Considering a career change from aviation to finance
- Thread starter AirborneTrader
- Start date
I think you're talking about making a living trading your personal account and the OP and I are talking about getting a job in the financial industry. I suspect you and I agree you will have a hard time doing that if you can't explain CAPM if asked. I've also seen stunning displays of finance 101 ignorance here that have certainly cost the owners of that ignorance real money. I don't think finance courses will teach you to trade any more than aerodynamics courses teach you to fly. But both can save your backside in your respective careers and make you better at your profession. You may be taking for granted what seems like common knowledge to you because you're already familiar with the industry and it sounds like you've spent a long time in it. As someone who was already accomplished and well educated in another field when I first came to finance, I was and still am surprised at the fundamentally basic stuff I didn't know and am still learning. I'm a huge proponent of free MOOCs and being an autodidact, but I felt I got big benefits out of the structure and compleness of a full MBA program. You probably wouldn't have felt the same with your background, but as an electrical engineer undergrad/professional pilot I needed the a to z intro to everything because I didn't know what I didn't know about business so I needed the foundation to know what to do the deep dives into myself. You just may not realize how much you already know and how little people like us know when we first start out.
Yes, I was discussing trading from home, not getting hired. There are some mixed messages in the opening post because the poster writes about wanting to be home more and loving the markets. In which case, a move into banking mid-40s at a junior level might not end up being the utopia that he dreamed of whilst burning the midnight oil learning about black-scholes or CAPM. I suspect that there might be the same career disillusionment after a few months or years in the industry, if indeed he even gets that far. Loving the markets is quite a different thing from loving investment banking or handling other people's money, and the OP should be aware of that, I feel.
Just out of curiosity, did you ever use any electrical engineering concepts in a trading system? I wish I knew more about digital signal processing...it would be fun to test cycle based ideas using advanced DSP theory, even if it might end up being a wild goose chase.
Last edited:
The OP didn't state that specifically, but it was clear to me from the opening post that he was planning to start working in the finance industry, not becoming an independent retail trader.
If that is the goal, I agree with you that getting an degree may not be the smartest or most efficient route towards his goal. In fact, he's probably not going to achieve that goal regardless.
But if he were to try, his best bet would be to educate himself on his own while keeping his job.
But seeing how that is not his goal, it isn't really relevant anyway.
Agree that junior finance jobs and time with your family aren't phrases usually used in the same sentence except in resignation letters!
I do have it on my long-term to do list to build a FFT/Kalman filter based system to look for periodicity in the higher frequency range. Weak-form market efficiency says I won't find anything, but I know not a lot of work has been done looking at weak-form using transforms to the frequency domain and not a lot at high frequencies. Even a negative result might be worth a paper, although lord knows we need yet another paper showing weak-form to be the case. Also plan on building an FFT based option pricing model. That's been shown to work so nothing groundbreaking there, but if nothing else it's not something a lot in the finance industry understand so could be some alpha there.
DSP isn't the easiest field to teach yourself, but if you have a quant background and most importantly are comfortable with imaginary numbers it's doable. It is a bit of opening up another world you never knew existed, so once you start to "get it" you're highly motivated to keep on going just for the intellectual curiosity of it.
imho keep flying
you won't be a trader in corporate finance, you can find some role in corporate world but keep in mind that its a bunch of snakes and the working environment (and the work security) may be much much worse that the one you have now
you also too old and probably too overloaded with mortgages and other family man's responsibilities to try a very long and arduous road to become self-employed trader, who trades for living
my advice: keep flying, if you enjoy trading - keep trading and developing your method as a hobby... by the time you will retire as a pilot (on your cushy pension) you may have something that may resemble the working method (probably not, but nobody knows), then having pension as back up you will continue to progress (if you still want it)
I want to thank everyone for taking the time to offer your advice and opinions. I just took the time to carefully read all of them. It's one thing to consider a career change like this but as some of you have stated the end result can be a lot different than what I'm expecting. It's invaluable to have your insight on the reality of the finance business and what I may be getting myself into. I'm 38 and still feel like a 20 year old, it's hard to think that by the time I re-educate I may be considered too old for some roles. I get it. I paid my dues in aviation and like anyone that knows the business I've struggled for a long time, flying 2 million dollar aircraft at minimum wage. Camping at times to save the company money. Been broke during most of it. On the flip side I've had the privilege to experience amazing adventures all over the world and am now a jet captain. So like you in your business I've paid my dues, problem is this doesn't transfer all that well to other fields. Some of it I agree yes.
I have a lot to consider and my head is spinning. But thanks to your advice I'm able to get a better picture of things and with more research I'll be able to consider this better. The gameplan until now has been to save as much as I can and trade! Maybe even go overseas where the real money is for a few years and rack up the trading capital. It's a logical plan. However I'm so much away from home now, constantly in the air that I'm not able to trade at all. And I recently learned that some of my family members are sick. Been away from them for years and with no days off aside from vacation I rarely see them. So the stress levels have spiked and I'm finding myself frustrated and hating this career. I just see no end in sight to these crazy schedules of being away for months and on call 24/7. Trying to keep a level head. So I'm thinking up some backup plans. Crazy thing is all these years of grinding have not racked up that much in savings. So to go ahead with this career change could wipe me out and bring me back to the starting gate. But no debt and no kids. Gotta say the easiest solution still seems to just keep plugging along, save and trade. Will see. Thank you all and happy trading!!!!
I have a lot to consider and my head is spinning. But thanks to your advice I'm able to get a better picture of things and with more research I'll be able to consider this better. The gameplan until now has been to save as much as I can and trade! Maybe even go overseas where the real money is for a few years and rack up the trading capital. It's a logical plan. However I'm so much away from home now, constantly in the air that I'm not able to trade at all. And I recently learned that some of my family members are sick. Been away from them for years and with no days off aside from vacation I rarely see them. So the stress levels have spiked and I'm finding myself frustrated and hating this career. I just see no end in sight to these crazy schedules of being away for months and on call 24/7. Trying to keep a level head. So I'm thinking up some backup plans. Crazy thing is all these years of grinding have not racked up that much in savings. So to go ahead with this career change could wipe me out and bring me back to the starting gate. But no debt and no kids. Gotta say the easiest solution still seems to just keep plugging along, save and trade. Will see. Thank you all and happy trading!!!!
Trade longer timeframes and you should be able to do both, with stops and take profits. When your not able to actively manage a position, only wait for entries that are most rewarding. And you wont have to do much managing.
Thx for the advice Spectre!!!