40 Year Old Career Change Advice needed
Going through this forum with so many grad students I feel downright old at 40 :)
I am passionate about investing but consider myself a novice. Lately, I've been getting into developing automated trading systems for forex. My current career is not finance related and my income is decent ~$300k/yr. My graduate degree was in database marketing and I am very quant focused. (i.e. predictive multi-variate modeling and segmentation vs. mass brand advertising).
I'm looking for something that will give me more flexibility to balance family and work. Perhaps ability to work from home or from Taiwan (family there).
In researching ideas on how to possibly merge my passion for investing/finance with flexible type jobs, I stumbled upon prop shops. This is all new to me and I'm not sure where to begin.
So my questions are:
- Is there a possibility for someone that has not been in finance or investment banking to enter the field at my age/stage? (I do feel my quantitive background is somewhat relevant)
- Is it feasible to generate a comparable income at a prop shop?
- It seems that some prop shops use firm money and some are a blend. I could probably use $100k of my own funds.
- Am I even on the right path? Should I just stick with personal investing?
I've been looking at Avatar Securities & Broad Street Trading because they have offices in my city and they seem legit.
Any advice would be appreciated. Just exploring at the moment.
On a trading floor, 30 is "seasoned" and 35 is "old". Global heads are around 40. It's too late for you, I would stick to personal investing.
Impossible is nothing.
I dont know man, you make 300k now and seem to be fairly well established in your position/field with the grad degree. I don't know if making the switch to trading would be at all beneficial. If you have success with the algos that you're working on, put some of your money behind it. If it works out you could use that as a second source of income and, eventually, transition to doing that full time if and when you are making enough. That would allow you to work from home/Taiwan/whatever and you wouldn't run the huge risk of leaving a well paying job now.
I'd add that if you're looking to balance family and work, you probably won't get that with investment banking or S&T, regardless of level.
Thanks all. This is something I've been considering for a few years. I think my main thing is that I really enjoy the investing side and want to learn more. I don't know a single person in the field. I was somewhat prepared to taking a year or two at a substantially lower salary to learn the ropes. It sounds like this would be nearly impossible and the responses somewhat validate that. I'm leaning towards my own investment initiatives. I just wish I could learn more.
Sure there is. You have to keep a big caveat in mind, however. People will think you are a moron or bat shit crazy or having a mid life crisis or all of the above for attempting a career change this late. In other words, you'll have to come to the gun fight blazing and knock them on their asses with EVIDENCE of your determination AND ability to succeed. So something like a track record of having traded your own funds successfully for an extended time period which you can rationally explain in a pressurized interview setting. Naturally, this all goes back to the golden rule of networking, so if you want to make the jump you will need to build a hefty contact base.
Prop shops can make every other non sole proprietorship or criminal enterprise salary on this earth look like dog shit. A general example I use is circa the 2008 Lehman meltdown you had guys pulling seven figure DAYS. Now, obviously that doesn't happen on the regular and only the most gifted, skilled and lucky can make it rain like that. That having been said, it is possible and for all the bullshit posturing you'll read on this site and others, the best traders on the planet are guys you never heard of...taking their own millions and managing them while sipping boat drinks on a yacht somewhere.
Its enough to get you started (if you are shaolin monk disciplined) once you have a solid system/strategy in place. Just keep in mind, when you are actually trading your own nut you will act a whole lot differently than you would when managing the money of others. Remember, you can lose a billion for your clients the worst thing that can happen is you get canned but if you lose your own $100K that can hurt you a lot more in the pocket and in the head. IF you do decide to go with a prop shop that "channels" your own fund, due HEAVY due diligence on their infrastructure and principals. A lot of chop shops out there sucker guys like you in and rape you on execution fees.
I honestly think that most guys of your age are not going to have the sticktoitiveness to survive at a prop shop. Not because you are not good enough, but because it just doesn't make a lot of sense to give secure earnings to start over, even with infinite potential. If you are really determined and skilled you'll probably wind up trading your own cash in one way or another, which is just another way of saying personal investing.
As it stands, I can see database marketing as an interesting specialty that may be of interest to some specific niche investors. Who they are and how you can find them is a question I (unfortunately) cannot answer. I would say investing some time into meeting industry people (in person) and picking their brains is the best starting point for a guy like you. But the bottom line with any sort of trading always comes down to whether you can earn or not, so if you haven't already...start keeping detailed evidence of your buys/sells and strategy. Good luck.
No one in this industry gives away "free" information. If anyone is willing to share any info with you for no other reason than you meet them somewhere, it likely is not very valuable.
The whole model is about getting a jr guy, paying him (relatively) shitty, grinding him up, spitting him out and dumping every level of shit on him to make your book/desk run. In return, he gets taught. You have nothing to offer that model. Why take you when there are 1000 21 yr old MIT grads who won't whine about wife and kids? Just saying -- put it in perspective. Also no one cares about your system's track record unfortunately; a 40-year old guy with his own model in this industry is better served by quietly trading his own $ rather than trying to convince a lot of people that he's not some scam artist.
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