Programming Skills for Finance Career

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Short version: What computer languages are most valuable with respect to a finance career? VBA, Java, Perl, other?

Longer version: I have a background in applied stats (econ specifically). I am pretty decent w/ SAS, Stata, Fortran90. I also have done a little bit of Perl.

I am looking ahead to a possible career in finance most likely from a research or academic perspective. I may have some time in the near future to work on computer/programming skills and am wondering where would be a good place to focus.

I realize, of course, that I could end up somewhere such that I have to learn some specific language, and that can't be foreseen. What I am looking for are languages/skills that are pretty popular in finance today and ideally might also be useful in a broader sense (beyond finance).

Hope that makes sense, and thanks in advance.