Hi, I'm 23 yrs old and currently employed as a junior trader for a hedge fund in Sydney. I was wondering what sort of education should I do externally to help me wth trading/portfolio management? I am currently enrolled in Masters of Quantitative finance but as I trade in equities at work, I don't find this course useful (It is based alot on options and derivatives). Please advise. Thanks, Smiley486
Quantitative Finance curriculum should have courses on CAPM and portfolio optimization. Aside from basic portfolio theory, I'd suggest you to read "Market Models" by Carol Alexander to understand important concepts such as conditional volatility, collinearity, multidimensional regression and time series analysis. Your education in Options and Derivatives can help you later in more sophisticated hedging techniques, e.g. using implied volatility, etc. I hope this helps. Good luck!
I'm pretty sure if you read anyone here pass Level I of the CFA exam on the site, that you'll get some unique insights into it. Good luck.
How did you get hired before you even finished the masters? I know people who finished their masters in QF and cant get a job in a hedge fund. These damn sh*t funds make no sense...
This may sound very simple, but ask the top traders at your firm what you can do to expidite your learning curve. They already been through it and management saw something in you to hire you in the first place so I would start there if I were you.
I would recommend against the Master of quantitative finance by UTS - if this is what you are doing. Obviously it will equip you with math curriculum. However the people I know did it are quants, those who don't like quick reaction, risk averse, etc. Such speak for the aim and target group of this program. I did master at Usyd and you could choose quantitative subjects too - though more limited. For me I am disinclined to study too much math techniques, however this depends on where you want to head next
I would say learn how to write code. I went from coder to trader, and my advantage to many others is that I can take my strategy, code it up, and run it before most others can talk about. So while most traders can manage one or two or maybe five instruments. I am running a couple of dozen instruments using my strategy. I can only do that because I can code my strategy and run it. And because I can code it, I can backtest it and quantify why it works or does not work. I can process more information than most people. Like right now I track about 100 instruments with active positions.