Graduating soon, trading/investment opportunities
I have an amazing appetite for investment/trading related literature and have recently found success by sticking to certain industries and a strategy. I started trading mostly stocks (sometimes options) in 2009 using my parent's account and compounded money at a startling rate. I know that a rising tide lifts all boats, but I was determined to demonstrate that my method wasn't just "luck driven."
So I started grinding long hours at my part-time job while still finishing undergrad studies. I think on average I work enough to make an investment banker blush. I worked like a dog for my capital (most people would think that predisposes me to be risk adverse).
Over the course of 2010 I managed to rack up roughly 40% of outperformance (if we use the S&P as a benchmark, however an inappropriate one).
Knowing that this sort of outperformance is a little "unbelievable," I decided to track my real trades using a couple of sites, most notably Covestor. Additionally, I believe a similar performance is replicable barring any sort of market wide Fama-French-esque epiphany that the sector I trade in is deeply undervalued in terms of risk/reward. Most of my 2010 performance is verifiable via such sites (and of course my brokerage provides a sufficient history of all activity).
Now for an egg-in-the-face confession: I managed to attain a 2.2 GPA. That's a pretty hefty derision magnet I'd imagine.
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Is there any way I can parlay this continued success into a career opportunity? If I can continue this outperformance tear for say the next 3-5 years? I'm a graduating senior whose parent's are not affluent enough to provide substantial seed money.
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Is there any reason I should even attempt to apply for say an MBA program after working for a few years? Surprisingly despite my academic performance, I have a few entry level options.
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What do?
Postscript: I don't think it's fair to classify what I do as trading or investing. It's more of a hybrid of trading and event driven/value investing. As of market close yesterday the value of my "fund" is 47K USD. I have not yet taken advantage of substantial net debt/margin.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but it looks like you are graduating in the spring. You haven't started your job search yet? What is your major? It can be done, but it will be difficult. You probably should have put as much time into school as you did on trading and probably would have had better grades.
Your success might be short lived. Depending on how much research you do, you may have won one ... but you loose to. Now, if you continue this track for 3-5 with minimal research than I would pull out before you loose most of your earnings. However, if you research like a fiend and make ... 500K then you have a career opportunity. Right now, you are just lucky.
Yes, if your GMAT is 700+ (assuming you want T25)
You could use that money to get a MSF of MSQF ...... or you could network your ass off and land a S&T gig. Just don't sit around trading stocks all day.
Listen man. I'm not going to sit here and tell you you're lucky or that you're lying, like a lot will. If in fact, everything you said is true and you love it, just keep doing what you're doing. If you want to be a trader, and you already are driven enough to do all the work and have found a good strategy, then you DO NOT need college. You will get a lot of geeks on here that will talk about how you need to parlay this into getting into a Target. Keep trading, borrow money from your parents, get a solid track record going, then start raising outside funds. If you are currently living your dream/end career goal...then you have no need for all the formalities lesser talented people are required to go through.
@ everyone so far Thanks for the quick replies
@ consulting_rookie I interned at a conglomerate with an O&G branch that has already extended the offer to me. Given my GPA I am gracious and will probably accept. Other than that, I have not lined up anything else.
What do you mean by the it can be done part? If I were to make stellar grades this semester I would hardly think it would improve my standing, could you clarify? You're response has piqued my interest.
@ Karypto So you're saying if I could summarily turn this into a more significant amount, this would constitute a track record?
@Cahellfire8 Thanks for the benefit of the doubt. I suppose I will need some licenses to pursue this course of action?
At any rate, the money means very little to me, I love the game. Covestor extended me an offer to manage a "model portfolio" and I'm inclined to take it despite the compensation.
At anyrate, this is the performance since August 2010.
http://covestor.com/nick-lee-1/track-record
This doesn't include options positions because Covestor doesn't track these. I also have another portfolio of equities that are not "trackable" by covestor.
You mentioned an MBA, but have you ever though about an MSF?
I could be dead wrong, but I feel like you can get a job despite your GPA (because of your trading success and passion). If you can't though, you could always try grad school in finance or econ, or you could just get the best job available, and trade tons in your free time. After college, there should be jobs available that make okay money with only 40 hours a week, which would give you lots of additional time for trading. If you continue success, I imagine you'd be able to parlay that into a job, but if not, you could just keep trading your own money.
That is an impressive track record. When did you start trading and what strategy do you tend to use (I'd understand if you wish to refrain from dwelling into the specifics although I am interested in the overall schematic)? Did you find any trading books particularly helpful?
As for your career, I'm also fairly positive that you can find some prop desk given your track record and ambition.
I am very fairly open about the gist of what I do and in real life I tend to blabber to bschool majors who will listen. I love to talk with other traders/interested individuals about it. I have a paper trading account that I "actually" trade, and with my real account I just replicate it as closely as possible. The paper account is up 68.87% in the same period (frictional costs are lower, I can size positions more effectively). At 47K without using significant leverage, I think I'm more of an short-term investor than a trader.
A lot of what I do is I interpret information more accurately. With biotech, it is easy to tell if a particular therapy or treatment is compelling because many small caps will be competing simultaneously. In that case I simply create a small "basket" at an attractive entry and almost always sell in the runup to the PDUFA app date.
Mostly I read a lot of investor letters from various schools of investing. In terms of books, I read what I can get my hands on. Off the top of my head, "the Alchemy of Finance", the Darvas book, and "The New Market Wizard" come to mind.
Interesting strategy, reminds me of the stuff they used to do in the late 90s/ early 2000. Thanks for sharing although I usually try to avoid trading impulsively based on news (it rarely works out for me).
what website do you use to paper trade?
"What do you mean by the it can be done part? If I were to make stellar grades this semester I would hardly think it would improve my standing, could you clarify? You're response has piqued my interest." -- I meant that you could perhaps find a job. Most recruiting for ft is over and it's on to internships now. I was not referring to raising your gpa, with one semester left your grades are as good as they are going to get.
Dude,
Keep trading on your own time. Work a shitty job, continuing to fight for your capital. You have a solid strategy, with more capital and experience you could refine this and be very successful. Why would you want to do it for someone else when you can run your own money?
If you're dead set on being a hedgie or a prop guy keep doing what you're doing and start your own shop, it's certainly been done before.
Good luck, if you want to talk strategy/investment theses, PM me.
*I'm a business major, general finance.
Have you looked into prop trading? They tend to care more about your passion/ability and less about your resume than most, although you'd have to be careful distinguishing legit firms from chop shops.
Hedgefund13, I just glanced at your Covester page... what is your thesis on ATVI?
That google doc is becoming fairly large...
I think Activision is currently priced for terminal value.The creative process that goes into making a game is not streamlined, so there is a lot of variability. Overall I think people valuing the stock are concerned with the scalability of Activision's success. At some point the reasoning goes, it will take consecutive back-to-back blockbusters to move the gauge. Despite this, I think the company is taking a very prescient step in proactively integrating many of its games with social networking components. Games like "World of Warcraft" will engender a following and be able to retain their user base because of the "networking" components.
I think ATVI is the only truly "investment" position in that portfolio.
I'm actually going to manage a model portfolio for Covestor soon. I do not think ATVI will be in my model (doesn't really "fit.")
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