Help - starting a trading career

[fwstides]

Hi all,

I longed for being a trader since university and wonder if you guys have any advice. As my background, I have an engineering degree from a top-tier uni in HK. I worked for a short while in audit, after which i worked in a top-tier EU IB in research for 2 yrs.

Unfortunately i found no way to switch to trading in the bank (i haven't heard of sb switching from rsch to trading in the bank neither), so i decided to take a masters in finance in imperial college london. it's a very quanty program which is suitable for me, combined with a fair reputation of the school, i believe it can add me more value than staying for another year in the bank.

Question now - how i can prepare better in the following year to get me a good chance in starting my desired career? i know the market is tough and trading job has a very high barrier, but in order to get into trading i treasure every little opportunity.

Perhaps you guys can give me more insights...thx!

 

[forevergalaxy]

Hi, so you finished the master degree in London already? That should help but not the only thing that employers look for.

First, I think you need to have a solid reason in your mind why you want to be in trading instead of research. And why do you think you can be a good trader.

Second, you need to know what type of trading job you after? Prop Trading? Broker Trading? Market Making? Arbitrage Trading? Trading Acrade? Hedge fund trading?

Most of the IBs in HK trade on behalf for their clients and traders are there to seek the best price to execute the trade and get commission out of it (products include equities, fixed income, FX, commodities, etc.). IBs also issue warrants/CBBC and traders are responsible to manage the risk (or Market Making) for those products. Some of the IB they do have prop trading desk however they are for experienced traders.

I am not sure what IB you had worked for but if it was a top tier EU IB (e.g. UBS, DB, or maybe CS, SG, BNP) and you look for similar base salary ~ HKD $60k/month, you do not have many choices. You either work for IB on the trading desk and some of the top Market Making firms (MM firms like IMC, Tibra, Liquid Capital), they also provide valuable training. Some people mentioned in this forum that IMC HK pays ****. I am not sure about that.

However, I do think internal transfer from research to trading is the easiest way for you (if you just want to become a trader and don’t care what kind of trading you do).

Please seek advice for other people. I may be wrong. Good luck.