seems like theres a big disconnect between:
"traditional" types of trading (tape reading/TA/FA) and quant.
what i mean is, its the same as the disconnect between folks who trade LU/NT vs. swing/breakout/momentum guys.
Anyone who didn't trade LU/NT has always exclaimed to me, "how did you trade that stuff?". Makes sense, since all the little tricks are non-intuitive compared to someone only doing breakouts.
Seems like good traders who don't do quant don't completely understand details in quant trading. (i don't really see how you could without at least a background in some form of measure theory)
Do i know anything about either? Not really. I know that I know very little about daytrading, despite having taken a year off to do it; a.k.a, i'm nobody in the world of trading, quant or not. And what do i know about quant? nothing. i know a little math, but that doesn't mean shit.
This disconnect is even more apparent if you visit wilmmot. Folks entering in some msc programs can't tell you what bid/ask is, just like I'm sure there are daytraders that don't really know to derive Ito's lemma. Theres only ONE guy on the entire forum who responded to a question regarding daytrading, and using quant to daytrade, because he actually did it. Anytime you post a question about daytrading in wilmott, you can almost rest assure it either goes unanswered, or is dismissed with negativity.
Perfect example is the prospectus assembled for an fe program in illinois. One student who was GRADUATING, was quoted saying, "i don't want to daytrade at a daytrading firm. I'm very excited to explore proprietary trading at Kingstree, a proprietary trading firm." (not verbatim)
My Advice:
do what you can to check out everything you are capable of understanding. There was an e-trade prop guy that was listed in NYU's prospectus a few years ago. i'm sure he got whatever job he wanted after being in that program. You sound like you're in the same pickle I was in. My solution? I took time off to explore daytrading. From what I've been told, having a little practice gives an alternative understanding of all the bs theory in fin math. (of course, this was just coming from the 1 guy at wimott who meshed the two. He went on to say that neither side was a necessity to trade; his analogy was traditional trading to quant is scalping to XYZ/take your pick method of trading). Don't need one to do the other, but no reason why you can't mesh certain things together. (Its ironic that you're a CS major, because clearly, you don't need a CS major to daytrade. But you might be able use your knowledge to do something innovative, that a successful trader who simply hired a programmer may not catch. you never know what you'll come up with; all you have to do is think about the guy who argued to shut down the patent office long ago because "everything that could be invented already was invented", LOL.
you've got a lot of options; i think thats fortunate. (makes me think, "man, maybe CS would of been nice instead of math".
