Best Postgraduate for breaking into trading

Hi Everyone,

I hold a bachelor degree in International Business with a major in Finance and I am currently employed for one of the leading rating agency working in structured credit(2 years exp.).

Now, since my real interest and passion lies in Trading and Capital Markets I decided to pursue a postgraduate degree in a more quantitative field. My goal is to enter into a trading assistant or Junior trader position for an HF or a bank. I have targeted different schools and the best courses I could find are the following :

  • Imperial : Msc Finance/MSc Investment & Wealth Management /MSc Risk Management & Financial Engineering

  • LSE : Msc Finance/MSc Finance and Economics/MSc Risk and Finance

  • IE : Master In Advanced Finance

  • LBS : Master In Finance

  • UCL : Computational Finance ( hard to get in since my background )

  • CASS : Msc Mathematical Trading and Finance/ MSc in Quantitative Finance

  • Oxford : Msc Financial Economics

In your opinion which course would you recommend ? Which course provides the best mix of coding and quantitative skills? Moreover, do you think that an MBA would help to enter into trading or it does not provide enough technical skills?

I would like to thank you in advance for your help and feel free to suggest different courses and ideas, any advice is greatly appreciated !

Many thanks,

M.

2 Comments
 
Most Helpful

Two rules of thumb: i) Go with university brand over course title; ii) Go for more clear-cut course names (e.g. Finance > Investment & Wealth Management).

Of the courses you've mentioned, the tippy-top are: Imperial's MSc Finance; LSE MSc Finance / Finance & Economics; Oxford MSc Financial Economics - all have very high grade requirements with an emphasis on mathematics, and are ferociously competitive to get into. Weirdly, LSE's Risk & Finance course is less mathematically rigorous than it's straight-run Finance course.

That said, all of the courses you've listed are strong (with, arguably, the CASS courses being the least robust of the bunch). The UCL MSc Computational Finance is a weird one: I've met a couple of their grads and have always been a little underwhelmed - one couldn't even use Excel, which struck me as particularly strange. I'm also uncertain about the Investment & Wealth Management course at Imperial. Strikes me as less "markets" focused and more AM / WM orientated. That said, I don't think you can go too far wrong with any of them.

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"Work is the curse of the drinking classes" - Oscar Wilde

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