daughter asks for advice

Quote from newwurldmn:

I never said he shouldn't try. What I am saying is that there are dumb decisions and smart ones.

I know many director and similar in NYC who have film and tv as their passion. They make their rent by waiting tables or from a trust fund. If that makes them happy, fine.

I would be disappointed in myself as a father if my child did not understand the consequences of failure. Often when they find out, it's too late to change your trajectory.
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Lol what trajectory? Is there some kind of path you have to take in order to be successful?
 
Quote from newwurldmn:

I never said he shouldn't try. What I am saying is that there are dumb decisions and smart ones.

I know many director and similar in NYC who have film and tv as their passion. They make their rent by waiting tables or from a trust fund. If that makes them happy, fine.

I would be disappointed in myself as a father if my child did not understand the consequences of failure. Often when they find out, it's too late to change your trajectory.
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Yes you did. Spielburg essentially took the prop trader route in film.
 
Quote from newwurldmn:

The world isn't so black and white. Risk doesn't equal reward. You can take stupid risks and you can take smart ones.

Zuckerburg, Gates, and probably many of those who competed with them and failed took smart risks. They had little to lose. If Microsoft failed, Bill probably could have gone to work for IBM.
Side note. Notice that I am bringing up Zuckerburg who was entirely self-made and you brought up Bill Gates, whose family was prominent enough that he got his break because his mom was friends with the chairman of IBM. Clearly the two of them had different efficient frontiers for their lives.

The two of them took the shot in something where he saw an opportunity to do something different. Today, would you support your child to drop out of school and try to sell an operating system? That would be a stupid risk. But if they saw an opportunity that other's hadn't and they wanted to explore it? Yeah. That could be smart.

Specific to trading: what opportunity is there in trading as a second tier institution when you don't have a backup option? You run greater risk than your IB counterparts and you run substantially less upside. If you prove to be successul at an IB, then you have lots of opportunities. If you fail, you will leave but have credibility to go to another industry or move to a second tier situation. The probability of failure isn't 95%.

If you start at a second tier your best bet is to get a small fund going or to trade your own money. Your worst case is that you fail and your experience is mostly useless to anyone else. The probability of failure is 95%.

10-20 years ago, the risk/reward was more favorable.

It is the equivalent of busking in europe vs studying at Julliard. Ones a hobby, the other is a well thought out career.

I don't understand the personal attacks. I must have struck a nerve. I have more equity style exposure in my life than 99% of the people here.
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your argument has some merit, but it loses its value only in one regard.... if we are all risk adverse because we might not hit a home run like bill gates or steve jobs, then we would cease to advance... there are risks to everything, like you said... one can make smart or dumb decisions and thereby take the risk that will yield the most, however... conditions will not always be there or will be as clear cut when it comes to what advantages you might have when taking risks...

with regards to trading and working at an IB... usually, you have a better chance getting in straight out of college... and you would start as an associate... get paid little, but get exposure in FA/TA program for 3 years or so... once you are a grad, you need MBA/MS and chances are you will need to be in a top tier MBA program (wharton will get you in anywhere) ... and you will still come in as an associate, but at least you will make a bit more $$$ and will be in the floor or not, depending what you get in under...

now, neither of those things guarantee you will ever trade a penny... most IB's have had to do away with their prop trading, so the "traders" are really brokers, and sure... you are trading with other "traders" at large firms and taking the business from funds and buy side... and possibly even making markets if in cash equities... but in the end.. those opportunities are few and are mostly managed by algo... so the days of the execution traders are long gone... but there is certainly opportunity on the Quant side as well as on the sales side.. where knowledge of the product portfolio is required and also a good salesmanship/womenship is required... given those are client facing... dont take me wrong, you will make $$$$$ on that north of $500K+ with bonus...and maybe from there you can become a PM, etc...

anyhow, just my 2 cents..
 
NewWurld (and fellow Minnesotan),

I believe in past posts you've referred to direct work experience with an investment bank and also to some kind of business that uses petroleum products as a feedstock. In this back-and-forth about trading, and your comments about i-banks and hedge funds being the preferred route, I think you're leaving out hedging/trading in the commodity market as a valid career path if one wants to ultimately speculate with his own or OPM.

Lots of desks, departments and hedge funds around the world are populated by people that started in exchange-traded commodities, and for all I know some former iso-butanol swap traders have made it big, too.
 
Brighton,

I'm not from minnesota but I did go to Diluth once for a wedding. I liked the town. It had that industrial gray look (which I find beautiful).

I was narrowly focused on prop trading (sitting around thinking about whether a stock will go up or down) which has little value outside of that specifically. Hedger for a company is defintely a valid career path.
I don't know the path to those seats. I remember reading that the reason a lot of those guys came from small shops and prop firms is that a lot of banks were scrambling to find people in the early 2000s. There weren't many energy traders as they all got blown out a generation earlier.
 
Some good advice here.
Taking a job in the industry will open her eyes
as to what she is up against.
To win at the speculation game you need to beat
some of the smartest, most cunning, ruthless, well capitalized,
mean SOBs on the planet at their own crooked game.
You should not sugarcoat it.
And the Livermore story is spot on.
Do you want to wager every day of your life
the risk of financial ruin for the chance to
prove you are smarter and have a stronger stomach
than your competition?
It's a hell of a way to make some easy money.
Aging bull markets then to lure many
to what is not really their calling.
 
Quote from Brighton:

NewWurld (and fellow Minnesotan),

I believe in past posts you've referred to direct work experience with an investment bank and also to some kind of business that uses petroleum products as a feedstock. In this back-and-forth about trading, and your comments about i-banks and hedge funds being the preferred route, I think you're leaving out hedging/trading in the commodity market as a valid career path if one wants to ultimately speculate with his own or OPM.

Lots of desks, departments and hedge funds around the world are populated by people that started in exchange-traded commodities, and for all I know some former iso-butanol swap traders have made it big, too.
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well, in that case you dont have to go to an IB at all... (and I am not being sarcastic btw...) there are plenty of trading divisions within any company that will use natural resources and its derivatives... Pepsi and Coke have one of the largest (IMO, and that I know off) aluminum trading operations... GE is another one with a huge treasury department and trading operations in FX markets... so the path's to learning to trade are quite diverse, but everyone focus here on the IB world which is why from my part I've offered opinions on that mostly...
 
ridiculous man, your posts over time paint a very inconsistent picture.

Quote from oldtime:

I told her I am not smart enough to trade stocks, but she is

I don't want to see her get lost in math over there in options

or spend nights staring at the ceiling wondering what I am going to do if it rains, like I spent my youth in futures

so where does a stock trader start?

I once bankrolled a stock trader, but I had no idea what she was doing

so where would a young girl who wants to get started look, or what would you advise (besides the usual crap of killing herself now, or taking a cold shower)

I don't know that much about stocks, but she is a born natural, has all the elements a trader needs, ice water in the veins, she's a good card counter, and can read people, and most importantly she can talk you into anything, a very good salesman.

I don't know where to point her, other than to point her away from options futures or forex

this is the new breed of kid, just like all us kids that ran those dot.com stocks up

so where would you advise a kid just starting out to go when it comes to trading stocks?
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