Institutional Trader Career

[chiefraven]

Hi,

Is anyone here an Institutional Trader or has worked at an institutional trading desk before?

I have a computer science degree from johns hopkins university. and have worked at a retail trading firm for 2 years in the past. In addition, i have about 4 years of trading experience in both futures/equities market.... at the moment, i'm also studying on series 7.

is there anything else i need to work on in order to become an institutional trader? what's usually the step by step approach for someone who wants to work towards becoming a trader for a big bank or investment firms like goldman, etc.

how are my chances? or do i need an MBA? :\
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On a side note, i was wondering if any institutional trader could describe their work day? how is your work day like? what are some of the responsibilities a trader have to take on from say 7am -5pm.

i know that institutional traders make their money through commissions, so the volume they have to execute = how much they are making.... but say, a trader gets an order from the top to buy AMZN at around 25-26..... a trader might use the firm's capital to knock the price down while accumulating shares off the bottom.... etc etc... but what if, the institutional trader does something like this, but end up not being able to buy the shares at the desired price...say if another firm kept bidding the price up.... what happens then? how does an institutional trader trade? can someone describe the action from when he gets the order from above?

also, this is one thing that confuses me. a big bank have traders, a big investment firms like goldman also have traders... but there are a lot of these little brokerage firms (that exists to execute orders for clients) so some of the institutional traders also end up working at these order-executing brockerage firms?

are there any books out there that might be helpful for someone who wants to become an institutional trader? i couldn't really find anything online regarding this topic.

 

[LEAPup]

Wow you have some questions!

I'm a retail Broker (Series 7), and Investment Advisor (Series 66) Used to work for Merrill Lynch (long before they hung themselves over CDO's.) Wasn't fun working there, but it paid the bills.

Institutional vs. what I do now would be night/day, but I'll look over your thread again, and try to answer some questions. I will say this site has a mix of talent, so search, and read. That's what I always do when I have a question. If I can't find the answer(s) in a previous post/thread, I'll of course ask.

Here you will find some things you need to know before going any further http://jobs.efinancialcareers.com/Trading.htm

And why do big banks have traders? Glass Stegall Act...

Big banks have NO business conducting securities business imo. They should stick to doing what they know: banking.

 

[NY0BScalper]

Quote from chiefraven:

Hi,
i know that institutional traders make their money through commissions, so the volume they have to execute = how much they are making.... but say, a trader gets an order from the top to buy AMZN at around 25-26..... a trader might use the firm's capital to knock the price down while accumulating shares off the bottom.... etc etc... but what if, the institutional trader does something like this, but end up not being able to buy the shares at the desired price...say if another firm kept bidding the price up.... what happens then? how does an institutional trader trade? can someone describe the action from when he gets the order from above?

The institutional trader doesn't try to manipulate the market so the customer gets a better print whilst the institution takes on infinite market risk. It's the opposite. Institution buys up before filling the customer buy order, then cashes in by filling it... not institution posts fake size to make the customer get better fill!!!