Maverick,
Top posts brother, top posts.
Thanks for taking the time.
Top posts brother, top posts.
Thanks for taking the time.
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Alternatives to Prop Firms?
- Thread starter TsTrades
- Start date
Quote from TsTrades:
That sounds more like an investment banking analyst job you're describing. Which is not what I'm interested in.
I think you mean "kids," but no, I don't. So that's moot. [/B]
The thing is there is no employment questionnaire about family or what kind of work you're comfortable doing. They just know folks in their 20s are in a different place in life that's more of a fit.
Look my man, MBA and all, you've asked whether there are firms that offer positions for swing traders and several people politely answered you with very informative and worthy posts!
You keep on badmouthing ET and the members here and claiming that everyone has a chip on their shoulder, and yet for all your moral puffery you didn't even thank Maverick for his taking time and effort to provide an in-depth answer to your question. Very respectful of you!
You're absolutely convinced that the firms you mentioned accept applicants without experience. Fine, then go ahead and apply! Nobody here is stopping you. They are simply sharing their valuable real-life experience with you, and instead of expressing gratitude you start arguing that the promotions on the firms' sites claim otherwise. Perfect! You got it figured out! So again, what was the point in asking for people's opinions?
Being an MBA at a prestigious U with a 4.0 GPA might get to some people's heads, and that's totally understandable.
My humble and sincere piece of advice to you...
Do yourself a big favor. Don't become a trader.
You're simply not mentally tough enough to receive the ass-kicking that is guaranteed to come to you, mentored or not. It's going to be hard to put an indignant 4.0 GPA moral pose on and complain the market has a chip on its shoulder.
Good luck.
You keep on badmouthing ET and the members here and claiming that everyone has a chip on their shoulder, and yet for all your moral puffery you didn't even thank Maverick for his taking time and effort to provide an in-depth answer to your question. Very respectful of you!
You're absolutely convinced that the firms you mentioned accept applicants without experience. Fine, then go ahead and apply! Nobody here is stopping you. They are simply sharing their valuable real-life experience with you, and instead of expressing gratitude you start arguing that the promotions on the firms' sites claim otherwise. Perfect! You got it figured out! So again, what was the point in asking for people's opinions?
Being an MBA at a prestigious U with a 4.0 GPA might get to some people's heads, and that's totally understandable.
My humble and sincere piece of advice to you...
Do yourself a big favor. Don't become a trader.
You're simply not mentally tough enough to receive the ass-kicking that is guaranteed to come to you, mentored or not. It's going to be hard to put an indignant 4.0 GPA moral pose on and complain the market has a chip on its shoulder.
Good luck.
You're 32 yrs old. As you've been told, you are at a huge disadvantage as a jobseeker for an entrylevel position. Don't forget that there are also 20,000+ very talented guys/gals who have been recently laid off that are also looking for work and any job you think you might be interested in, they'll take (and oh by the way, they won't need nearly as much training as you will).
Couple of options for you...
Go back to school. Get your MBA from MIT, Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, Wharton, etc. In your case, I'd recommend Harvard or Wharton given your desire to be a Portfolio Manager.
Intern at a bulge bracket, preferably on the s&t desk but ibanking isn't the end of the world, take whatever you an get a the best firm that will take you.
Get a job after school in an analyst program at one of the banks or at a top tier management consulting firm. Work where ever you land for 3 years gaining experience.
At that point, you need to start applying to every hedge fund you can find. You'll most likely spend another 5 years working your way up the ladder.
If you make it that far, you MIGHT be qualified to start making risk taking decisions.
The alternative is to talk your way into an entry level job at a hedge fund. But you can forget about any hedge fund you've ever heard of and more than likely any fund in NYC. The pool of applicants those funds pull from positively excludes you from getting hired. Expect to work non-stop until you are "worth something" to the firm. Don't expect to do anything worthwhile (in your own eyes) until you are "worth something" to the firm. Expect to be paid a meager wage ($25k to $40k salary). I started my career at a hedge fund located in the southeast focused on cap structure arbitrage in the fixed income markets that only had $150MM in AUM at the time. I was the 3rd hire. I then worked 20 hrs a week for 3 yrs straight with no vacations of any kind. I wanted it. That left me as head of trading 3 years into that job at what was at that point a $400MM AUM fund. That was 12 yrs ago.
