I want to quit my job so I can stare at blinking numbers every day

I am somehow in the similar situation.
The difference is I am not in London but in Moscow, I'm using not Ninja trader but Open Quant :) My salary is less of course but it is worth for Russia.
And the main difference - I am not going to leave my permanent job before I start constantly earning from trading.
Good luck !
 
Don't think it's more expensive then European capitals...
Touristic infrustructure probably not that much developed.
 
I'll give you my story.

I was in a similar situation - Equity research in London - good at it but hated the lifestyle. I quit (without a job to go to) moved up North and found an easier (though dull) job in the public sector. I tripled my account and am now pretty comfortable. Just got redundancy package from my job in the public sector and am now even more comfortable. Not sure what next.

Dunno about the people thing - I am a bit of a loner much of the time. I would also consider moving abroad - London is expensive - why pay £$€ to live there when you can live somewhere Cheap like Bulgaria / Romania / Poland trade, learn and see what happens.

Do it - if you dont you will regret it. I have been working in graduate-level jobs for about 6 years, none of them particularly good. It probably wont get better.
 
Well if you moved up the norf then you only have yerself to blame. Despite the media portrayal the bints up there do not swallow. Learn to trade without losing and get yerself to Romania. As an alternate get yerself to Belfast, I can put yer in touch with an exiles sister who does a great job.
 
It was supposed to be a positive story...
I can trade without losing. Am pretty happy about the redundancy - I did volunteer !
Yeah the bints are not good up here.
 
**Update several months later**

Enjoyed re-reading this thread, although it did lose its way over the last 4 or 5 pages.

Anyway, I quit my job in the end.

The decision wasn't motivated in any way by my desire to stare at blinking numbers all day - it was just time to roll the dice and get out of dodge. I don't have anything lined up, although I do have enough cash to survive for a good while. No stress on that front.

Still can't seem to let go of this idea I have: staring at Eurostoxx orderbook for 4 hours each morning, for one year. Absolutely no charts. Whether I trade with any cash during that period, I care not - that isn't the purpose of the exercise as I mentioned at the outset.

Would really like to hear from hardcore scalpers who do it for a living, although unfortunately I doubt I'll find any on T2W. Worth a shot though - any takers?

Would it be an insane waste of 1,000 hours?

Thanks
 
Hope you dive in and do it. I am interested to follow in your footsteps if you succeed. Does that mean you know how to trade then ? How will staring at the order books help you ?
 
spearchew said:
**Update several months later**

Enjoyed re-reading this thread, although it did lose its way over the last 4 or 5 pages.

Anyway, I quit my job in the end.

The decision wasn't motivated in any way by my desire to stare at blinking numbers all day - it was just time to roll the dice and get out of dodge. I don't have anything lined up, although I do have enough cash to survive for a good while. No stress on that front.

Still can't seem to let go of this idea I have: staring at Eurostoxx orderbook for 4 hours each morning, for one year. Absolutely no charts. Whether I trade with any cash during that period, I care not - that isn't the purpose of the exercise as I mentioned at the outset.

Would really like to hear from hardcore scalpers who do it for a living, although unfortunately I doubt I'll find any on T2W. Worth a shot though - any takers?

Would it be an insane waste of 1,000 hours?

Thanks
Click to expand...

I don't stare at a screen all day because I own a brick and mortar business for 27 years...................Now that I am almost 50 then I have been studying Forex for the past 5 years because I want to sell my business and go to the house........I have been learning to be an excellent chartist, and now that I have accomplished that then the next goal is to become an excellent trader........It is a process like anything else.......You can be lucky for a while, but you cannot succeed in the long run unless you have learned your trade well............
 
JahDave said:
I don't stare at a screen all day because I own a brick and mortar business for 27 years...................Now that I am almost 50 then I have been studying Forex for the past 5 years because I want to sell my business and go to the house........I have been learning to be an excellent chartist, and now that I have accomplished that then the next goal is to become an excellent trader........It is a process like anything else.......You can be lucky for a while, but you cannot succeed in the long run unless you have learned your trade well............
Click to expand...

The other side of this is that if you don't have to make any money for a long time then this would be an excellent time in your life to volunteer and help some charities make the world a better place....I look forward to the time when I am financially secure and I can spend 90% of my time helping out charities............
 
It amazes me how naive the people on these forums are.

So are you earning c 50k GBP per year. That is DOUBLE the UK average wage. And you are only 24.

