After College Job: Trading

[chisness]

Trading seems cool because it's like poker -- you can basically build your own strategy and have unlimited potential.

At my school's job fair today there were a good number of smallish trading firms that had programs based something like this:

1) few weeks of intro/training
2) 6 months of mock trading and researching trading methods, as well as suggesting trading methods to real traders
3) start trading

These programs worry me a little because they just seem so unstructured. Am I going to just be using previously created strategies by a firm without learning much unless I can come up with something (how hard is this?)? Will I be learning much since I can't be taking much risk with the firm's money being such an amateur?

Is it best to get into trading later when you have your own capital to work with instead of just trading a firm's money? Would it be more effective to start off in Banking? Where do the top traders come from? Programs like these? Programs at big banks?

[Barrin6]

bump,good question

[Go_Blue88]

I currently am trading for a company in the Chicago Board of Trade (I just graduated from Michigan last semester). I went through (am going through) a similar process to the one described.

It's essential that you begin with a solid foundation--your company will teach you their version of that. There are tons of different strategies--you'll develop your own through time and experience. It's sort of like poker--you get a solid foundation before you begin to experiment with stuff and broaden your hand ranges.

The job is really fun. I basically come in and play a game every day. It's also much harder than you seem to think. 90% of people fail.

edit-- feel free to ask specific questions. that might help me be more helpful to you.

edit 2-- oh you did ask some questions. well as to one of them, you need a lot of money if you want to trade on your own. there's lots of different costs in addition to the potential money you'll lose trading. besides, why would you want to go out on your own right away? your company will give you a really solid education.

[recondite7]

is the name of the company M&N trading goblue?

[boardertj]

goblue, How many hours a week do you/ an average first year trader work?

[metamath]

good question.

i'll be trading next year at credit suisse and i have no idea what to expect.

[chisness]

With a hedge fund future goal, how does trading compare to banking?

Follow-up: An important trait for hedge funds and in general is to understand how to value a company and understand which companies are valuable.

Does trading allow for this? It would seem that banking would be better since you get to do really in depth research and projects on companies, products, and industries. A comparison between trading and banking with regards to which better prepares for hedge funds would be cool to see.