The last alternative is an entry level position in a credit training program with a retail/consumer bank. Then after 2 or 3 years of suffering through the utter boredom of working for such an organization, you can start looking at the mutual fund industry for a job and work your way up through that path.
How bad do you want it? There are plenty of options out there, you just seem to want it handed to you rather than working for it.
You simply need to face facts, you will not be managing a portfolio of other people's money before you are 40 yrs old (unless you consider being a lowly retail stock broker "managing money"). You simply don't have the experience necessary (based on what you've told us to this point) and it'll take at least that long to gain it.
EDIT - You mention in a previous post that you don't want to go the Analyst at an iBank route. I hate to break it to you, but if you want to MANAGE money, ie be a Portfolio Manager, that's the best route to take (unless you simply want to take your shot at becoming a retail broker and lucking into your own hedge fund).
If you want to be a trader, the job route is entirely different.
Couple of options for you...
Go back to school. Get your MBA from MIT, Harvard, Carnegie Mellon, Wharton, etc. In your case, I'd recommend Harvard or Wharton given your desire to be a Portfolio Manager.
Intern at a bulge bracket, preferably on the s&t desk but ibanking isn't the end of the world, take whatever you an get a the best firm that will take you.
Get a job after school in an analyst program at one of the banks or at a top tier management consulting firm. Work where ever you land for 3 years gaining experience.
At that point, you need to start applying to every hedge fund you can find. You'll most likely spend another 5 years working your way up the ladder.
If you make it that far, you MIGHT be qualified to start making risk taking decisions.
The alternative is to talk your way into an entry level job at a hedge fund. But you can forget about any hedge fund you've ever heard of and more than likely any fund in NYC. The pool of applicants those funds pull from positively excludes you from getting hired. Expect to work non-stop until you are "worth something" to the firm. Don't expect to do anything worthwhile (in your own eyes) until you are "worth something" to the firm. Expect to be paid a meager wage ($25k to $40k salary). I started my career at a hedge fund located in the southeast focused on cap structure arbitrage in the fixed income markets that only had $150MM in AUM at the time. I was the 3rd hire. I then worked 20 hrs a week for 3 yrs straight with no vacations of any kind. I wanted it. That left me as head of trading 3 years into that job at what was at that point a $400MM AUM fund. That was 12 yrs ago.
The last alternative is an entry level position in a credit training program with a retail/consumer bank. Then after 2 or 3 years of suffering through the utter boredom of working for such an organization, you can start looking at the mutual fund industry for a job and work your way up through that path.
How bad do you want it? There are plenty of options out there, you just seem to want it handed to you rather than working for it.
You simply need to face facts, you will not be managing a portfolio of other people's money before you are 40 yrs old (unless you consider being a lowly retail stock broker "managing money"). You simply don't have the experience necessary (based on what you've told us to this point) and it'll take at least that long to gain it.
EDIT - You mention in a previous post that you don't want to go the Analyst at an iBank route. I hate to break it to you, but if you want to MANAGE money, ie be a Portfolio Manager, that's the best route to take (unless you simply want to take your shot at becoming a retail broker and lucking into your own hedge fund).
If you want to be a trader, the job route is entirely different.
Quote from TsTrades:
They don't teach trading in business school, and you know it. Unfortunately, business school is pretty heavy on theory. And it's certainly not a career counseling program. Could I have asked professors? Sure, but they're academics, so aren't really familiar with that world. So, again, why did I come to this website? I thought I'd take a shot. Jeez. So sue me.
Actually they do. See MIT/Carnegie Mellon. While you say it's all theory, I hate to break it to you but a lot of the "trading" thats going on right now is fully based on the theory that these two schools pioneered.
But since you are interested in portfolio management, you don't need to know anything about trading. You need to know fundamental analysis. And that is most definitely taught at every business school in the country that has a finance department.
