Equity traders salary: Equity Trader Salary | Salary.com

Опубликовано: January 5, 2023 в 8:11 pm

Автор:

Категории: Miscellaneous

What is An Equity Trader?

If you love making money and doing research, an Equity Trader could be a great job for you. Equity traders do research and analysis to determine when to buy or sell shares of a company on the equities market. Duties as an equity trader also may include trading options, futures, and exchanging debt funds and other derivatives. You will need to show a high level of analytical skills, math skills, and detail-oriented skills.

To become an equity trader, you will need a bachelor’s degree in business, finance, economics, or another related subject. You may need to earn a graduate degree to have more job opportunities and make more trades and money. Often employers prefer higher degrees. You will also need at least five years of experience in the financial market to be successful.

An equity trader can make an average base salary of $205,000. Also, you can add commissions to your base salary and your pay per year goes higher.

What Does an Equity Trader Do

There are certain skills that many equity traders have in order to accomplish their responsibilities. By taking a look through resumes, we were able to narrow down the most common skills for a person in this position. We discovered that a lot of resumes listed analytical skills, customer-service skills and detail oriented.

Learn more about what an Equity Trader does

How To Become an Equity Trader

If you’re interested in becoming an equity trader, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We’ve determined that 84.3% of equity traders have a bachelor’s degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 11.0% of equity traders have master’s degrees. Even though most equity traders have a college degree, it’s impossible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.

Learn More About How To Become an Equity Trader

Top Equity Trader Jobs Near You

Equity Trader Career Paths

In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what’s a career path you ask? Well, it’s practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of finance advisor you might progress to a role such as account executive eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title portfolio manager.

Equity Trader

Finance AdvisorAccount ExecutiveProject Manager

Portfolio Manager

7 Years

Finance AdvisorAccount ExecutiveRelationship Manager

Senior Relationship Manager

9 Years

Finance AdvisorAccount ExecutiveBranch Manager

Business Development Officer

7 Years

Finance AnalystManagerVice President

Group Vice President

9 Years

Finance AnalystProject ManagerVice President

Vice President And Portfolio Manager

10 Years

Finance AnalystProject ManagerPortfolio Manager

Senior Portfolio Manager

10 Years

Show More

Top Careers Before Equity Trader

Trader(17,351 Jobs)

15.2 %

Internship(51,064 Jobs)

13.3 %

Finance Advisor(106,311 Jobs)

Top Careers After Equity Trader

Trader(17,351 Jobs)

13. 6 %

Vice President(119,530 Jobs)

Finance Advisor(106,311 Jobs)

Recent Job Searches

  • Field Interviewer Jobs

    ResumeField Interviewer RTI International Metals Jobs

  • Maintenance Technician Jobs

    ResumeLocationMaintenance Technician Sargento Foods Jobs

  • Licensed Practical Nurse Jobs

    ResumeLocationLicensed Practical Nurse Spring Hills Jobs

  • Crew Member Jobs

    ResumeLocationCrew Member Freebirds World Burrito Jobs

  • Registered Nurse Jobs

    ResumeLocationRegistered Nurse Willamette Valley Medical Center Jobs

  • Engineering Associate Jobs

    ResumeLocationEngineering Associate Wiss Janney Elstner Jobs

Equity Traders in America make an average salary of $101,759 per year or $49 per hour. The top 10 percent makes over $169,000 per year, while the bottom 10 percent under $61,000 per year.

Average Equity Trader Salary

$101,759 Yearly

$48. 92 hourly

$61,000

10 %

$101,000

Median

$169,000

90 %

See More Salary Information

What Am I Worth?

How To Become an Equity Trader Career Overview

States With The Most Equity Trader Jobs

Mouse over a state to see the number of active equity trader jobs in each state. The darker areas on the map show where equity traders earn the highest salaries across all 50 states.

Average Salary: Job Openings:

