...out of the 3 will help me the best daytrader I can be, one day.... ( I only got room to fit in only one of the three below) 183 Game Theory in Economics (3). Topics in noncooperative and cooperative game theory are covered, along with a selection of applications to economics in areas such as industrial organization, international trade, public finance, and general equilibrium. 185 Financial Markets and Economic Fluctuations (3). An examination of financial institutions and markets, their role in economic conditions and the use of macroeconomic policies in affecting those conditions. 170 Economic Applications of Statistical Analysis (3). Statistical methods in the construction, estimation, testing, and application of linear economic models; computer programs and interpretation of their output in empirical analysis of common economic theories.
I wrote my disertation about "Applications Of Game Theory To Electronic Trading" last year (unfortunately, not in English), and what I learned from it was a hell of a lot for day trading! If you´re interested in GT, buy "Thinking Strategically" or get straight to the point with "Games and Decisions" Evolutionary Game Theory is the future of trading, and it´s just evolving (find something about "Evolutionary Economics")
To be ornery and contrite, you can't learn about daytrading from a college course(although that gamer theory course does look potentially rewarding, but NOT as a means of improving your intraday trading skills, but on non-linear economics). You can learn about managing money for a bank, or how to use a flow-chart interpreting the trends of the markets over extended periods of time, but daytrading is more mental sports than micro-economics. The economic information you will learn about is ALREADY factored into the market by the time even the most forward looking daytrader has entered a position. As you can observe from the markets this past week, they move way ahead of actual economic events. Obviously THE MARKET deems war a profitable event. So when the war is actually won, or however you want to deem it completed, the chances are the market will fall off a cliff because it anticipated too much prosperity. But as a daytrader I can't profit from the anticipated collapse of the indexes, because I will go broke sitting back and waiting for my short positions to bear fruit. You can't trade economic information on an intra-day time frame. You will lose lose lose imo! That is why academics are often so wrong about the financial markets. If you want to take a college course which helps you with daytrading, take something on statistics or risk arbitrage in the insurance industry. Financial analysts have proven time and time again to be diametrically at odds with that which is necessary by a daytrader. If you REALLY want to learn to become a daytrader without daytrading first(which, unfortunately is the only way), learn to play a gambling game and notice that the principles of a successful gambler and trader are quite similar. Managing risk, increasing position size with the trend of wins, anticipating ONLY what is necessary to remain aware of the trend. The only difference being the actual parameters of the game. The cliche about daytrading being 90% mental is so unbelievably true, you won't be able to accept it once you have lost your first 10k! The most successful daytraders know very little about economics on an academic scale. They know what they need to know to enter and exit trades during the day. Job loss is bad, higher prices are bad, lower consumer confidence is bad. But you trade with the trend, not with the numbers. You can't! You might think that daytraders are analyzing economic data as it becomes available to enter their trades, well, very few are actually doing that. If you are contemplating which course to take to improve your perspective on global markets, that is something entirely different than daytrading. Daytraders are looking at prices and seemingly arbitrary indicators they have learned to interpret as a signal to be long short or, most importantly FLAT(computational algorithms that they probably don't even know how to calculate without the data already aligned as they wish on a price chart). That is all a successful daytrader needs to know. And,as I say, the rest is a mental chess match. Stay in school don't do drugs
I think you will gain the most out of the 3rd course... if only to drum into your trading mentality that we are playing a numbers game... it helps to think in terms of statistics and probabilities...
185 is definately out the window as a waste of time and money for daytraders. Game theory is prolly more interesting than raw stats. I had a detailed (we're talkin' calc here) stats text I used whenever I had trouble falling asleep - worked great! If you think you can stay awake and focused, do the stats. If not, do the game theory. On the other hand, if those are 100 level courses like I remember them (basically, 100 was intro level), you're really not going to get much that you couldn't get just by reading the book. So heck, take the fun one, get the easy A, boost your GPA and study the boring one on your own.
what I did was going to campus book store take a look at text books of all economic courses I want to take, pick out the book that I think it will help me then I enroll in that class. I also pick 170 for reason that it help to to understand some trading model.