Quote from alex.samant:
she was totally bullshitting you.
Where do you get your freaking information? His friend is definately accurate when it comes to actual institutional (asset managers, hedge funds, sell side) trading. There are sales traders, execution traders, and portfolio managers (which is what I think he's referring to the last category as).
And as far as the original poster is concerned, his desire to be "trader" is the same as a fella who hasn't gone to med school and probably hasn't even taken basic chemistry asking how he can be a surgeon.... because he just really wants to be one.
The solution is pretty simple; much like the usual idiots around here wanting to manage own/friends/family money, he just needs find a bigger idiot who'll let him operate on.