I have been searching and looking around for a degree in university that is going to help my understanding with how the forex market work at a deeper level, improve my trading through technical methods such as statistic, help me manage risk better and hopefully able me become a better and more profitable trader.
Apparently now, I’m pretty overwhelmed with all the terms they use in naming the degree such as “Finance, Economics, Banking, Actuarial Science, etc” and am confuse about what they actually mean.
It seems that all of them somehow in a way or another, is going to help me.
But I wonder which of it is going to benefit me the most, so far actuarial science is appealing to me but I would like to hear the input from the community so, the baton to you!
Any input will be deeply appreciated.
Best Regards,
Verntie.
[P.S: If only school of pipsology actually issue “recognized” degree, my life will be complete. :p]
If you’re looking for a degree with direct relevance to Fx trading then you may have a long search ahead, it really depends on which aspect of Fx u want to get into… the tech, the fundamentals, the technicals, etc. peronally i think financial business would be closet where they will teach you how to read the news but aside from that i dont really think you’ll find a degree tailored especially for fx trading
Forex and financial markets in general are not taught at universities for a good reason. The terminology should not be a problem as you can find plenty of free resources which explain them rather well.
I spent 3 years on a business degree. It depends on what you major in. For FX, economics and/or econometrics (or anything statistics-heavy) will be your best bet IMO.
But to be honest, you don’t need a degree if you’re going to trade for yourself. Everything they teach comes from textbooks that you can buy and read for yourself. People go to uni to earn a slip of paper to show to prospective employers, which you probably won’t be doing. You’ll probably waste your first year doing generic units like Management 101 that have nothing to do with trading. I would not recommend uni in terms of cost vs reward. Just my 2c.
I completed a Degree in Finance with Risk Management last year, probably as close as you can get to learning the money management side of retail trading. As for actual hard trading analysis, idea generation, technical & fundamental - these are skills learnt in a profession, and not in an education.
Here’s my 2 cents. I think you could look at this a lot of different ways. Try and find out what will work for you the best depending on your personal situation. For example the bear is right when he said you can learn by yourself. As long as you can do it by yourself. There are plenty of people who need a class room, coach to get max value. I also agree with puplemoney and Kevin. If you’re decide to go for a degree, business/financial/economics would probably be the way to go. I think one advantage to the degree is if in the end you decide trading is not for you, you have a degree to fall back on. Depending on where you live that may or may not be worth something.
You could also figure out what the degree will cost you and how much time you’ll spend on getting a degree, then compare that with what a legit coach & mentor will charge to train you to trade in the forex and see where there is more value. Downside if you decide trading is not for you after coaching and mentoring, then you have nothing to fall back on.
You have to figure out what works best for you not what works for someone else. I work best on my own; my wife it a producer in her company and she learns best in the classroom. I’m 63 so for me at my age, it probably wouldn’t be my best value to go back to school to get a degree. If you’re in your 20’s a degree in economics would probably be a real asset to your trading.
Good Luck
Gp
Why bother.Just read a few books if you are not satisfied with the free information on the internet.And why you need a recognized degree.Just learn the market well enough to become a full-time trader and the huge money you will make will be your degree of professionalism.
If you’re into the algorithmic/quantitative side of trading and finance, then a computational finance/financial engineering degree would work. Unfortunately most of these degrees are graduate level (Masters, PhD) but some schools do offer a bachelors degree for this. I would take a look at something along those lines.
The courses are usually based upon computer science, math, stats, finance, accounting, economics with a focus on application over theory.
Agreed, if you definitely want to go to university, the financial engineering courses are the best.They will teach you stats which is very important for properly backtesting and evaluating a system and some general aspects of the financial part of trading aswell as global economics which is key to become a succesful trader.
But if not, then again a few good picked books would be also good if you want to be an auto-learner.You don’t really need a PHD to become succesful.
You nailed it Clark. Hop over to those hedge fund adverts and all you see is: Maths, Stats, Physics, computational finance, financial eng, PHD, programming, counterparty risk and such.
Basically this serves as an advanced logic assessment to the trading teams.
Most have nothing to do with the practical aspect of trading, but if you are smart enough to learn these, then you are gonna hack into prop trading comfortably too:)
Even though I’m still deciding on what to take for university or even enroll in one.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who for their input and that these information have been of great insight to me. I understand trading do utilize a broad set of skills which can be found all over different degrees [or not.] and there is no one mighty course that cover specifically on trading. Nevertheless, it would definitely be beneficial in a way or another if I choose to take up a degree in the end.
Therefore, once again a big big thank you community!
GLGT.
