Quote from rgilbert93:
Would majoring in business and a minor in economics also be good. I'm looking at these kinds of jobs before my financial independence:
mutual fund manager/hedge fund manager
portfolio manager
stock broker
any other suggestions for jobs in high demand right now?
thanks for all the advice too guys, i appreciate it.
In terms of actual trading, then economics is more relevant than business.
Since you're young you have plenty of time to decide a career path. But it would give you an advantage to know exactly what you would like to be. I'll try to give you a short summary of the players of Wall Street, but google vault career guide in finance.
In my opinion, there are essentially three main roles in finance:
1) Sales
2) Analyst
3) Trader
If you want to be a broker, then you are sales-person giving advice to other people. It's not much different than being a stockbroker in some sketchy boiler room pumping penny stocks or being a "financial adviser" at a wealth management division in a firm such as Bank of America.I think its a bullsh!t type of career, but it can make you quite wealthy IF you get good clients. That's the hard part, getting clients to give your advice. If you want to pursue a sales oriented role, then primarily majoring in Business will be beneficial as people's skills will be most important. I would argue that getting a sales job is by far the easiest way to get onto Wall Street. But be prepared to do a lot of cold-calling. If you fail to get a quota of clients within a certain time, then you will be let go.
Analysts do research, obviously. Economics and math will be critical for this field. These guys are all about the fundamentals of a company, industry, sector, country, etc. These jobs pay very well, especially at the big firms. In your later college years, I would recommend thinking about the CFA. It is a very difficult exam with a 33% pass rate. Economics and quantitative finance studies at college will give you an edge to pass, and certainly will make you more competitive on the market. At the big investment banks, analyst positions are largely reserved for ivy league students, but there should be opportunities in hedge funds and smaller boutique firms. While these positions have greatly decreases since the subprime mess, people will always hire analysts nevertheless.
Traders, in my opinion, are the big d!cks of Wall Street. At big investment banks, you pretty much need to know someone to get in and possibly have a Ivy degree. In the 1980s, 1990s, high school dropouts were traders, but that has changed. The trend now for traders is all about computer programming. That's how traders seemingly have an edge... especially market makers. For this reason, focus on Economics and computer programming. Additionally, try to incorporate some psychology and mathematics. Behavioral finance is gaining ground in economics and the math makes up the programming part. If you have these traits, you should make yourself quite competitive for a trading related position at a smaller investment bank, hedge fund, prop firm (real prop firm and not a retail broker one that advertise on this firm like Bright), or related company. You could be a market maker or execution type trader, or a 100% speculator at a prop firm. The most talented individuals are traders that manage their own money and eventually start hedge funds and so forth. Realistically though, your goal will be to obtain an internship at a trading firm/division, and work up the ladder to trading assistant and eventually trader.
For some other notes, mutual fund managers and hedge fund managers are quite different. While they both manage money, their methods are generally far different. Hedge funds generally have short-term perspectives and while they have 100s of strategies. Mutual fund managers can only be long stocks and focus more on economics, mainly the business cycles to time the markets. Both careers require people skills, but aim for more modest goals first. Also, some brokers now a days call themselves traders. Try to differentiate between sales and trading desks and other types of trading.
Hope all of this helps. Remember that this is my view and it may not be an accurate description of how the street works, but it may be a starting point. Good luck.
