MFE or a relevant course

[nishank gupta]

Little Background.:
I have a B.Tech Degree in Electronics and Communications Engg from one of the top schools in Asia, though a low grade point average

Work Experience : 5 years as a successful Discretionary trader on Cmegroup/ ICE.
Currently i am automating my own trading ideas.
Have basic coding skills, good with algorithms

What i wish to do is get a head start into algorithmic trading. I have found it hard to get into a good Algo trading firms , from the trading side. generally the environment is they hire freshers or people with good coding background. Longterm goal is to work on own trading ideas, but i do wish to learn as much i can about this business.

1.) Is MFE a relevant course? What are the other relevant courses. I would strongly prefer those which can help me add on to coding/algo/math skills.
2) What would be the pre requisites for taking any course which would help towards my goal.

I have a one year time frame within which i would be able to complete automating these strategies and test how well and if they work. After that MFE/Relevant courses seem like a very good option.
Is there anything i can do meanwhile to build my case.

When do schools start accepting applications for MFE? i would of course have to attempt gre/gmat before.

 

[Keith Tan]

hi, what are you looking to trade? In a particular asset class or everything?

Any MFE might be an overkill for your goals. Take a look at a typical MFE curriculum http://mfe.berkeley.edu/academics/curriculum.html. You will be doing modelling like credit risk, fixed income, options modelling, derivatives pricing, OTC swaps, currencies and such. If you are already experienced in your current domain, maybe you should focus on it like all traders i know.

MFE doesn't equip you with coding and automating skills. In algo business, you need solid C++ low-latency programming at high and low level. A CS course would be suitable in creating a trading platform. You would need to handle maybe FIX protocols and such. If you need to do data analysis, learning time-series analysis, backtesting and econometrics helps in portfolio management.

If you just want to automate your trading ideas, retail brokers have the relevant API and documentation to get you started. Or head to https://www.quantopian.com/, link up algos to your IB account and you're ready to trade.

 

[nishank gupta]

I already trade futures, currently automating using Ninjatrader.

A cs course would be more suitable you say? Mostly what i want to focus is coding/logic/math/algo.
It would be a big plus if i could get into a algo prop desk/hft or such and learn the tricks of the trade.
Quantopian looks like a good platform, but unfotunately doesnt provide support for futures.
What are the prequisites for suggested CS courses/ please help/ tell me where to look.