Education background for trading

T

TradingLogic

For this question I have to rewind my life a bit, but bare with me...if I were just out of high school (which I am not), what degree(s) would I choose if trading was something I was interested in?

I ask this question because I would like to get back to the basics and learn from the ground up. Its not easy jumping into trading, and I'm looking for a ground floor type experience with regards to educational /learning background. I don't necessary plan on going back to school either, but being able to study some of the same courses/books or information in a bottom-up logical order might help and know where to look is my goal with this post.

Regards,

TL
 
If you want to be an individual, independent, retail trader, psychology, particularly given your interest in futures. A little sociology wouldn't hurt either.
 
A degree program is not the best analogy. So little of college prepares you for trading retail.

Learn your product. Read Options, Futures, and other Derivatives by Hull. Read http://www.futuresmag.com/ on the go. It's an educational/industry rag.
 
but being able to study some of the same courses/books or information in a bottom-up logical order might help and know where to look is my goal with this post.
More...

Since your are not going after a credential the following courses might be interesting....

ECON 251: FINANCIAL THEORY Yale

This course attempts to explain the role and the importance of the financial system in the global economy. Rather than separating off the financial world from the rest of the economy, financial equilibrium is studied as an extension of economic equilibrium.

Geanakoplos was a professor who started a Hedge Fund, it blew up, and he is teaching this course from that perspective. Much better than your usual boring FinancialTheory class.
http://oyc.yale.edu/economics/econ-251


Computational Investing I Georgia Tech

Find out how modern electronic markets work, why stock prices change in the ways they do, and how computation can help our understanding of them. Build algorithms and visualizations to inform investing practice.

I liked this class a lot --- building a simple portfolio using Excel to MPT using Python. A lot to learn but very practical.

https://www.coursera.org/course/compinvesting1

Programming for Everybody (Python) U of Mich

This course aims to teach everyone to learn the basics of programming computers using Python. The course has no pre-requisites and avoids all but the simplest mathematics. Anyone with moderate computer experience should be able to master the materials in this course.

If you have no programming experience this is a very basic class.

https://www.coursera.org/course/pythonlearn

Learn a little Python and study the trading systems at Quantopian. If your system is good they will seed you with $100k of their money to trade. The contest is attracting a lot of interest among programmers and traders who are working hard to develop a system. There are some very good systems there to learn from.

https://www.quantopian.com/posts

Financial Engineering and Risk Management Part I
https://www.coursera.org/learn/financial-engineering-1/outline

Boring - but good info...

Economics of Money and Banking, Part One & Two
I really enjoyed these classes. Helps to make sense of the news, especially in Forex.
https://www.coursera.org/course/money2

All of the above classes are free. The above is not a complete list, just the classes I am familiar with and that I liked.

Good Trading.
 
College education (especially american :) ) is not a requirement for trading.

Being able to educate yourself is.

So a person who wants to be a trader has to be the person with abilities (especially of the flexible rigorous mind), which could be transformed to a capabilities when necessity arise.
 
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