Number Of Equity Trader Jobs By State

Rank State Number of Jobs Average Salary
1 New York 242 $132,027
2 California 150 $89,731
3 Texas 139 $99,660
4 Illinois 121 $88,685
5 Florida 100 $82,150
6 North Carolina 93 $84,531
7 Ohio 74 $98,652
8 Massachusetts 70 $94,399
9 Georgia 67 $94,638
10 Pennsylvania 57 $86,413
11 New Jersey 53 $94,253
12 Maryland 51 $91,327
13 Colorado 45 $70,246
14 Virginia 43 $82,498
15 Alabama 36 $66,574
16 Connecticut 34 $114,416
17 Tennessee 34 $78,082
18 Michigan 33 $102,466
19 Indiana 33 $70,175
20 South Carolina 32 $88,870
21 Nebraska 32 $74,871
22 Wisconsin 31 $72,131
23 Minnesota 27 $89,711
24 Washington 27 $81,757
25 Arizona 24 $83,257
26 Arkansas 23 $85,471
27 Missouri 23 $91,803
28 Mississippi 23 $82,689
29 West Virginia 22 $98,631
30 Louisiana 21 $98,346
31 Iowa 21 $82,080
32 Delaware 19 $120,296
33 Kentucky 18 $88,807
34 Utah 17 $91,863
35 Oregon 13 $85,815
36 Nevada 12 $121,792
37 Oklahoma 12 $96,543
38 Idaho 12 $78,589
39 Maine 10 $92,464
40 Kansas 10 $80,673
41 South Dakota 9 $83,736
42 Rhode Island 8 $125,705
43 New Hampshire 7 $125,797
44 Wyoming 7 $90,429
45 Vermont 7 $92,148
46 Hawaii 7 $99,527
47 Alaska 7 $87,221
48 New Mexico 6 $103,979
49 Montana 6 $91,366
50 North Dakota 6 $77,377

Equity Trader Education

Equity Trader Majors

Finance

30. 6 %

Business

22.4 %

Economics

16.1 %

Equity Trader Degrees

Bachelors

84.3 %

Masters

11.0 %

Associate

Top Colleges for Equity Traders

1. University of Pennsylvania

Philadelphia, PA • Private

In-State Tuition

$55,584

Enrollment

10,764

2. Northwestern University

Evanston, IL • Private

In-State Tuition

$54,568

Enrollment

8,451

3. University of Southern California

Los Angeles, CA • Private

In-State Tuition

$56,225

Enrollment

19,548

4. SUNY at Binghamton

Vestal, NY • Private

In-State Tuition

$9,808

Enrollment

13,990

5. Villanova University

Villanova, PA • Private

In-State Tuition

$53,308

Enrollment

6,819

6. San Diego State University

San Diego, CA • Private

In-State Tuition

$7,488

Enrollment

30,018

7.

Stanford University

Stanford, CA • Private

In-State Tuition

$51,354

Enrollment

7,083

8. Boston University

Boston, MA • Private

In-State Tuition

$53,948

Enrollment

17,238

9. SUNY Stony Brook

Stony Brook, NY • Private

In-State Tuition

$9,625

Enrollment

17,407

10. New York University

New York, NY • Private

In-State Tuition

$51,828

Enrollment

26,339

The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we’ve found all of the skills you’ll need so even if you don’t have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 11.8% of equity traders listed equities on their resume, but soft skills such as analytical skills and customer-service skills are important as well.

  • Equities, 11.8%
  • Technical Analysis, 8. 5%
  • Portfolio, 8.0%
  • Financial Markets, 7.8%
  • Risk Management, 6.5%
  • Other Skills, 57.4%

Choose From 10+ Customizable Equity Trader Resume templates

Zippia allows you to choose from different easy-to-use Equity Trader templates, and provides you with expert advice. Using the templates, you can rest assured that the structure and format of your Equity Trader resume is top notch. Choose a template with the colors, fonts & text sizes that are appropriate for your industry.

Equity Trader Demographics

Equity Trader Gender Distribution

Female

After extensive research and analysis, Zippia’s data science team found that:

  • Among equity traders, 9.7% of them are women, while 90.3% are men.
  • The most common race/ethnicity among equity traders is White, which makes up 72.1% of all equity traders.
  • The most common foreign language among equity traders is Spanish at 27.2%.

Work Experience Programs For Equity Traders

Virtual work experience programs replicate work at top companies and help you gain the skills to be successful when applying and working there. In only a few hours, learn the relevant tools necessary to complete a typical work day at that company. Virtual work experience programs are 100% free, open-access, and self-paced. No experience or application is required!

Asia Analyst Development Program (AADP) Program

Company: JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Cost: Free

Duration: 3.5-4.5 hours

See Program Details

US Trade Law Program

Company: White & Case LLP

Cost: Free

Duration: 10-15 hours

See Program Details

Fixed Income & Equities Program

Company: Jefferies

Cost: Free

Duration: 2-3 hours

See Program Details

Project Management Program

Company: Accenture North America

Cost: Free

Duration: 5-6 hours

See Program Details

Introduction To Stock Picking Program

Company: Goodbody

Cost: Free

Duration: 4 hours

See Program Details

Omnichannel Marketing Program

Company: lululemon

Cost: Free

Duration: 2-2. 5 hours

See Program Details

Accounting Program

Company: Chartered Accountants ANZ

Cost: Free

Duration: 3 hours

See Program Details

Financial Audit Program

Company: PwC Switzerland

Cost: Free

Duration: 5-6 hours

See Program Details

Investment Management Program

Company: Fidelity International

Cost: Free

Duration: 5 hours

See Program Details

Corporate Investment Banking Program

Company: Standard Bank

Cost: Free

Duration: 5.5 hours

See Program Details

Online Courses For Equity Trader That You May Like

Advertising Disclosure  The courses listed below are affiliate links. This means if you click on the link and purchase the course, we may receive a commission.

