Does anyone else feel that trading is stupid and not intellectually stimulating at all?

Thanks for the opinion guys. Not sure why monkey shit was thrown around, I thought everybody gave very sincere opinions.

I handed in my resignation a few weeks ago. Could be a foolish decision but I really don't think I was put on this earth to look at charts and buy low sell high all day. I thought I'd share some of my thoughts to anyone who would find it useful, although I've only worked for 4 years in trading which isn't really that long so take with a pinch of salt and feel free to call bullshit. I have however been lucky enough to be involved in three product lines which I feel has given me a pretty good overview of trading as a whole.

All in all I really do feel we're at the end of the line for trading and might as well get out or at least gain some new skills while I still can. I'm planning to try and make a small business creating software tools using some of the new tech out there, I feel there's still gaps to be filled between the academic research type stuff being done in deep learning and commercial usage which tech-savy people can fullfil. I don't really fully know what I'm doing to be honest since I punt fx all day for the better part of 2 years but I'm still 25, worst case I go do a masters and do the whole jump-through-hoops thing again if I really want to get back into finance, preferably in a role closer to algos. I have been warned it might not be that easy to get back in but I think with my experience and what technical chops I have left its worth a try.

There's a concept called Gartner's hype cycle which I guess some people might have heard of, although its more of a tech thing. I think its an interesting concept and fits will to most industries. With finance as an industry (not just speaking of the stock market) I think we're definitely past the peak and maybe slightly past the trough. The Industry as a whole might pick up but that doesn't not necessarily mean the same for the people that work in them. Pays probably going to come down to even more competitive levels and tradings going to be more comoditized as a service like what we're seeing in equities which are dominated by algos that banks sell. Non-linear tailored solutions which require more human input and creativity will probably remain but be at the mercy of cyclical customer demand. Hedge funds will probably increasingly take on more of the role of providing liquidity through trying to trade on inefficiencies with banks increasingly becoming an intermediary for execution but even hedge funds seems to be an increasingly crowded space. Haven't actually worked in the industry so feel free to call bullshit but feels like strategies seem to be increasingly harder to find with so much money chasing the same thing and its just more and more churning of people. Even HFTs are finding their profit margins squeezed out. Pays going to reflect what people really are worth and those who only know how to punt fx all day long are going to be paid for what its worth punting fx all day long. Banking / Finance, especially in the area of trading, is increasingly going to be more of a business which is a good thing.

Techs probably in a bit of a bubble as well but I don't think its all froth. Something interesting I've read earlier, the pace of ground-breaking innovations are taking place at increasingly rapid paces. From the invention of fire to electicity to computer to internet to social media to the next big thing, they're coming quicker, sort of like Moore's law on a macro level. Moore's law itself is being pushed to the extreme. The next batch of high-tech silicon chips will be 7 nanometers thick when the atoms of silicon themselves are only 0,2 nms. We're gonna step into quantum computing sooner or later. I think if we take a step back to look at everything, the next ground breaking innovations are going to hit increasingly closer to home like a sucker punch and I'd be damned if the first thing people think of is stick it in a hedge-fund strategy.

All in all I don't want to be clinging to the end of an industry that's fading (at least fading in terms of opportunities for manual work) just because the pays still decent when there's so many potentially new stuff going on. That feels a bit short sighted and I'm still too young for that. If you look at life or business from the perspective of a trade, there's basically two major schools of strategies, arbitrage (including stat arb) and momentum (trend following). The arbitrage opportunity in a finance career is shrinking, the ridiculous paydays are gone and past the peak. I'd rather be better positioned for the next major trend with a backup plan as my stop loss.

Anyways a bit of rant and probably a bit longer than anyone cares to read so feel free to sling monkey shit. Instead of punting FX though might as well make my own trade and see how it goes.