Entry into prop trading - Advice

I

Irishniall

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum, so apologies if this is in the wrong place! I've always been interested in trading, studied a lot about it in college however I guess there's never really been that much exposure to it at home, it seems to be quite a low key area.

Anyway, I work in finance at the moment, and I got a call to test for Optiver last week and said "Sure, why not". I went to the testing and got past the first round (quick maths), and was two questions short of the passing the next round (Sequences). Ah, well.

What intrigued me is that apparently passing the first round is quite tough (2 out of 20 of us passed, say) and my preparation for the testing could have been better (a lot better), with no prep for sequences.

I guess my question is this; With some further study, could I realistically land a job in this industry? And, if so, where should I go from here?

I guess I should finish off by saying; yeah, I am willing to work hard, because I am actually greatly intrigued by the work and from what I have done in University, I really enjoyed it, I'm just a little bit in the dark about the whole industry.


Apologies for the ramble.

Cheers guys.
 
what type of technical skills do you have? If you're a good programmer and understand the markets, you have a shot at programming non-discretionary systems. If you're interested in discretionary trading, meaning you trade yourself at your discretion for a profit - that is something you'll need to do on your own.

You're choices are really

A. use programming and math skills to land a job at a HFT firm and work on things like slippage, etc. Just know it's a very competitive industry that glorifies these type of positions but in fact they are very tedious and can be very frusturating. The skills also do not necessarily transfer into other industries although I would stress that programming in the markets with real-time data is a good basis for corporation IT programming since it gives you experience programming large amounts of data and processing them quickly.

B. if you want to trade your own style, you develop a strategy and learn on a demo. Save up money, you deposit it in a prop firm like JC trading, get leveraged capital and build a track record. You can also go to educational firms and use them to help you go through the learning curve. Some like Maverick Trading, Pristine, Alpha 7 Trading, etc. you pay for a course and if you successfully complete you trade for a private-equity firm or hedge-fund. Building a track record at one of those types of firms will also open doors for you in terms of raising capital. I just want to stress you have to perform first, then raise capital - it can not be done the other way.

The prop-firm industry has become overly regulated and there are an illogical & ever-increasing amounts of taxes, fees, penalties, fines, etc. etc; Therefore, unless the political and regulatory landscape change drastically to support more competition, your opportunities for earnings and growth will only keep declining. You are trying to enter the industry at a tough time where a lot of firms have either given up and left the business or went to seek more profitable ventures with their capital. There are a few firms left but if you're reading stuff online from 2006-2009, you need to reconsider and be honest to yourself about the lack of opportunities right now for traders.
 
Quote from Irishniall:

Hi all,

I'm new to the forum, so apologies if this is in the wrong place! I've always been interested in trading, studied a lot about it in college however I guess there's never really been that much exposure to it at home, it seems to be quite a low key area.

Anyway, I work in finance at the moment, and I got a call to test for Optiver last week and said "Sure, why not". I went to the testing and got past the first round (quick maths), and was two questions short of the passing the next round (Sequences). Ah, well.

What intrigued me is that apparently passing the first round is quite tough (2 out of 20 of us passed, say) and my preparation for the testing could have been better (a lot better), with no prep for sequences.

I guess my question is this; With some further study, could I realistically land a job in this industry? And, if so, where should I go from here?

I guess I should finish off by saying; yeah, I am willing to work hard, because I am actually greatly intrigued by the work and from what I have done in University, I really enjoyed it, I'm just a little bit in the dark about the whole industry.


Apologies for the ramble.

Cheers guys.
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One word, write it down....physicals.
 
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