begin my career as a STOCK TRADER in an asst mngmnt firm?

Hi, this is my first thread on Wall Street Oasis. Haha.

I got an opportunity of being a stock trader in an Asset Management company.

The responsibility is to follow the instructions given by the stock investment manager of buying or selling certain stocks at certain prices.

I don't know much about this job, so I did my research and got following questions:

1) Is it common that one day a stock trader in an asset management firm could become the stock investment manager?

My long-term career goal is to be a fund manager, like the stock investment manager. But I also know that the way in which trades analyze a stock is really different from the way in which fund managers do. I just want to know, is it common that these buy-side companies select their portfolio managers/investment managers/money managers/fund managers from the traders, or from the Equity Research Analysts?

2) In the future, is there still a room for traditional traders without any knowledge of programming?

(I suppose this question must have been discussed many many times. If you ever saw great discussions on this, would you please leave the links?)

Based on what I know, computer trading is the trend in the future and trader is just an equipment sitting beside the computers to make sure everything goes all right and to solve emergencies sometimes. But I don’t really have chance to learn programming from school anymore. I just finished my undergraduate and graduate degrees, both in Economics, and have no idea of real program though I have some very basic programming experiences using Econometrics software, but they are not C, C++, Java or Matlab languages. If I decide to be a trader, I am definitely a traditional trader who try to make money by intuitions and experiences. I guess there are still demands for this kind of traders, but much fewer than before, so you have to be extinguished and really talented. So do you think it’s still a good idea to be a traditional trader as the beginning of my career?

Any reply will be great appreciated, even though a single letter. Hahaha.

7 Comments
 

If your goal is to become a fund manager, you better start at research (sell-side).

But somehow I think doing this and then move to research before finally move to AM as a fund manager will give you benefits of its own. As an analyst you will have a strong sense in when to enter/exit the market because you've been doing that as a trader, and that insight will be useful for some retail clients as they are doing day trading regularly.

 
bowibowiIf your goal is to become a fund manager, you better start at research (sell-side).

But somehow I think doing this and then move to research before finally move to AM as a fund manager will give you benefits of its own. As an analyst you will have a strong sense in when to enter/exit the market because you've been doing that as a trader, and that insight will be useful for some retail clients as they are doing day trading regularly.

Thank you for your insights!
 

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