Stock Market Trading: The Complete Technical Analysis Course

(2,332)

Stock Market Technical Analysis, Day Trading, PT Technical Analysis Trading, Candlestick, Options, Swing Trading, Chart. ..

View Details on Udemy

Start Trading Stocks Using Technical Analysis!

(5,898)

Learn the secrets of professional trading from a former stock broker, and make profits investing today!…

View Details on Udemy

Create Your Own Hedge Fund: Trade Stocks Like A Fund Manager

(718)

Learn How To Trade Mean-Reversion Setups And Properly Leverage Your Account For Big Returns…

View Details on Udemy

Show More Equity Trader Courses

Job type you want

Full Time

Part Time

Internship

Temporary

How Do Equity Trader Rate Their Jobs?

Do you work as an Equity Trader?

Rate how you like work as Equity Trader. It’s anonymous and will only take a minute.

Top Equity Trader Employers

Equity Trader Videos

Day Trading For A Living: What Anyone Considering A Career As A Professional Trader Needs To Know

Katie, Fixed Income Debt Capital Markets, BNP Paribas CIB, London

  • Zippia Careers
  • Sales Industry
  • Equity Trader

Updated September 9, 2022

What It Means, Interviews, Careers, and Salaries

Ask the average person what someone does on “Wall Street,” and he/she will probably describe equity trading, AKA buying and selling stocks.

If this person then discovers that you work on Wall Street, he/she will proceed to ask you for “hot stock tips” next.

The irony is that most people at large banks have jobs that are unrelated to trading stocks.

But that image persists, and many students become interested in equity trading (also called equity sales & trading by those in the biz) as a result.

In today’s article, we’ll look at recruiting, different desks, and the future of the industry – but let’s start with a quick job description:

Equity Trading: A Quick Job Description

Investment banks divide their “Markets” groups into two main areas: 1) Equities and 2) Fixed Income, Currencies & Commodities (FICC).

Equity Trading deals with companies’ stocks and their derivatives.

Derivatives are financial instruments whose values are based on an underlying asset, such as a specific company’s stock or an index of stocks.

The simplest type is the option, which gives you the right but not the obligation to buy or sell a specified amount of the underlying asset at a specified price within a specified time frame.

FICC is much broader than Equities and includes “everything other than stocks”: Corporate and government bonds, credit-related derivatives, structured credit products, currencies, commodities, and more.

In both areas, banks make money from agency trades and making markets for clients.

An “agency trade” means that the trader executes an institutional investor’s order, such as buying 100,000 shares of Company X at the market price, and earns a small fee for it.

“Making a market,” by contrast, means that the trader helps a client buy or sell securities at a price that both sides agree upon.

For example, let’s say that you work in equity trading at a large bank.

A hedge fund professional might call your bank, ask to buy 1 million shares of a particular company’s stock, and see what price you can offer.

This professional calls your bank because he wants to buy all 1 million shares at a specific price.

The stock’s current market price is $100, and you, the equity trader, say that you’re willing to buy shares at $99 and sell shares at $101. This $99 – $101 is the “bid-ask spread.”

The hedge fund trader like this price of $101, so he places the trade with you.

You are now “short” 1 million shares at $101 because you’ve sold the shares at that price before you’ve purchased them.

To make money with this risk trade, you’ll now have to buy 1 million shares for less than $101.

It’s not as simple as buying all 1 million shares right away for the current price of $100 – if you do that, you will almost certainly drive the share price up, and your profits might disappear.

So, as a trader, you must divide this task into smaller pieces and buy portions from different parties over time to profit from the trade.

Of course, that’s not the whole story because the client will also pay commissions to make this trade.

So, even if you lose money on the buying and selling, you might still complete this trade if the commissions and fees offset the loss.

In addition to agency trades and market making, a long time ago banks used to have proprietary trading groups that used firms’ own money to profit from “directional bets,” i.e., betting on stock prices going up or down.

However, the Volcker Rule in the aftermath of the 2007 – 2008 financial crisis banned most prop trading at large banks in the U.S.