And you are complaining?

Do you know how many people would KILL to be in your position? THink of how valuable your career is for the long term. With an investment banking job you are going to be in the top 0.1% of the worlds population in terms of wealth.

Once your drop out it is going to be very difficult to get back in given how competitive your job was to get.

And believe me the company you work for does not care about you leaving. They can get someone to fill your space in an instant.

Your comment about working in a bar is totally flippant. Do you not realise the opportunity you have here. Not only from a money point of view, you will be in the top 1% of the UK in terms of earnings if you stay with your job for the next few years. But also from a career point of view, you have opportunities that most can only dream of. Just think where you could be in 10 years time and the opporunities that opens up. Hedge funds, PE, other areas of banking, working in many different cities across the globe, in different countries and economies, making contacts across the globe. How many UK citizens have that opportunity?

You have an opportunity here. Get a grip, get yourself in shape, get yourself motivated and hit your job hard. Realise the challenges you face at work that are making you feel like this and take them on straight up.

Don't listen to the naive comments on this board from people who don't understand how the world works. Nobody cares about you, so expect their advice to be flippant. Nobody cares except you, and nothing is going to fix this except you.

You are already on the way to screwing up your career if you have come as far as posting this on these boards. And believe me, if you don't recognise this and fix your career, you will regret it not just the day after you quit but for the rest of your life.
 
Valid points, all, Willmoss.

There are 15 pages here so understandably you haven't read them all - suffice it to say I quit a few weeks ago - I'm serving some undetermined portion of my 3-month notice period as we speak.

My next move is unknown but it won't involve trading or bar work - I thought long and hard about that and concluded it would surely lead to ruin.

I have 15k in the bank and I lead a fairly simple life so there are no immediate dangers of starvation, but funnily enough this morning for the first time I did wake up with an anxious feeling in my stomach regarding the future. The sort of feeling I used to get 2 weeks ahead of important exams back at Uni.

Seeing your post only made those feelings more intense, but I'm still betting I land on my feet, one way or another.

I've no regrets about my decision to quit - regardless of how wealthy slaving away in my current role might have made me 10 years down the line. As I have become increasingly aware this year, life is very short - statistically speaking there's a good chance I'll be dead by 2065 - that's 2800 weekends to go. I'm not waiting around anymore, I'll keep rolling the dice until I find something I'm happy to do Monday-Friday.
 
JahDave said:
The other side of this is that if you don't have to make any money for a long time then this would be an excellent time in your life to volunteer and help some charities make the world a better place....I look forward to the time when I am financially secure and I can spend 90% of my time helping out charities............
Click to expand...

I look forward to a financially secure time so I can go to London personalised pole dancing clubs all day. :cheesy:
 
hey S

dont rush into anything...........

I walked away at 28 from a stale marriage, a solid 10 year career with a blue chip company earning really good money and a network of "safe" friends who thought I was insane looking for more in life than the norm

it was a real Reginald perrin moment and I had no idea what I was doing but I new it wasnt that anymore :eek:

after splitting up and ending my notice period I spent 1 week locked away in a mates flat hiding from the world whilst I decided what to do next......

I had cash so I decided to travel and broaden my horizons for a few years (in between contract work at home) and had the time of my life whilst I got things a little more in perspective

I settled again eventually.......but enjoy yourself for a while - I guarantee you will find new avenues and ideas eventually - you may be looking to hard ;)

N
 
Best of luck Spearchew.

I was in a job in a bank in the City which I hated. The mindless banter, the inefficency, the repetitive nature of the job. While I was there I went for a job interview at another bank and the interviewer turned to me at the end of the interview and said "You have to leave your job. You have to leave it. Because if you don't you're slowly going to die." My own thoughts really, but it made a difference that someone else was saying it. I didn't get offered the job by the interviewer and I looked around and couldn't find anything else, so I just quit, at 30.

Over a decade later, well I have my fingers in a lot of pies, and I make a bit of money here and there (including by trading), but nothing very reliable. Occasional efforts at getting a job again have never come to anything. I've travelled the world, which has been brilliant, but I don't know whether I'll ever truly be able to settle down.

So again, I wish you luck. You're not going to starve. But I don't think it's going to be easy either. I neither agree with NVP's guarantee that you will find new ideas and avenues eventually nor willmoss's statement that you will regret it for the rest of your life - I think the reality is likely to be somewhere inbetween.
 
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