Best college major for trading

"I fell off my chair... "

LMAOOO.....see... thats exactly the impression I got with this guy.

How the HELL do you know the markets are efficient if you
dont even understand the most basic mechanisms of the market?

These guys are trapped in theory land.

Im sure there are SOME PHD finance/econ guys out there
that know there stuff, but I bet they are rare.


peace

axeman



Quote from DVB:

I am finishing my MS in Finance, and the class that I am taking is called "International Finance", which is supposed to be a culmination of the finance program. The professor is a PhD in Finance and a CFA. He never had a real job outside of academia as far as I can tell. He was going through interest rate parity, PPP, etc... So one of the guys in class asked if current decline in Dollar was attributed to any of the theories that we just learned.

The professor replied: "Dollar declining? I've never heard of that. I will have to look into that to answer your question"

I fell of my chair...

DVB

:confused: :confused:
More...
 
Quote from TradeRanger:

For a young person interested in trading professionally for a fund or an institution, either on or off Wall St., what would be the best undergraduate major? Finance or Economics?
I know that the most important education is gained by trading practice, and so trading all during college may be a good plan. But which one is the best major, with maybe the other as a minor?
Any comments are appreciated.
More...

Save your money and get a job as a Assistant Trader swallow your pride and invest in a notebook and pen and WATCH LOOK and LISTEN for a cple of years ..... wanna take some classes at night ... do it ... the only way to truely learn is by doing and watching how others do it and handle it ....... All the math you need to know you learned in High School .... Basis for my statments 15 years of Wall Street experience trading every product that you could ever think of.......My 2 cents that you will never learn in a classroom ...... Be cool when the pressure gets hot and you will avoid half the problems that plague traders on a daily basis .......... sounds easy, it isnt but dedicate and youp'll master
 
"Be cool when the pressure gets hot and you will avoid half the problems that plague traders on a daily basis"

So true. Reverse this and you can find good buy points.
Buy at the point of max pain, when most sellers are GONE.


peace

axeman



Quote from AC3:

Save your money and get a job as a Assistant Trader swallow your pride and invest in a notebook and pen and WATCH LOOK and LISTEN for a cple of years ..... wanna take some classes at night ... do it ... the only way to truely learn is by doing and watching how others do it and handle it ....... All the math you need to know you learned in High School .... Basis for my statments 15 years of Wall Street experience trading every product that you could ever think of.......My 2 cents that you will never learn in a classroom ...... Be cool when the pressure gets hot and you will avoid half the problems that plague traders on a daily basis .......... sounds easy, it isnt but dedicate and youp'll master
More...
 
Quote from DVB:

I am finishing my MS in Finance, and the class that I am taking is called "International Finance", which is supposed to be a culmination of the finance program. The professor is a PhD in Finance and a CFA. He never had a real job outside of academia as far as I can tell. He was going through interest rate parity, PPP, etc... So one of the guys in class asked if current decline in Dollar was attributed to any of the theories that we just learned.

The professor replied: "Dollar declining? I've never heard of that. I will have to look into that to answer your question"

I fell of my chair...

DVB

:confused: :confused:
More...

That has to be one of the funniest things Ive read on this board ever........ If only for the fact that it reminds me of my first day on a trading desk after finishing my MBA .... heard a forex broker qouting thru the box as I sat down and nearly shit myself when I had my first posi..... U cant learn how to handle that feeling from any book
 
Financial Engineering is my 2 cents. I am about finished with this degree and have found it has complemented me well in my trading. Many of the programs give you the math and programming background you need to understand more advanced concepts and strategies for trading. Here is a link to a list of
Financial Engineering Schools. Another school not listed here is Illinois Institute of Technology. That is the program I attend and is located here is Chicago. It's a great program.
 
dont know to many traders from those area's of studie, most of the MBA kids are in the backroom, crunching numbers and getting dry cleaning. Others are selling softwear and trading products with TT and Briefing.

