I heard that proprietary desks are the sectors that trade the firms capital and trade high volume , in currencies would they be trading currency derivatives making gambles on the way they believe the market will go? Someone on vault has told me currencies are dead and there is not a dollar to be made is this true? Thanks for your help! Nick
proprietary desks are sort of in-house hedge funds. in view of the large number of blowups in the recent years, some banks have disbanded many of those desks, they now basically focus on safe and cushy income like collecting commisions from clients. any market making activity in spot currencies and vanilla derivatives is having a hard time right now because commisions are very low. there is some money in exotic derivatives because some clients are willing to pay big money for a custom structure. but i know personally successful hedge funds out there that are making good profit trading currencies and currency derivatives. as i said, nicholas, don't worry about the money right now worry about learning. go to the place that will give you the opportunity to learn the most. if you learn a lot about trading and about this business you will be fine.
If I work well in debt capital markets and they moved me to the trading floor yaking into account that I am only 18 how long do you think it would be before they let me trade or made me a position keper, also can you briefly explain to me please exactly what a position keeper does? Nick
Crumbs!!!!! What exactly is involved in a hedge fund, is it like george soros did with quantum fund investing huge amounts in a currency or bond or equity when you expect a rise over a period of time? How easy is it to get a job in fund management? Nick
Just create a proven record of good results, sound methodology, strong risk management over time, and the money will find you. You need to make sure you have a system and methodology that works first. And you need to trade your own money first. Usually what happens when you are even close to getting to "the big time" is something along this though process: "I've build my personal trading account up to $10M now and figure I can make $1-3M per year without pyramiding trading the size volume/size that I do now. Or I could take this offer and trade $100M for a 1% management fee and 20% profit incenctive. If I can make $20-30M using OPM that's no risk to me and I make more than if I traded my own $". But "the big time" is a long ways off for 99.9999% of traders out there.