Career in Finance

[minwoo]

Hey guys,
I'm graduating this December with a Finance degree. I did an internship this summer at Citigroup Smith Barney and it was damn boring. I'm a bit freaked out because I'm still unsure of what kind of job to aim for. I've been playing poker for about 3 years and am finally starting to make some significant income with it, but I don't want to throw away my Finance degree just yet. I'm extremely independent and don't really like to deal with small talk and "sales" type interactions. I've always heard that people who like and are good at poker should go into trading. What do you guys think? Any other jobs that may be a good fit for me?

[RedJoker]

Hey minwoo,

I've been trading with an investment club for just over a year now. I specialize in technical analysis, I just love it, everything you could ever want to know about a stock is on one chart page.

I've only completed my first year of a financial maths degree and I've never heard so much boring BS in all my life. Good news is that most (if not all) of it is irrelevant to actual trading.

If your significant income is large enough you should start trading yourself. The investment group I'm with is called T.I.C.N. (The Investment Club Network) and they teach you all the basics of fundamental & technical anaysis (w/o CAPM, EMH, MPT, etc.) plus the advanced stuff if you're willing to pay. I can't rate it highly enough. I'm sure there are many other quality investment/educational groups out there too.

Whichever career you choose make sure you enjoy it and best of luck. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
everything you could ever want to know about a stock is on one chart page.


[/ QUOTE ]

Uh... no.

eastbay

[Chrisman886]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
everything you could ever want to know about a stock is on one chart page.


[/ QUOTE ]

Uh... no.

eastbay

[/ QUOTE ]

You'd be surprised.

[RedJoker]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
everything you could ever want to know about a stock is on one chart page.


[/ QUOTE ]

Uh... no.

eastbay

[/ QUOTE ]

You'd be surprised.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think I should explain what I meant. Technicians are copycats, they try to follow the movements of "people in the know". Despite insider trading laws there will always be a minority who are smarter or who have better connections, you can't pass a law against that.

It is the job of the technician to track these people and they're interpretation of the fundamentals. All of us have come across pieces of information about a stock that we believe are important signals of an upward move only to see the stock go down.

The technicians primary tool is the stock chart. When stocks are moving in a random fashion thre is no guiding star, no one you can trust. But when you see a breakout or the beginning of a trend you act on it, and it was someone with more knowledge than you caused that breakout.

All this information can be interpreted from a single chart page, the "little guy" will never have access to the interpretation of fundamentals and pricing decisions made by the financial community but trends cannot be hidden from the public.

[toor]

If you don't like the sales/social aspect, you definitely don't want to be a Sell side trader. You could probably look into prop trading. Alternatively if your math/cs is strong you can look into quantitative finance. Either research, product development or something else in the area.

Trading will have the most money involved though.

[Evan]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
everything you could ever want to know about a stock is on one chart page.


[/ QUOTE ]

Uh... no.

eastbay

[/ QUOTE ]

You'd be surprised.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think I should explain what I meant. Technicians are copycats, they try to follow the movements of "people in the know". Despite insider trading laws there will always be a minority who are smarter or who have better connections, you can't pass a law against that.

It is the job of the technician to track these people and they're interpretation of the fundamentals. All of us have come across pieces of information about a stock that we believe are important signals of an upward move only to see the stock go down.

The technicians primary tool is the stock chart. When stocks are moving in a random fashion thre is no guiding star, no one you can trust. But when you see a breakout or the beginning of a trend you act on it, and it was someone with more knowledge than you caused that breakout.

All this information can be interpreted from a single chart page, the "little guy" will never have access to the interpretation of fundamentals and pricing decisions made by the financial community but trends cannot be hidden from the public.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is all very wrong and dangerous, most notably the parts I bolded.

[RedJoker]

[ QUOTE ]
This is all very wrong and dangerous, most notably the parts I bolded.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why, please elaborate? Would it kill people to give more than one line replies when expressing opinions.
It would
a) give me a different view to consider,
b) allow me to give a useful reply instead of guessing what your opinion is,
c) Give any casual observer useful information and a proper debate to consider from which they can form their own opinions and maybe post them.

Telling people they're flat out wrong will discourage others from posting their views. It is not productive and fairly rude.

[NoTalent]

I agree, I am very interested in knowing why these thoughts are 'dangerous'. I am learning as much as possible from these types of discussions in this forum.

[badonk]

I recommend the book "Fooled by Randomness" by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Just one of many with interesting ideas about why that is really wrong.