Ex-Engineer Turn Trader

[lilboy716]

lol...

i started my swing trading account during sophomore year. started day trading between jr & sr year. been at it ever since. just finished my BS in comp sci, and starting my MSCS in september.

speaking of algorithms... i hate those classes. my grades are reflective of my distaste towards those classes. i can't tell proving something NP complete will help me in any way, shape & || form.

Quote from Ripley:

Dang.

So many Ex-engineers.

I was an EE major till I ran into a Day Trading book in the summer of my sophomore year.

Hasn't really looked back ever since...

 

[Moreagr]

not everyone is a engineer in here we got a hole lot of finance guys in here too

risk management and valuation analysis plays an important part of success.

 

[dougcs]

CHE


Started trading in '93.

IMO, this background was not much help except in having a head start in coding.

The longer I trade, the simpler my systems become.

My goal is to one day have a 2 lines of code system.

DS

 

[Waterloo]

I've got a similar story.

Dad - tool and die maker. He thought an engineer would never be out of demand. So I ended up in engineering. Don't know if he was the major factor but he was a factor.

Got into Waterloo, graduated as Systems Design Engineer. (I answered Mech on the poll, Systems is a hybrid but Mech is close enough for what it really matters.)

Ozzy- you're in TO so I'm sure you know where Kitchener/Waterloo is.

I knew from day one that working for someone was not my thing. (I used to walk into my circuits class with a Financial Post in my hands - god I hated circuits) Even the co-op jobs were a means to an end. "Get enough money together to do my own thing". I've never thought much of my bosses.

Anyway a coworker of mine, here in Denver got me into trading. (We worked at a .com together back in '01) I started looking into it and it was appealing. (Surprise surprise). Currently I'm more interested the software aspect of trading. Ie. the tools that assist trading. I'm a fan of open source and like. So as you can imagine, I like the "brew your own" stuff. Been trading since 02. Mostly swing/position stuff though. I guess I'd rather be a Ken Griffin/Eddie Lampert type over a pure daytrader.

Joe

PS. I once asked my thermodynamics prof. why engineers seemed to create everything but got paid less than the business types. He said because we love the work. Maybe that was my problem - I didn't love it enough to work for free.

 

[dividend]

the engineers that "turned" traders are those that chased the hot IT/CS/CE jobs in the 90s and witnessed retiring on their tech stocks/tech stock options.

 

[illiquid]

Wonder how many art majors are traders? (here's one)

 

[Slave2Market]

I have an EE degree and was an engineer for 13 years. My expertise was in wireless communications systems and I have done everything from chip design to project management. I wasn't your typical engineer, and I really didn't enjoy my college classes. I found them to be boring, void of practical applications, and loaded with smart foreign students who didn't care much about their social life.

Once I got out into the real world, I really enjoyed the work, and loved solving complicated real-life problems. What I hated most, was that everything took so damn long to complete; it was rare to finish a project in less than 2 years. I have always loved the financial markets, and have been trading them since 1985. In 1998 the company I was working for got bought out, and for various reasons I decided to try day trading. I am primarily an automated trader and fortunately have been quite successful. I attribute a lot of my success to my engineering background, and the rest to hard work, luck, and timing ... which I believe plays a huge role in life. If I was starting my trading career today, I'm not sure if my timing would be that good?

Regards,

Slave2Market


P.S. My initial timing was far from perfect, because it took me several years to get my tools and systems fully functional. By the time everything was really humming, the incredible market volatility had essentially ceased. IMHO, the late 90's thru 2001 stock market activity was truly a "Once-in-a-lifetime" opportunity ... I'm just lucky to have been able to trade a short period of it.

 

[Kastro_316]

Quote from illiquid:

Wonder how many art majors are traders? (here's one)

Good for you Might be as useful as any other, or better...I think trading is in some ways an art....lol

I am not trying to say certain degree's are better nor wrose than others, but considering what i have seen, the brightest minds are not created by education, but rather the ability to unlock our minds through the demands of trying to achieve greatness in what we want to do. But of course this does not apply because how we measure intelligence today is by what is written on a peice of paper.

 

[libertad]

In trading the stock market..the word description is quite easy and quite clear...

How much money are you making.....

Degrees ???

Its just who´s making MONEY..........

Making money = intelligence........

 

[CyrusJ]

I'm not an engineer but have an engineer turned trader story.

I worked with a young engineer who decided to become a day trader. He was 2 years out of school, just bought a house, had a new baby, and his wife didn't work.

I thought he was crazy and I was right. He was back working as an engineer in under 2 years.