How to break into the trading industry

L

lasner

Hi I have a question for you guys. I started my own company as a commodity trading advisor. I've been trading commodities for the past 6 years and I graduated from a major university.

What I want to do is trade in NYC. I've been sending my resume out with no success. The only trading jobs that seem to be out there are prop firm jobs where you have to put up money in order to trade.

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions on how to break into the trading industry with a "real firm" not a prop firm. I was thinking maybe I have to go back and get my MBA.

Any suggestions would be great!
 
How did you do trading the past 6 years? If you made nice gains and your fund has a good performance record, you should'nt have a hard time attracting a backer
 
For the six years of trading the first three went into learning to trade. I mainly read and learned I traded a little bit for the first three years but lost, it was a learning process.

The next two years I demo traded the theories I learned and did really well. I turned a $100,000 demo account into $300,000 in two years. Most of the trades I sent out to my clients. For the past year I've been trading a small account, started with $10,000 and turned it into $20,000 in a year. Mainly made the profits through writing opitons and futures trading.

I feel I have a good understanding of trading and would like to have a shot of trading a firm's capital.

It seems like it's tough to get your foot in the door.
 
why not trade a prop shops capital? put your 10k down and they will give you money, especially considered you made money last year?
 
I'm not looking to go a prop shop route. I want to go to a legitimate trading firm and trade their capital. I have a strong desire to learn more on trading. I feel at a prop shop there is no real opportunity to learn.

Also with prop shops you put up your capital and then they back you 10 to 1 or 20 to 1. To me it makes no sense if I put up $10 k I have 100k to trade with but I can only lose $10k the amount of leverage you have to the drawback makes no sense you can easily get wiped. You are not an investement in a prop shop's eyes. They don't have an interest in teaching because you are not a risk to them, in essence you are not trading their capital you can only lose the amount you put up.

I have no interest in a prop shop. I'm looking for a real trading firm. Does anyone out there have any suggestions? It would really help
 
It seems you want no risk. You want to test out your theories in real time using someone else's money. It doesn't seem likely to me this will happen.

Si
 
I would take any type of entry level trading position.

I had a friend who moved to NYC about seven years ago and got a job with a firm he traded their capital. He had no experience and had a background in science, nothing in business. His major in college was biology. This was when the markets were doing really well.

I guess now it's a lot different, the markets really went south.
 
Not all prop shops require you to put up capital. A lot of them pay you salary plus bonuses and raises if you do well. Anyway, you'd probably learn more if you could break into the iBanking side. Try Bloomberg: JOBS [GO]
 
Quote from DynamicReplic8r:

Not all prop shops require you to put up capital. A lot of them pay you salary plus bonuses and raises if you do well. Anyway, you'd probably learn more if you could break into the iBanking side. Try Bloomberg: JOBS [GO]
More...

Do you know of any prop shops that pay salaries? Thanks for the info. I'll try Bloomberg.
 
Mine does. I assume several others do as well. Look around. If it says "capital required" don't bother. The bloomberg postings will mention that they pay salary if they do.
 
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