5 ms·

It's good to note too that if you really have the skills, you can work for yourself. You don't need to impress someone enough to have them hire you on. Real abi

It's good to note too that if you really have the skills, you can work for yourself. You don't need to impress someone enough to have them hire you on. Real ability is rare and very valuable so if you can learn that you'll be fine. I don't agree. If you trade $25k of your personal capital up to $35k, that's not going to impress a fund enough to hire you if it otherwise wouldn't. You could have gotten lucky. It doesn't prove that you understand markets or the effects of large trades ("slippage") or the game theory and microstructure. If you lose that money, well now you're out by an amount that would be a fair chunk of change for most people. What a shop will gain you is a larger pool of capital to work with And relationships and experts that make transaction costs and taxes low, and the ability to colocate and shave milliseconds off your execution time (milliseconds matter; even microseconds matter, these days), and smart people to learn from.

tptacek 12y ago
Did you work for a trading firm? In what capacity?
- michaelochurch 12y ago
  Yes, as a quant.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    At Jane Street, you mean, right? There might be a selection effect here. Or I could just be wrong. More than just possible.
dpweb 12y ago
My point was not to trade your own in the hopes of getting hired. Don't try to impress people, or even try to get hired on. Instead, the goal (should be) to make yourself so undeniably talented that they are trying to impress you to work with them. That may not happen, but if you're really talented, you will make money. You can learn on your own. Takes years, but most of what people "have to teach you" in this area is bullshit anyway. I agree with your statements. Although, relationships mean nothing (except in service of getting more capital). Mentors can be good. Costs are critical and you can get pretty low on your own, although not as good as HFT - buy why try to even compete there? HFT is not the only game in town however.

tptacek 12y ago

Did you work for a trading firm? In what capacity?

michaelochurch 12y ago
Yes, as a quant.
- tptacek 12y ago
  At Jane Street, you mean, right? There might be a selection effect here. Or I could just be wrong. More than just possible.

dpweb 12y ago

My point was not to trade your own in the hopes of getting hired. Don't try to impress people, or even try to get hired on. Instead, the goal (should be) to make yourself so undeniably talented that they are trying to impress you to work with them. That may not happen, but if you're really talented, you will make money. You can learn on your own. Takes years, but most of what people "have to teach you" in this area is bullshit anyway. I agree with your statements. Although, relationships mean nothing (except in service of getting more capital). Mentors can be good. Costs are critical and you can get pretty low on your own, although not as good as HFT - buy why try to even compete there? HFT is not the only game in town however.