Where should I start...

I'm a newbie on this forum, so I'll give a little background on myself. I'm a rising junior at a top school (HYPS) with a 3.9 double majoring in physics and philosophy with a minor in religion. I'm an avid poker, chess, and backgammon player, and recently started dabbling in the stock market and over the summer in 2 months have averaged over 50% returns on my portfolio (might just be luck considering Baidu just bubbled, good thing I sold at 205). But anyway, a friend of mine who's a year older is interning at Goldman Sachs FICC division, and he says my personality/abilities perfectly correlate to that of a successful trader. Now my interest in the finance industry has been peaked, and I've been reading as much as I can about it. As far as I can tell, trading is probably the most awesome job I can obtain upon graduation other than playing poker professionally.

From my research, I've been able to acquire a general sense of which types of desks I would like to work on. With that said, I'll probably start looking for internships when the school year starts. The area that I'm interested in is definitely derivatives. Commodities, Interest Rates, Credit, and Exotics especially fascinate me because of their complexity and volatility. Which banks are strong in those areas or in derivatives? Also, traders who have worked on those desks, please comment on the culture and the people. Thanks for your help guys.

 

I would, but then I'd be disowned by my asian parents for wasting $100k on college education, and I think taking 5-6 classes a semester really would have been waste of time

 

GS and MS are tops for commodities; DB, JPM are good in derivatives in general, and JPM is also strong in exotics. However, I have no experience in S&T either, and this is what people have speculated. Hopefully, Jimbo will give you a little more insight

 

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