joehogue

If you are still a student my advice would be to abandon financial services altogether and look into working for a company that creates something.  The three years spent learning CFA is wasted as you are entering a pool of applicants with much better credentials that you, all seeking the same job.  I’m  older and too late to make a career change and the knowledge / CFA credential is helpful.  But if I could be a college Senior again, I’d be in comp sciences learnign how to build something.   Have you ever seen the CFA Job Line?  Thousands of charterholders with a ton of experience searching for jobs.  What makes you stand out?  If you posess an innate skill for stock picking then CFA is irrelevant anyway and you should just monetize those picks.  But day trading is garbage and 1% make money doing so over a long period of time.  I’ve seen a lot of these “prop traders” and some can make money for a little while, but most wash out.  Plus once you have “day trader” on your resume, you’ll never get employed at a proper firm.

joehogue

I think making a successful trading career takes much more effort than that. I think it takes somewhere 5-10 years before you find the method which suits your personality and statistical edge and lets not even consider the emotional pain with losing money, though there are exceptions. Took 8 years, 10000s of books, lost MONEY . I think its much much  more psychological than anything to do with have an “edge”. It all depends what you love to do and how bad you want. I see a nice “Insurance plan” on my trading plan because I fail. Atleast I wont die hungry.
-“Win or lose, everybody gets what they want out of the market. Some people seem to like to lose, so they win by losing money.” Ed Seykota