Career Advice

[Daui]

Hey. Hoping to gain some useful career advice from people much more experienced than myself-guys who've been round the block. Anyway I'll be brief.

I graduated from top 20 UK uni with a 2.2 in Bsc Economics (2.1 in final year)-a result of a poor work ethic up until 3rd year (a case of too litte to late).

Silver lining- accepted on to the Msc Economics course at the same uni due to a noticebale change in work ethic and good grades in the quantitative modules. I deferred the year to volunteer abroad for several months. Will start this year (2011-2012)

Love poker-dynamics of the game, making bets in expectation of certain outcomes, analyzing probability and risk, accounting for a player's previous actions, trying to find behavioural patterns, etc. Interested in Global Macro strategy or any trading strategy that basis the fundamental decisions on the application of marcoeconomic theory.

No idea where to start, what books to read or the best way to go about practice trading.

Would the masters help me break into a prop desk somewhere or is the 2.2 going to make it near impossible? Should I strongly consider following on to a phd? I've been told prop firms sometimes hire quants and its possible to make the switch into trading from there.

Any thoughts would be appreciated

 

[cr6196]

i haven't "been round the block" but hopefully can give you some background...

quant positions are very varied...they can be risk-based or trading-based or research-based. moving from risk to trading doesn't happen much i am told. trading and research are more closely related but the positions require phds (generally). however, this isn't a rule and within prop firms its obviously different. have a look at optiver, jane street or tibra (if you hunt about there is more but i can't remember off the top of my head. only look at those that hire grads and have a competitive base salary) to get an impression although they have been having a tough time recently. you don't mention what computer skills you have but they are essential for quant trading. it sounds like a straight trading position at an IB might be a good fit. tbh these roles are getting more and more complex so need maths/econometrics skills that you have i.e pricing complex derivs

either way, the masters was defintely a good choice (one question is why you didn't do it in finance?) and will help you whatever you choose to do. i think the most important choice is to pick an area that suits your skills well. remember most people who get onto grad programs at IBs don't stay for long (in career terms).

i'll send you a PM about books.

 

[Daui]

Thanks for the info. It was great feedback and now I have a little more direction. I'll give those books a look now and try and search for more prop trading firms.

I opted for Economics because I figured it would provide me with a bit of flexibility (seems like a mistake now but I'm hoping to make it as finance focused as possible).

Apart from reading what else could I do between now and September to show that I'm 100 per cent serious about a career in trading?

 

[cr6196]

tbh i would agree with your decision about taking econ rather than finance. i haven't decided if i am going to do a masters yet but although i am certain i am working in finance (buy side research) i'd much rather make sweet love to Raj Rajaratnam than do a finance masters. the stuff you get taught is pretty useless and equates to a CFA which costs about 1/20th of the price.

if your planning on applying for a grad position at an IB after your masters the best thing you can do is read those books and trade. most people who apply for these positions don't know as much as they should about the markets and don't have any experience trading. but choices beyond that depend very much on where you want to work. for example, learning about equities in a practical sense is far more easy than learning about fixed income as you can see stock prices on google finance. uni can be helpful here, 90% have either bloomberg or reuters, both of these services can give you massive amounts of information about price and general market info. in addition, in terms of what unis offer bberg>reuters.