New to investing - algo vs no algo

Hello!

I would like to become an algorithmic trader and start trading with my own account.
However, I am new to investing, so I believe it is better to begin investing without algorithms.
The main reason is that I believe one needs to have a substantial initial balance to trade algorithmically.

What's your opinion?

Also, trading 'by hand' will somehow change completely the type of strategy, that means I would look at fundamental analysis or some more traditional strategies.

Is that in any case a valuable experience to show to potential employers at quantitative hedge funds?

I think that algorthimic trading is possible better than not using any algorithms but I think that the use of fundies should also play an important part of your overall strategy. I don't know many brokers offering new and innovative ways of using algorithms, but I think it is best to keep an eye on new thing developing in terms of the way brokers try to entice customers.

I'm not sure how much potential employers are going to care, but from your own developmental perspective there could be a lot of value in learning to trade non-algo fashion to gain broader insights into the markets.

The entry ticket for a decent quant position in a hedge fund nowadays is a PhD in a quantitative discipline. Flavours of the month seem to be machine learning and stats with big data sets, but provided your PhD has some serious quantitative element and is from a well known university it should be fine.

To a potential employer, dabbling in PA trading is going to be an insight into your character and interests, but many HF quant strategies are a world away from what is possible as an individual trader; they won't be thinking you gained any insightful knowledge from the experience, so it will be fairly irrelevant. However, if you do any PA trading, what you tell them you learnt from it is much more important than the distinction between whether the trading was quant or traditional.