College Freshman looking to learn about Trading

Hey all,

I'm currently a freshman at a top ivy and think I might be interested in pursuing a career in trading. Right now I'm going through the vault guide to sales and trading, but what are some things that I should look at next? Book recommendations? I've read on here that I should get a subscription to the WSJ (...Maybe my school already has some sort of membership set up) and start following the markets. I've also read suggestions about starting to trade on my own, but I have no idea where to begin with that. Any suggestions?

Thanks!

 

I would figure out what you want to focus on trading specifically. I like to trade forex because the foreign exchange market is open 24/7. Plus almost any broker offers a simulator account you can use and try out.

http://www.fxcm.com/

They offer a nice practice account to try out. This site is really helpful in explaining about Forex.

http://www.babypips.com/school/

A book that is pretty good http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735200661/sr=8-1/qid=1263862435/ref=o…

It's all about technical analysis. I would check out New Market Wizards and Market Wizards too. If you have any questions feel free to PM me.

 
Best Response

If you might be interested in equities or options, it may be time to take an accounting or finance course and maybe set up a brokerage account with low fees. InteractiveBrokers.com may be one choice if you plan on trading more frequently.

I started off by taking baby steps with short-term strategic investments in commodities firms that I thought were underpriced relative to the rest of the market. It's a little more interesting to have some money at stake than if you have a practice account and it keeps you more disciplined about actually keeping up with your account and learning about a lot of the fundamentals. One of the things I would do was try and figure out strategies for exactly the right time to get in and out of my strategic investments- or sometimes see if I could save myself some money by providing a bid/ask rather than taking one on some of the less liquid stocks (and definitely on options). I often held positions for longer periods of time because I didn't have $7 left and right to get in and out of trades where I'd only made 5% on a small amount of money, but if you feel comfortable and transactions are relatively inexpensive, you can also focus on shorter term trades.

Longer term, it's always good to take stats courses. If you plan on working in a liquid market, it's probably also good to get a lot of programming, data structures, and algorithms courses under your belt as well, as most of those markets rely more and more on getting trading algorithms to execute quickly and scale well.

 

Firstly, cornell is not a top ivy. Kidding.

Read Liar's Poker. It hasn't really changed that much. It's not technical, but its still the best book I know of to get a feel for what it's like to sit on a floor.

 

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