MBA vs MFE for trading jobs

[cstassen]

'scuse me, but you probably haven't got a real clue of what's going on. Speak to a trader with 10 years experience, he'll tell you that the current market is the craziest he's ever seen!

Yeah I learned a lot in daytrading because I happened to be trading in a place in midtown that housed I believe two of the top 10 day traders in the country and also at a time in the market that most likely will never happen again in our lifetimes, 1998 to 2000.

You know it is funny when I hear these kids who are in their 20's nowadays refer to the bull market that was between 2001 and 2007.

LOL, what bull market? These people have obviously not seen a NASDAQ market go from 2800 to 5300 in a matter of months as it did between November of 1999 and May of 2000.

And then crash back down to 3000 by the end of the year. That right there is volatility.

 

[cstassen]

You know it is funny when I hear these kids who are in their 20's nowadays refer to the bull market that was between 2001 and 2007.

LOL, what bull market? These people have obviously not seen a NASDAQ market go from 2800 to 5300 in a matter of months as it did between November of 1999 and May of 2000.

And then crash back down to 3000 by the end of the year. That right there is volatility.

Yeah it was very mind blowing to see a guys making peoples annual incomes on a daily basis and often more than 100K a day.

an a bull market refers to size, not to speed - the 'bubble' (whatever that means) that was built up til 2007 was FAR greater than the one in 2000-20001. You seem to get lost in "the good old days"

 

[samiam]

'scuse me, but you probably haven't got a real clue of what's going on. Speak to a trader with 10 years experience, he'll tell you that the current market is the craziest he's ever seen!

You should talk to more traders who traded both markets in both time frames and get more perspectives. I am pretty sure the vast majority of equities traders in both markets would choose tech in the late 90's over the post 9/11 bull market as a crazier market and one with more opportunities. For real estate and commodities, it would be the reverse.

 

[samiam]

The Northwestern 1 year MBA + IIT MFE seems like a good plan to me. You'll be done with both in two years I believe granted you get into both consecutively. Time is a precious resource. Speed is crucial.

Love those greener pastors by the way.

 

[cstassen]

Every trader I've talked to, across all asset classes agree - vol might have been higher some other times, but the markets were much much more predictable, and much easier to read. Everybody says something like "I've been here for 10 years, and never have i seen something like this". Of course, most traders haven't traded the same thing for the last 10 years, but the ones that have all agree.

The biggest difference is in FX and commodities though! especially FX they say, commodities have been "easy" due to their surge!

You should talk to more traders who traded both markets in both time frames and get more perspectives. I am pretty sure the vast majority of equities traders in both markets would choose tech in the late 90's over the post 9/11 bull market as a crazier market and one with more opportunities. For real estate and commodities, it would be the reverse.

 

[samiam]

Every trader I've talked to, across all asset classes agree - vol might have been higher some other times, but the markets were much much more predictable, and much easier to read. Everybody says something like "I've been here for 10 years, and never have i seen something like this". Of course, most traders haven't traded the same thing for the last 10 years, but the ones that have all agree.

The biggest difference is in FX and commodities though! especially FX they say, commodities have been "easy" due to their surge!

Oh yeah, no doubt, the commodities markets were king post 9/11 because geopolitics threatened scarcity and stability, negotiations inter country were maybe shakier, the coming up of China and India, a war, and even Katrina, etc.

Anything with limited resources went up. Real estate as well because Greeny undid what he did to cause the crash in equities from 00 to 03.

Yes, if you probably talk to quant traders they would say equities might have been better for them because post 9/11, the NASDAQ and tech were not invited to the Bull and the SPX was on a 3 year steady march that almost doubled.

It has been SPX and the listed stocks are in general are much easier to read and perform better chart formations. They trade differently from Tech. I dunno why. It could be because they are specialist operated and not OTC like NASDAQ or because old dudes running funds like to invest in companies like Dow Chemical and John Deere and Boeing because they understand those and not tech. Who knows. But I would believe the SPX is easier to model.

I"m mostly referring to discretionary trading. Day trading, intraday scalping, or perhaps short term swing trading. What have you. For that kind of stuff the NASDAQ was really crazy.

You had to have been there. It was really something special and although I did grow up watching movies like Wall Street and got caught up in all that trading hoo haw, I think at the time, I didn't really realize how crazy things got and appreciated the times only after I got to see how crappy the market was in 04, and even 06 and 07. 07 was good but SPXs don't have the moves NASDAQ does. You had Google and stocks like TASR which were crazy. In 98 and 00 we had YHOO, AMZN, CMRC, PCLN, ETOY, EBAY, DCLK, BCST, LCOS, RMBS, all the chip stocks and on and on and on. Almost any internet stock.

It was quite intense. For a quant trader, their perspectives might be different.

I would tend to think most quants would have gotten their heads handed to them on a platter in Inut-era because there was no standard, no valuations, no precedent.

From one bubble to the next. Next was real estate, cdo's, and commodities.

 

[Stefan Zota]

Excellent analogy. Who makes more and get all the credit? Dale Earnhardt Jr or Danica Patrick or Dale Earnhardt Jr. pit crew or Danica Patrick Pit Crew.

No pit crew is going to be able to create an IRobot driver that's gonna take over Dale Earnhardt Jr. to drive the car and win races, not in our lifetime IMO. Maybe when our teeths fall out. At that point, forget about MFE or trading desk, I'll just be happy to keep my pants unsoiled. :dance:

Unless you get MFE from top five, you gonna be pit crew IMO. Still not a bad living, maybe 200K or more at the peak. Very good money.

I think you have a overly-simplified perspective on career. We focus only on trading here, of course MFE would not be suited for pure marketing or accounting position.

First of all, if your goal is to work in trading and also make a lot of money then my response is simple: graduate level education as intensive as possible (academic research included) or a specialized program can take you to same goal.
You can get Physics, Math or CS masters/PhD and work just fine in trading.
You can also have MFE or MBA degrees.

What's the difference between all of these acronyms as respect to trading? Well, from my point of view all except MBA build a good quantitative background. There is no question about it.
Going a step forward, the arguments against MFE around here say: "they don't have any market or financial understanding"

This can be said also about MBA or any other program. Nobody blocks MFE students from being up2date with financial markets. In fact if you read around on this forum, you'll see that people are pretty quick to react to comment any relevant news.
So if the MFE student has a strong quantitative base and also develops his market grasp, what is missing for a trading position? Or to approach the other side, what extra tools has MBA student to understand trading?

Your statement with 200k is invalid. I know a couple of people that work in a quantitivate field with different scientific backgrounds. In a couple of years, they got to this amount, even more. They did not have any MBA.
In my point of view, I care about the education value because the bottom-line at the job are the results. If MFE can provide more value then that is my choice. Simple as that.