Ex Traders that went on to a different career path, how did you make the transition?
I'm looking to leave sales and trading at a BB after spending about 7 years in it. The skillset is too narrow and is not easily transferred to other jobs, industry as a whole is shrinking rapidly, automation is killing jobs, and most importantly, I don't want to be in an area where I have to worry about my job security every day. I don't want to fear monger, because there are plenty of people who do very well in trading. The main difference I think is to have a long term successful career in trading, you have to be the top of the top since there are so many forces against you in the industry today.
For those who left Trading, what are you currently doing now and how did you end up there? Many recommend a MBA but thats not something i'm interested in at the moment. What jobs are out there that a trader has transferrable skillsets for? I'm most interested in business development, strategy, operations, but not sure how I can sell myself having mostly trading experience.
MBA is the best bet.
There is more to trading at a bank or dealing with financial products.
Lots of jobs out there in the physical market that pay well..structuring, sales, physical trading
Pipelines, marketing companies, big oil and big power retail/generation companies
I went from a S&T program to trading at physical shops..not a care or stress in the world nowadays plus i get to learn a lot more and have good supplier/customer relationships. a big plus is i work about 2-3 hours a day
Please explain how you work 2-3 hours a day
physical gas trades in the morning..i wake up take a look at my positions net long or short and flatten out-schedule the gas-update my spreadsheets-then done
One week a month trade bidweek for next months supply
1 meeting a week
The main outs I've seen are:
1. Become the manager for the younger traders.
2. Retire because you’re rich.
3. Move to a sales/relationship role associated with the traders
4. Start your own company.
5. Become the manager for people automating your old job.
6. Move to a company you often traded with/for to provide insight.
7. MBA to something different.
Isn't working at a hedge fund an option?
Execution trader jobs are mostly gone/have been automated. There are still a few out there, but it wasn't like the past where it was an easy exit opportunity to go to execution trader from a sell side trading role. Times have changed and these were one of the first jobs to be killed by automation.
Physical commodities, go to a prop shop, go into portfolio management and could also looking into boosting your education.
Value.
Listen to Nattyphys!
I went from ivy, pit (bank), mba (top 20), trading/structuring at huge ipp, desk head major utility, structuring/origination (bank), head of product (data), project manager / consultant (non profit) / own business (solar development + consulting).
The thing is this. Every job, i learned something new that i then applied to the next job.
Note: unlike nattyphys, i now work MORE than in the past (70 hours/week) than my 20s (45 hours/week)...and i could not be happier.
DM if you want.
What would advise to be the average tenure before hopping into a new position/role? Also did you take a pay cut? Thanks
I think a big reason my work hours a short is due to lack of going to the office
My mornings are busy from 6am-8am and die down after that. Since i am working from home i'll go run, workout, play tennis, bike, run errands and generally do whatever i want. Keep in mind i also work weekends same schedule. so 7 days a week are the same for me..have been since i got out of college.
I also have some buddies that are still at banks working in structuring/orig and wake up at 9am and stay in bed on the laptop "working" but have similar schedules since they arent in the office
This has to be specific to natty to a certain degree though right? I am in metals and my hours have barely changed, the only thing we don't have any more is travel.
Only physical natty for sure. For some reason natty has always traded early in the morning with very little volumes done after 9am for physical and financial is done by 1pm
Power trades the same for financial..just very little liquidity and trades of nymex HH
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