I know I'm screwed, but how screwed?

A little background on myself:

I graduated from a non-target in 2017 with a B.S in Business Administration as a Finance major, IT minor - 3.5GPA. I did 0 internships and didn't do much professional networking during my time in undergrad and I'm really starting to regret it now. I had no idea what I wanted to do come graduation time but I was always interested in markets after taking courses such as portfolio management and derivatives my senior year.

For better or for worse, I opened an equities account and day/swing traded for a little over a year on my own with inconsistent success and a ton of failures. I was eventually able to get an opportunity which I'm currently in, to trade a fully funded account for a NYC based prop firm (not one of the highly competitive quant/HFT shops... more along the lines of SMB capital, Trillium, etc.). This is the only 'real' experience I have and I'm not sure how to proceed with/change my career to something more stable than day trading. I've been fully dedicated ever since I started and sacrificed a ton to try and make it work out which is why I'm getting so down on myself - feeling like a really wasted some of the most important years of my life career wise.

Like I mentioned earlier, I've always been into markets but every job listing wants candidates with a STEM degree. Should I look into going back to school for a masters in a more quantitative field? I decided to take up learning Python about 6 months ago because I can see how useful it is in this industry but I know being self-taught won't be anywhere close to enough. My exit ops are definitely limited and I'd appreciate any actionable feedback.

On a scale of 1 to Screwed. How screwed am I?

 
Most Helpful

lemme guess...T3

you would be better off trading futures (and options on futures) in your own personal account at a broker like AMP or interactive brokers...T3 gives you nothing...they only take. Better off trying to pass the TopStep combine with 40% off than trading at T3

its going to be almost impossible to get onto a BB trading desk from your position. you would need a personal connection. another option is to get a programming degree and then get a job in the IT division of a BB doing tech work for a trading desk...and then lateral onto a desk that you work for. Its a back door, but i've seen it happen a few times. You'll need to self-teach some programming (look for MOOC free classes online).

just google it...you're welcome
 

Not T3. That’s more of an ‘arcade’ from my understanding, right? The firm I’m with pays a small base salary and gives a cut of PnL. No capital contribution from the trader, all firm capital.

Are you saying the MOOCs come before the programming degree? Or in place of a programming degree?

Thank you for your reply.

 

before. you essentially want the equiv of an MBA reset, without the time/cost of an MBA. A 1 year masters in quant finance should do the trick...but you'll need to be proficient in programming before you enter the program.

learn the following 1) object oriented programming concepts 2) Excel and VBA, and ADO (ado are database connectivity libraries used in VB) 3) SQL and stored procedures (MySQL, MS SQL Server, etc...). all this stuff is free 4) Python 5) python libraries (Pytorch, pandas, numpy, etc..)

the best way to learn is to take on an actual projects that needs all this stuff..and then learn what you need to accomplish the project. once you get into it, programming can be fun

just google it...you're welcome
 

if you can actually take risk with the firm's capital...then yes you are a trader...and you should focus during the day on learning how to take $$ out of the market. if you are all manual (sounds like it) then you need to learn the intricacies of technical analysis....how it works, why it works (which implies, how/why/when it doesn't work) and how time/volume patterns are just as important as price candle patterns.

People who shit on TA don't understand that its more than just chart patterns...you need to be queued in to the right news feeds...understanding why the market made the moves it did. There are plenty of days where i can just sit and watch, and then get into the groove of the market, understanding each turn that takes place (lets say, ES or ZN futures)...and then combine that with technical setups, looking for good risk:reward trade setups. This takes a long time to learn...requires years of screen time (ideally, not losing money in the process)...and some people will indeed pick it up faster than others. This requires an intellectual intensity that a lot of people can't handle. But you'll never know if you haven't tried. With the current trump tweet backdrop, its actually been a great macro trading environment...but you often need to sit on your hands and watch for hours until a great trade opportunity comes along. Luckily, recently, we get that almost every day. Stay hungry, and stay motivated....it sounds like you are giving up. Get exercise (this helped me a lot) and create a positive attitude.

just google it...you're welcome
 

You're not screwed man. You're young and have options. Drop the I'm screwed mindset, think of where you want to be in a few years, research what it takes to get there, make a plan, fail a few times, then execute, and voila.

Sorry to go on a tangent here, but I would highly recommend reading Ray Dalio's "Principles" if you haven't already. The book dives deep into some of the things I said above. You can do more or less whatever you want to if you have the right plan to get there and you execute.

 

Thank you for your reply and book recommendation. I just downloaded a copy and will start reading this on my daily commute.

I think a major issue of mine is that I'm not exactly sure where I want to be in a few years. Like I said, the only real experience I have is trading on my own and trying out prop trading. I've really enjoyed working with markets. I see them as a giant puzzle with a thousand moving parts, which keeps me interested every day. I know I'm not qualified to get into one of the more legit prop firms since I only have a B.S in BA w/ Finance concentration. Would it make sense for me to go back to school to either try to get an MBA or a masters in something more technical/math based?

 

I'm always weary of telling people what they should do because I am junior and have only seen so much. As far as an MBA is concerned for prop trading - I'm not sure that's a great move. You would be looking at something more along the lines of a Masters of Financial Engineering. That is more technical and markets related. An MBA is more high level and typically not as granular as an MFE.

To get a sense, look up MFE programs like: Princeton, Baruch, UC Berkely, Carnegie Mellon. You will see how different the syllabus is from an MBA.

 

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just google it...you're welcome

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