3 ms·

Question.. if employees at a bank are making these kind of salaries, why doesn't everyone do it?

• lbotos 10y ago
  1) It takes an insane amount of mental fortitude. 2) The day-to-day component isn't very "glamorous/fun" it's time intensive and can feel very "hurry up and wait". 3) You should to be really comfortable with math. I did some basic forex trading with trades that were on average $400-$1000 of risk and it really opened my eyes to how "trading" works. It's all about risk management. I freaked out when I realized that big bank guys are taking positions in the 100k+ range and even though it was fun, I stepped away.
• totalZero 10y ago
  You need access to capital and balance sheet, brokers who help you, salesmen who wine and dine your clients to bring trades in the door, and a lot of other artifacts of the trading floor. It's tough to buy a billion dollars of bond notional below fair value if you can't afford it and there's nobody to sell it to you. There are huge advantages that the institutions have built for themselves. Not only that, but these guys are often some of the quickest, toughest, most perceptive people you will ever meet.
  • dizzylight 10y ago
    the fund is not big issue,i suppose,because they may borrow from the cheap source to leverage the trade. the insider info should be the key to their successes, and exploited by the big invest firm.