Being a stockbroker...

I'm currently only 20 but been trading CFD's/SBing and T3/T10/T20 roughly over 2 years.
I'm currently in a position as a finance officer, But I would like to step it up a gear and go into trading fulltime!So I can push my knowledge further. As I can only teach myself so much.
I don't mind cold calling as we all have to start somewhere and to be honest I don't care about the hours or money all I want is the experience. I have seen lots of adverts saying Trainee Stockbroker 15K+bonus etc.
So I was wondering how hard is it to become a trainee stock broker in the city(London) :cheesy:?

hey there, hope this helps a bit.. !! Ask yourself do you want to work in a client based corporate type environment...? because Stockbroking (which has some V dubious outfits working in it) and just pure trading are two different worlds - !!
A lot of it is down to personality type too - some people would HATE to be sat at a computer (whatever the salary), not talking to anyone and some people thrive in a more customer focused type environment...
Everybodys different -

Cheers,
To be honest I don't mind the environment, At the moment I work sat in front of the PC all day and a very quiet office!
Personality like to be in the heart of all the noise and panic! Communicating with a bunch of clients but I'm just looking to get my first foot in the door even if it is some boring paper work for a few years after this I hope I would have the ability to move in further in the right direction.I can honestly work in both type of environments. I know I can't be to picky

Oh yeh! I forgot to ask... If I'm a stock broker how hard is it to move into a traders position as I don't want to be a sales man all my life?
Remember I don't have a mathimatic degree or any other degree's on that matter which alot of companys ask for a "Graduate" to be honest I'm pretty shocked how many want graduates! I could stay in my current job for which makes life so much more harder! So the question is where do I start. I could stay in my current Job for another 4 years and get a ATT qualification, BUT the problem is I will be 25 then and is it really worth it?

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broker to trader:

Tlee05 said:

Oh yeh! I forgot to ask... If I'm a stock broker how hard is it to move into a traders position as I don't want to be a sales man all my life?
Remember I don't have a mathimatic degree or any other degree's on that matter which alot of companys ask for a "Graduate" to be honest I'm pretty shocked how many want graduates! I could stay in my current job for which makes life so much more harder! So the question is where do I start. I could stay in my current Job for another 4 years and get a ATT qualification, BUT the problem is I will be 25 then and is it really worth it?

Click to expand...

Thre is no natural transition here. As an institutional broker, I can tell you that prop trading e.g. is something completely different. You are a fundamentalist as a broker, in most cases. Trading is much more technically oriented, almost no hedgefunds, pension funds etc even look at technical factors (their loss, really). Good luck in your endeavours!

theroguetrader said:

hey there, hope this helps a bit.. !! Ask yourself do you want to work in a client based corporate type environment...? because Stockbroking (which has some V dubious outfits working in it) and just pure trading are two different worlds - !!
A lot of it is down to personality type too - some people would HATE to be sat at a computer (whatever the salary), not talking to anyone and some people thrive in a more customer focused type environment...
Everybodys different -

Click to expand...

Question.

When you said:

"some people would HATE to be sat at a computer (whatever the salary), not talking to anyone"
and
"some people thrive in a more customer focused type environment"

I understand you are basically speaking of the same people in both sentences. That is to say, of those people who would prefer to speak with clients (stock broker position) rather than being sat infront of a computer (traders) for a whole day without talking that much as the broker.

Is that what you meant?
Thanks