Is it possible to work from home in finance?

My brother is a traveling mutual fund salesman in the greater Detroit area. He makes about 34k a year, but at least he gets to work/live/sleep in his car.

day trading?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agoraphobia

In investment banking - no way. This industry is practically built on "face time". People would laugh in your face if you asked to work from home full time.

Think of your first few years with the firm as your pledging for a fraternity. It is a crappy experience, generally, but it brings everyone closer together as you suffer with the group. If you ask for these kind of exceptions and do not get the prerequisite "face time" as CaptK mentioned, the group will quickly isolate you.

traveling mutal fund salesman - no. the whole point of this is that i want to be where i want to be when i want to be there.

investment banking - no. that's a career that REQUIRES a lot of face time. so i'd have to be where my boss wanted me to be, when he wanted me to be there.

FEENANS/SAN FRANCISCAN - day trading - this is very interesting. i've got ZERO problem legitimately working at home. i'm not trying to be lazy here, at all. i just want my home to be a 'fluid' place. i want to travel and live all over the world. setting up this kind of office in my home, wherever it may be, and locking myself in there. i don't really know a ton about 'traders' though...

investment banking, private equity, venture capital, etc...the work done at these kinds of places all seems to require face time. but hedge funds, mutual funds, etc...it seems like there would be positions in those firms where all you're doing is researching on the internet...and then communicating your findings to your superiors. that's stuff that can all be done from home, right?

I think if you gave a bit more info about your background, you might get some more responses.

The general consesus is that the only way to make real money and work at home in finance is trading your own cash or starting a garage fund. Beyond that, it's not easy at all and is largely dependent on your prior experience and qualifications.

start your own career consulting company :)

jump

Blue, you will never work in finance.

if u r a profitable PM at a hedge fund you can absolutely work remotely. But it does take years of in the office work to get there. I have been in the business for a decade and running my own book for about four years and I am just at the point now where I can occasionally say I am going to work from home and its all good....and its a privilege I invoke very rarely usually on days when my boss is also going to be out. The real senior guys can "go missing" for weeks at a time if they dont feel like coming into the office provided they are making money. I used to work with a guy who traded 85% of the time from his boat/yacht in the Caribbean and nobody gave the guy a problem when he was doing well...of course after he had a bad year his "eccentricity" became less charming and he got canned. Basically when you are doing well you can do whatever you want and people will say you have character, but when things turn you had better be back in the office to take personal, face-to-face responsibility for your losses.

I'd say the answer is yes these days :)