professional stock or options traders that have no college training.

[muckyouraces]

I am looking for a professional or semi-pro (part time) options or swing trader that is not college educated on the subject. I am looking for someone that is self taught through books, seminars (training courses) and /or trial and error. My questions are:
1. What % of your capital do you make on average per month or year?
2. How much capital do you have?
3. Are you primarily an options spreader, swing trader, or both?
4. How consistent are the returns month to month.
5. How long did it take to learn to be a consistent winner?
6. Did you have a mentor?
7. In your opinion is it possible to do it by yourself or do you need a mentor?
I am not college educated, and I am interested in this field without college education. Thanks anyone for help. Any books or mentoring programs recommended on application (not theory) would help.

[emon87]

What work experience do you have? Why did you not attend college? Are you looking for a job with a large firm or a small firm or are you looking to create your own firm/trade with your own capital?

[Gadfly]

Read what you can about Richard Dennis.

He started as a runner on the Chicago Merc and in a few years made a few hundred million. He never went to college.

Then he hired a group of 25 people to see if he could teach them to do as well. He called them the "Turtles". Many of those he hired also did not go to college.

One of them has just written a book, "The Way of the Turtles."

Going to college has little to do with success as a trader.

[pig4bill]

College educated on the subject? I doubt any colleges teach the subject, except possibly NYU.

[kimchi]

A couple of useful books are Jack Schwager's interviews with traders in his two Market Wizard books. These were written in the 80s and 90s but still very relevant and cover arb, stocks, TA, options, futures etc. Not much so practical application but both books contain excellent insights into the way traders think and work.

Alex Elder's 'Entries and Exits' looks over the shoulders of many traders as they make both winning and losing trades. Many of the traders featured here quietly manage their own (relatively) small accounts. Some less than $250K but all less than $1m, and have attended Elder's Trader's Camps.

Chick Goslin's 'Trading Day by Day' is another excellent practical guide to TA and trade management.

The latter 2 books are pricey.

I think many successful traders weren't college educated. In fact some have said that their main weakness was their college education and they'd had to completely re-wire their thought processes and unlearn many of the principals they'd learnt during MBAs and finance courses.

[Evan]

[ QUOTE ]
College educated on the subject? I doubt any colleges teach the subject, except possibly NYU.

[/ QUOTE ]
I can tell you for a fact that there's no class that specifically teaches trading (of any kind) at nyu.

[Evan]

[ QUOTE ]

Going to college has little to do with success as a trader.

[/ QUOTE ]
I can understand it having very little causation, but I'd be very surprised if it weren't highly correlted.

[mrbaseball]

Illinois Institute of Technology has a graduate program focused on the financial markets and trading.

But trading (from a day trading/market making/pit and screen level perspective) has little to do with education and more to do with risk tolerance, psychology and experience. For the upstairs guys (rocket scientists) education is far more important.

Personally I have an MBA but I'm not so sure that means too much other than a door opener. On some of my research activities knowing how to move around in excel and work up some formulas is important. But in my trading activity not so much. I know some terrific traders that never went past high school.

[DcifrThs]

[ QUOTE ]
Illinois Institute of Technology has a graduate program focused on the financial markets and trading.

But trading (from a day trading/market making/pit and screen level perspective) has little to do with education and more to do with risk tolerance, psychology and experience. For the upstairs guys (rocket scientists) education is far more important.

Personally I have an MBA but I'm not so sure that means too much other than a door opener. On some of my research activities knowing how to move around in excel and work up some formulas is important. But in my trading activity not so much. I know some terrific traders that never went past high school.

[/ QUOTE ]

that is exactly what evan stated.

successful traders aren' necessarily college educated, but going to (and performing well in ) college may very well be highly correlated with being a succesful trader given the door opening. especially when considering the relative proportions of each.

Barron