A few MBA's i know are still IB with GOLDMAN. However, other than that most traders that trade for a living that i have encounter have very little college if any at all.

I think the most MBA's i ran into were at Renniasance LLC, , however non-actually trade...they crunch numbers and program......all blackbox.
 
Quote from ertrader1:

I think the most MBA's i ran into were at Renniasance LLC, , however non-actually trade...they crunch numbers and program......all blackbox.
More...

"I have one guy who was a Ph.D. in finance. We don't hire people from business schools, we don't hire people from Wall Street, says Simons. We hire people who have done good science".

Source: http://ljsavage.wharton.upenn.edu/~cengiz/Finance/jim_simons.pdf , page 2.

Even more interesting quote from that article:
"Simons can seem exasperatingly coy in describing his success. 'Luck' he told a gathering of potential investors last spring in Greenwich, Connecticut. (luck) is largely responsible for my reputation for genius. I don't walk into the office in the morning and say 'am I smart today?' I walk in and wonder 'am I lucky today?' " :D

Despite $7B under management, 36% p.a. returns since 1988 net after > 1/3 performance fees http://www.iht.com/articles/77924.html he still keeps fresh and sound perspective, sort of "yeah I'm math genius, but also lucky". I like it.

Speaking of academic programs, Kent State University claims to have "the only derivatives-oriented trading floor in an academic institution with direct connections to the futures exchanges"
http://business.kent.edu/msfe/trading.asp
 
Quote from AC3:

reminds me of my first day on a trading desk after finishing my MBA .... heard a forex broker qouting thru the box as I sat down and nearly shit myself when I had my first posi.....
More...

You won't hear any professor saying to his students:

"OK folks now you know all the theories. But when you'll start to work at the real trading desks you're likely to shit yourselves" LOL
 
Quote from DT-waw:

You won't hear any professor saying to his students:

"OK folks now you know all the theories. But when you'll start to work at the real trading desks you're likely to shit yourselves" LOL
More...

HAHA you would if they had spent time on a dealing desk ....... my first day I started off as an "Analyst" and after introducing myself to the 10 guys I was now working with 2 of them announced they were leaving and my boss soon announced that I was promoted to Dealer w/ all of 20mins of experience ...... after 22mins I was qouting prices in STG STG/DEM and $/Chf ..... thats when the waft of excriment made its way around me.......
 
There is one academic who I think has a particularly superior feel for the "real world" issues in the markets, Larry Harris, who was at the University of Southern California: http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~lharris (I believe he now works for the SEC). He is basically one of the few people whose thought I have encountered who shares my view on how markets actually function. Also he mentions poker as an analogy to trading in his papers. Any academic who does that, clearly has his sh*t together. Another admirable quality is extreme concision and clarity. I think most market participants would benefit from reading his output.

That said, understanding how markets function is no way near as important as being able to profit from them. I have met some traders who make a lot more than me who "understand" less about the way the markets work in a knowledge/theory sense. A mathematician may know the odds at poker better than any professional poker player, that doesn't mean he can bluff or read an opponent, or has the balls to bet his entire bankroll on it. Same with trading - theoretical understanding is not as important as skill and experience, and the ability, discipline, and desire to really press to the hilt when you know you have a big edge.

Finally, I suspect that a good understanding of the reality of markets will, other things being equal, lead to higher than normal profits. If you understand what variables cause profit and loss, then you know what to look for, you know when an edge is likely to disappear (e.g. if its key variable changes), you know what is luck and what is skill, you know the strengths and weaknesses of your opponents.

P.S. some interesting papers from Mr Harris:

http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~lharris/ABSTRACT/Zerosum.htm(addresses the whole "zero sum game" issue)
http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~lharris/ABSTRACT/Testimony.htm (superb paper on decimalisation and its impact. This was written in 1997)
http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~lharris/ABSTRACT/BESTEXEC.HTM (discusses payments for order flow, determinants of bid/ask spreads, price improvement etc)
 
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