If you want to make money on directional bets in the current environment, you’ll have to work at a prop trading firm or hedge fund instead of a bank.

As of 2018, there are some signs that the U.S. government may be attempting to weaken the Volcker Rule.

But even if that happens, most prop trading will happen at non-banks for the foreseeable future.

The Equity Sales Job Description

We focused on trading in the description above, but the other side of sales & trading is sales.

Trading is about the execution of buy/sell orders and making markets for clients, while sales is about pitching ideas to clients and getting them to trade in the first place.

Salespeople spend the day speaking with clients and presenting ideas from the research division, and at night, they attend client dinners and events to continue building relationships.

They must have a solid understanding of the securities they sell, but they do not need to be experts on the math or execution.

If you’re an outgoing, social person who also likes the financial markets, you could do well in sales; if you prefer math and quick thinking, trading is a better fit.

You can learn more about sales in this article on an equity sales internship and this one on an equity derivatives sales internship.

Will Equity Trading Get Automated or Displaced?

We receive a lot of questions about the future of sales & trading, and especially whether or not equity trading will be completely automated.

The short answer is that much of it already has been automated.

For example, Goldman Sachs used to have ~600 traders on its cash equities trading desk in 2000, but by 2017, that had shrunk to…. 2.

Goldman is also launching a “Marquee” trading platform in the U.K. that will automate even more of the process.

You see a lot of stories about cash equities desks (i.e., groups that buy and sell normal stocks) disappearing because the product is simple, there’s a ton of liquidity, and there’s a lot of data for algorithms to work with.

By contrast, complex products that have barely any liquidity are less likely to be automated because there’s little data.

That means:

  • You should gain programming knowledge if you want to work in S&T but give yourself more career options – such as writing the program that automates your job.
  • If you don’t want to program, learn about data mining and data science, which will also make a huge impact on the industry.
  • If you want to reduce the risk of losing your job, you should work on a desk that trades more complex products with less liquidity, such as exotics.

It’s unlikely that equities sales & trading will disappear, but it will become even more technology-driven in the future.

How to Become an Equity Trader: Recruiting and Interview Questions

In the U.S., you’ll go through an online application, video interview, and Superday for both sales and trading roles because they’re part of the same rotational program.

In the U.K., you’ll complete an assessment center in place of the Superday, which we covered in a separate article on the rates trading desk.

The questions in the video interview tend to be generic: Tell me about yourself, tell us about your teamwork/leadership experience, discuss a current event in the markets, or explain which S&T product you are most interested in.

You’ll usually receive 4-5 questions, and you’ll get 30 seconds to prepare an answer for each question and 2-3 minutes to record your answer.

If you pass that round and make it to the Superday, you’ll go through 5-10 one-on-one or two-on-one interviews with professionals at all levels from different desks within S&T.

They’ll ask more in-depth questions, but the topics will be similar: Your story, leadership/teamwork experience, stock pitches, and how you might work with clients.

We published a series on sales & trading interview questions and answers, so you should refer to that for more details (see the technical guide here).

To summarize those articles:

  • You are more likely to get brainteasers, math questions, and product-specific questions (e.g., explain the Greeks) if you say that you’re interested in trading; if you say you’re interested in sales, you’ll get more “How would you handle Problem X with Client A?”-type questions.
  • The best way to set yourself apart in interviews is to develop in-depth knowledge of a specific product the group trades. For example, learn a lot about an exotic equity derivative, such as barrier options or rainbow options, so you can then discuss strategies related to the product.
  • You need a good handle on math, and programming knowledge is helpful, but you don’t need to be a math wizard. Trading is more about applying your knowledge and making quick decisions under pressure than it is about deriving Black-Scholes from Ito’s Lemma.

Equity Trading Desks: What to Expect

Most S&T desks are split into cash vs. derivatives vs. exotics, and this same split applies to equities sales & trading.

“Cash” here means normal company stocks, “derivatives” refers to call and put options on stocks, and “exotics” refers to derivatives that are more complex than simple options.

You can further divide those into sales, trading, and sales-trading.

We won’t cover every group and sub-group, but here are a few of the main teams:

Cash and Derivative Sales

This role is similar to the sales job described above: You pitch clients on possible trade ideas that involve stocks, options, and variations of those.

You’ll also help the bank place IPOs and follow-on issuances that the equity capital markets division is underwriting.

The key skill in this area is your ability to synthesize huge amounts of information into a concise, 1-2-minute pitch that convinces the client to trade with you.

Each time a trade is placed, you earn a commission, which is split between different groups in S&T.

The job continues after the market closes and you leave the office because you’ll have to attend client dinners and other events at night.