By your answer, I am going to guess that you didn't go to a top tier school. By top tier, I mean top 5, not top 50. Harvard, MIT, Carnegie Mellon (if you're a quant), Wharton, Chicago. After that group, it really doesn't matter if you went to the University of Texas or UCLA, it's all basically the same unless you are apply to jobs local to the school you went to. End of day, the top schools each of those spend an inordinate amount of time getting their graduates good jobs. It's the whole focus of their MBA programs. From the internship (which you start looking for during the 1st month of the program if you want to be successful) to your job after graduation (which starts concurrently with your search for a summer internship).
Quote from TsTrades:
They don't teach trading in business school, and you know it.
Maybe that's their PhDs, not MBAs. Both schools have top PhD programs for those folks who are more into quant and high-frequency stuff.Quote from TraderZero:
Actually they do. See MIT/Carnegie Mellon. While you say it's all theory, I hate to break it to you but a lot of the "trading" thats going on right now is fully based on the theory that these two schools pioneered.
Quote from LeeD:
Maybe that's their PhDs, not MBAs. Both schools have top PhD programs for those folks who are more into quant and high-frequency stuff.
Well, someone could do worse than this mba track, for example:
http://tepper.cmu.edu/mba/mba-progr...vestment-strategy-track-curriculum/index.aspx
Unreservedly agree. Stll the curriculum is squarely aimed at fundamental analysts/investors and not traders or risk managers.Quote from caementarius:
Well, someone could do worse than this mba track, for example:
http://tepper.cmu.edu/mba/mba-progr...vestment-strategy-track-curriculum/index.aspx
1.Find an issue
2.find the root cause of the issue
3.isolate the problems
4.solve the problems
5.solve any problems caused by the the solution by starting with step 1
repeat... this is what you were trained to do by getting an MBA, except they probably gave you a lot of theory which will make part 4 easier
1. The issue... you want to trade/run money with a salary and no deposit but you can't break in
2. the root cause...you want a job in the ultracompetitive, super fun, baller industry that is trading, because you want to be a big shot, in control of their own destiny, proving to the world that you are the cream of the crop, and you can beat the odds.
3. isolate the problems....a)age, b)lack of relavent experience, c) general job market, esspecially finance.
4. solve the problems....a) you can't get younger...shitty deals b) you can run money at a prop firm, be an ibanker, back office support, analyst, PM assistant, get a ph'd...all will give you some decent experience the elite firms look for c) uncontrollable...again...shitty deals.
If you can't solve problems like this systematically like AN MBA WAS TRAINED TO, good luck cracking the hardest problem out there, the markets.
If you went to an ivy league, and had a 4.0 in your finance MBA, and no one wanted to pick you up during campus job fairs/recruitment....you have a problem/gap an you fail to see it which is most likely the real root problem.
for the record, you sounded like a spoiled pos the whole thread and your question was answered multiple times. including in my response.
2.find the root cause of the issue
3.isolate the problems
4.solve the problems
5.solve any problems caused by the the solution by starting with step 1
repeat... this is what you were trained to do by getting an MBA, except they probably gave you a lot of theory which will make part 4 easier
1. The issue... you want to trade/run money with a salary and no deposit but you can't break in
2. the root cause...you want a job in the ultracompetitive, super fun, baller industry that is trading, because you want to be a big shot, in control of their own destiny, proving to the world that you are the cream of the crop, and you can beat the odds.
3. isolate the problems....a)age, b)lack of relavent experience, c) general job market, esspecially finance.
4. solve the problems....a) you can't get younger...shitty deals b) you can run money at a prop firm, be an ibanker, back office support, analyst, PM assistant, get a ph'd...all will give you some decent experience the elite firms look for c) uncontrollable...again...shitty deals.
If you can't solve problems like this systematically like AN MBA WAS TRAINED TO, good luck cracking the hardest problem out there, the markets.
If you went to an ivy league, and had a 4.0 in your finance MBA, and no one wanted to pick you up during campus job fairs/recruitment....you have a problem/gap an you fail to see it which is most likely the real root problem.
for the record, you sounded like a spoiled pos the whole thread and your question was answered multiple times. including in my response.