as a start). But it seems like I may have been wrong about that. Thanks for writing.
Congrats on your forward looking educational design. Translating what you learn in engineering is defintely a shortcut to trading prowess. Looking back over my experience, the key element for becoming a trading success was working on troubleshooting mainframe's faulty design logic. I had two degrees related to electrical engineering. I learned the basics of making money in markets in about 40 days in the late 50's. There were no real time systems running when I began. RDBMS was invented in the 70's on two back to back 360's. (In Philly @ UCSC; I was working at UCSC by then.) Cal is incorrect from my point of view. Net is correct on how to relate software to making money. I reposted all the SQL maths you need, yesterday. It is tabbed and explained in the "contest" thread. the system of operation of markets is a finite math problem. RDBMS solved the problem with few expressions and as you can see in the other thread, you know you know well ahead of a profit taking when taking the full offer of the market. I would guess that Cal has never seen the market as an opeating system. Hardly anyone ever has because of th incorrect presumptions most all of these people make.
that's 2 more than I have. What can you do if you cannot program in trading? You can work in back office, sales, execute orders, "business development" program or be programmed
Whether you have been wrong about that or not is only for yourself to judge. But what are you trying to learn here? You sound more and more like a degenerate gambler who lost a lot of money on losing trades and who cannot take/afford it anymore. However you are hooked to your drug called trading and need an excuse to make your next life choice to include something that makes your addiction part of that next part of your life. If you truly wanted to move trading to the side track of your life you would focus on this grad school program without the thought in mind how it adds value to your trading because it really does not add much of value. No high enough skill level in programming guarantees you a bit of success in trading. And again a grad school program in engineering does not make you become a proficient programmer anyway. Maybe you want to broaden your mind and consider London and other hubs as well if you were so much into trading and wanted to work professionally as trader, which you said you have no interest. Proprietary trading can be done from any location of the world if done right. The issue is that most guys here are day dreamers. They do not appreciate the fact that trading is one of the most competitive jobs ever. You gotta put your whole heart and soul into it in order to succeed. "extensive market study" just does not cut it. That is what sell side research analysts do and most of them would not earn a dime in the market if they had to trade. Maybe I sound overly harsh but this job is harsh at the end of th day. A merciless judge of success and failure. Go for your masters but not because it adds value for trading but because you love the engineering field and like the mathematical side of it. For those who are not cut out to be traders trading will be their worst choice in life and huge waste of time, money,efforts,and other resources. Good luck! P.S. do not end up like guys like JackHersey. You want to enjoy life through doing what you are good at and not turn into a pretentious nut case.
Oy, dude. You seriously need to improve your reading comprehension. There is nothing in this thread suggesting the OP is a gambler or has a gambling problem. The only nutcase in this thread is you - not the OP, not JH, not Net. You're the only one who's demonstrated poor reading comprehension and rather simplistic/limited IT/programming experience. On top of that, you're heaping out-of-left field judgment and name calling of a person you know nothing about. Anybody reading this thread can easily discern one thing - you're a "my way or the highway" kind of person. Should anyone disagree, you resort to name calling and character assassination. Calling the kettle black is the term which applies here...
And your point being? The OP knows what I am talking about. Did you get off hearing someone apologize because he misunderstood? I know its very rare to come across such. Wont happen again.
attached is a sheet showing one of the first steps. It is very kinky to an airhead like you. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/attachment.php?s=&postid=3831320