Skip to main content

Industry Insights: What Does it take to be a Trader?

This week we learned about Trading, and in particular what it takes to "make it" as a trader. As usual, Daniel Robertson has provided the review.

7th Feb Trader 8

Andy Demi is a Reading alumni after graduating in 2003. After spells working at Deloitte and JP Morgan, he is now the head of the London Trading Group.

Andy provided a fascinating overview of trading as a career. Firstly he commented how it is often a misrepresented industry, characterised by films showing the more 'glamorous' side such as the Wolf of Wall Street! However the industry is a professional industry and one that is both competitive and pressurising to work in. If somebody doesn't enjoy high pressure competitive environments, Andy suggest roles such as analysts are require similar skills but with less pressure.

Good traders also have strong money management skills and risk controls - it's not just about earning returns! This is more important for independent traders who are reliant on themselves whereas in a firm there is a risk manager to monitor your performance. Other key skills for traders include quant skills (41% of traders have a quantitative education) and in the application stage around 70% of applicants can be filtered out based on numeracy tests.

In order to stand out, Andy believes applicants need to be unique, have an interest in financial markets and a proven track record (even if it is with a 'dummy' account), in addition to professional qualifications such as the IMC (which Andy felt was more relevant to trading than the better known CFA)

If Andy was starting out today in the industry, he would consider working for a hedge fund due to the flexibility to speculate in financial markets to generate a profit, however these are very competitive positions to secure. Therefore, if someone is struggling to get into the industry Andy suggests "prop houses" (propriety trading firms), where you pay for access to a desk with a Bloomberg terminal, fund your own account and the prop house matches your investment. These help develop your experience, though you do need to fund your initial capital - it might be six months before you start making money (or longer).

Finally - and importantly - Andy suggested that perhaps only 10-20% of people who are interested in trading can actually make it a successful career.

Published 12 February 2018
Topics:
Industry Insights reviews

You might also like

Professor Adrian Bell to present at the Financial Services Forum annual conference 2013

26 November 2013
The Financial Services Forum annually invites a broad range of industry leaders, academics and researchers to share what the future holds for the financial services industry in B2B marketing. Presentations include: considered first-hand experiences from leading B2B practitioners, parallels between medieval and modern age finance, global perspectives of best practice B2B marketing and the political and regulatory challenges in this space.

Congratulations on your A level results!

21 August 2013

Peer to Peer (P2P) Lending – ‘Bank on Dave’ and many others

4 March 2013
If you live in the UK, you may have seen the Channel 4 television programme on 28th February this year (2013) entitled ‘Bank on Dave’. Burnley Savings and Loans to give it its other name, is a company (not a bank) which offers 5% ‘deposit’ rates to lenders and offers loans to those who cannot obtain funding from the high street banks. So how does Dave do this when the high street banks offer no interest at all or perhaps only ½ or 1%? In fact ‘Dave’ is one of a new breed of ‘brokers’ who simply introduce lenders and borrowers to each other. The key difference from banks is that banks have a balance sheet with a depositor contract on one side and a separate contract with its borrowers on the other whereas a peer to peer company has no such contracts and indeed is not even involved at all in borrowing or lending! This is because in P2P, lending contracts are directly between borrower and lenders and the P2P company does not take ‘deposits’ on to its own balance sheet or keep the loans its customers make on its balance sheet.