Macro Level Questions

[ChelseyKate]

Hey everyone,

I am brand new to this forum and just wanted to get a question or two out there. So here it is:

I have a masters in quantitative analytics, studied applied statistics and data analysis in undergrad, and currently work as a modeler for an automotive finance company. I primarily work in SAS but know other programming languages such as R.

I want to get into trading, but as a personal hobby with my own funds. I have no intention of gaining experience/furthering my education to do it professionally. Seeing as I build models at work, I am thinking the basic theory may translate well.

So my question: is this a realistic route to trading with limited financial funds? Do many people actually do this as a method of managing personal finance outside of a full time career?

I see there are a lot of resources on here; I just wanted to get some feedback before I jump in.

Thanks in advance!

Chelsey

 

[Yike Lu]

You're competing against seasoned professionals who have more experience, knowledge, time, technology, data, manpower, and economics (better brokerage / exchange fees etc).

As such, I don't think it's a wise use of your time, long term. By all means check out some of the free data sources out there, apply your skills, and see if you find anything. The minute you start trying to trade for real, you run into innumerable headaches and extra assumptions. At that point it stops being just a hobby.

For reference, I am one of those professionals. I consider it a waste of my time to use my skills to trade a personal account, because I lose so many of the advantages I have at work.