Day traders live in the fast-paced world of price and volume data, taking advantage of an asset’s fluctuations within time spans of a few seconds to mere minutes. Day traders are up long before the markets open, reading the news, performing market scans, and watching channels like CNBC and Bloomberg in order to get a reading on the market direction for the day. When the 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:opening bell sounds, day traders have already narrowed in on the stocks, 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:derivatives, or currencies that are ဣgoing to be traded for🀅 the day.

Day in and day out, this cycle will repeat itself, as traders attempt to be one of the very few who can successfully sift through the random flux of the markets and make a profit. If a career in all of this maelstrom seems exciting to you, we explain the educational degrees that would be beneficial to trading in this incredibly 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:lucrative, yet risky environment.

Retail Day Traders

With the advent of electronic trading systems, 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:day trading has become more accessible for the retail traders and has grown in popularity. In the United States, a person merely needs to put up $25,000 worth of capital in their account to circumvent the 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:pattern day trader rule and begin trading through one of the many discount brokerages available. With margins sometimes four times the amount of initial capital, and brokerages competing with one another to offer the lowest commissions, day trading is increasingly becoming a potential source of income.

Retail traders come from a diverse array of backgrounds aꦉnd just like any other form of self-e꧋mployment, formal education takes a back seat to experience, diligence, and passion in the chosen field.

Professional Day Trader Degrees

In the 80s and 90s, traders were employed based primarily on their tenacity, charisma, and intuition in trading, working up the ranks as assistants to 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:floor traders or clerks on the 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:stock exchanges. Traders from this era learned from the school of hard knocks, and it was not uncommon to find traders with little or no formal post-secondary education in the pits. However, as times change, and the world of electronic trading has made the trading game a lot more complex and competitive, firms are under pressure to recruit the brightest minds from top-ranking universities. There are specific degrees that recruiting departments of 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:investment banks and 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:hedge funds tend to gravitate towards.

Finance/ Business Administration

Recruiters look upon finance degrees favorably because a lot of the concepts that traders will encounter will be a core part of the undergraduate program. Graduates from a finance program should already have had exposure to the translation of accounting statements, derivatives, 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:fixed income securities, and 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:corporate finance. Furthermore, universities tend to set high GPA standards for admission into finance programs, and the top undergraduates may take part in actual 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:portfolio management scen🍒arios using real funds, a precursor to the investment decisions 𝔉they will likely face when employed.

Economics

澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:George Soros, Ray Dalio, and Jim Rogers are three men famous for their macroeconomic-based trading philosophies. A degree in economics will expose the budding trader to 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:business cycles, economic indicators, currencies, 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:interest rates, and monetary/fiscal policy. As history tends to repeat itself, economics graduates would have become familiar with the inner workings of important policy decisions, 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:economic shocks, and crises, as well a🍨s their impacts on a global scale. Moreover, economic intuition will allow day traders to better understand the news flows and current events that may lead to trade decisions. Finally, economics degrees should expose undergraduates to basic regression and statistical analysis, both of which are utilized in futures trading.

Computer Science and Statistics

As trading is becoming more and more computerized, it would be beneficial for enterprising traders to understand how these electronic flows of information work. Furthermore, firms employ armies of computer scientists and statisticians in their 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:risk management teams or program complicated trading 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:algorithms used extensively in 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:high-frequency trading, 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:statistical arbitrage, or 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:market making. If you are a quantitatively minded trader who is comfortable allowing your programs to make all the decisions (many thousands of times a day), then computer science would be an excellent major for your career. Furthermore, statistical concepts are applied extensively in day trading options, such as when gamma scalping straddles. Computer science and statistical undergraduate backgrounds can lead to graduate work in fields of 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:financial engineering or quantitative finance—both of whicܫh are veꦍry lucrative in their own right.

Applied Mathematics, Engineering, Physics

Trading can be incredibly mathematical in nature, especially as it pertains to derivatives. Math, engineering, and physics majors are highly sought after by recruiters because of their ability to understand incredibly quantitative concepts while learning to apply them in creative ways. For instance, the famous 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:Black-Scholes Option Pricing Model can be reduced to the heat equation, and newer iterations of option pricing models rely heavily on 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:stochastic volatility modeling.

The Bottom Line 

Traders come from a variety of backgrounds, reflecting the extremꦰely vast array of styles and techniques unique to each individual. However, as the markets are quantitative in nature, it would be useful to pursue a degree in a quantitative discipline if you wish to make a career out of trading. That said, an understanding of economics and finance is also extremely important, and 🐬degrees in business administration, finance, or economics can also be viable means upon which to launch a career.