Cash Sales-Trading

“Sales-Trading” is the execution side of sales.

Sales-Traders still pitch ideas to clients, but the ideas are geared toward short-term execution instead of longer-term strategies.

Unlike normal traders, Sales-Traders do not take any risk – they simply execute agency trades.

So, for example, Sales-Traders would not be involved with that example in the beginning about the hedge fund purchasing 1 million shares at $101.

Sales-Traders would only be responsible for executing that order “at market prices” without taking a long or short position that needs to be unwound.

To do well in this role, you must be good at quickly coming up with trade ideas that interest clients instead of pitching the fundamental-oriented ideas that salespeople might present.

Since the role involves client relationships as well as quick thinking based on market news, it is somewhere in between Sales and Trading and is labeled as such.

Cash Trading

Professionals in this area do what we described in the beginning: They buy and sell shares for clients and make markets in companies’ stocks.

Unlike Sales-Traders, the Traders here complete both agency trades and risk trades (the hedge fund trade described earlier).

The most important skill on this desk is market instinct: You need to be good at mental arithmetic, and you must react quickly to events and major happenings.

This area has been automated at banks because bid-ask spreads are very low, the fee/commission potential is low, and the trading processes are relatively simple.

So, you might do well here if you’re a programmer, you’re interested in the financial markets, and you want to find ways to optimize trading algorithms.

But if you want to be an actual trader, you’d be far better off on other desks.

Flow Derivatives Trading

On this desk, you trade “vanilla derivatives,” primarily options, which are in between cash equities and exotics regarding complexity and liquidity.

Using simple call and put options, you can create more complex strategies, like the straddle (buying a call and put option at the same strike price, which gives you a positive payout if the stock moves up or down by a certain amount by option expiration).

There are dozens of other strategies with colorful names, like the butterfly, the iron condor, and the strangle.

And then there are also index options and Delta One products (derivatives with linear, symmetric payoff profiles, such as equity swaps).

Some banks also put convertible bonds in this team, but it’s a separate group at other firms.

Options trading is far more complex than stock trading because there are more variables and relationships to track.

With stocks, the price is the main variable that changes – but with options, there’s the price, passage of time, implied volatility, realized volatility, dividends, interest rates, and others.

To learn more, read up on “the Greeks,” which measure the rate of change of the option’s value relative to the stock’s price, volatility, the passage of time, interest rates, and other factors.

You might be correct about several variables but still lose money on a trade because one parameter changed dramatically.

If you want a flavor of this job, check out our “Day in the Life of an Options Trader” article.

It’s a bit like the guy at the circus who tries to spin eight plates at once: He starts with everything, but by the time plate #4 or #5 start spinning, he has to go back and adjust plate #1.

This desk requires a mix of quantitative ability and market instinct.

You don’t need to solve partial differential equations in your head, but you do need to make more calculations than cash equities traders.

The challenge is that you need to multi-task very well and act quickly because the options market is highly liquid.

Traders here make money from the bid-ask spread as well, but it’s not as simple as comparing prices because you can also profit based on volatility and other factors.

The headcount in Equity Derivatives has declined over time, and it has become more automated, but there’s still more of a human element than there is in Cash Equities Trading.

Exotics Trading

Exotics are the most mathematically complex and least liquid of all the products within Equities.

If you work in this group, you create and price these structures for clients and then manage the hedges once a deal is complete.

You often hedge the risks of the transaction with plain-vanilla structures, such as normal options or equities.

There is no precise, universal definition of “exotics,” but some people define them as derivatives that have more features than just a strike price and expiration date.

Examples include:

  • Barrier Option: The option becomes “activated” only if the underlying stock’s price reaches a certain level.
  • Cliquet: A series of at-the-money options where another option starts when one ends; effectively, it’s an option with a readjusting strike price.
  • Compound Option: An option on another option – so it has two strike prices and two expiration dates.
  • Binary Option: It pays nothing or a fixed value.
  • Lookback Option: The payoff is determined at the end of the option’s life, and it is based on the maximum value of the underlying asset during the period minus the strike price.
  • Rainbow Option: An option on the best or worst performer of several underlying securities.

These are just the basics; the structures can get far more complex because they’re often created to serve a client’s specific needs.

There is very little liquidity for most of these products, so you focus on the pricing behind them.

That means more intensive analysis and simulations than traders on other Equities desks, though you’re still not solving PDEs all day.

Exotics is all about nuances and small details that can make or lose a lot of money, so you must have outstanding attention to detail and a serious quantitative background for this desk.

The Sales & Trading Career Path from Intern to Managing Director

As an intern, you’re not allowed to trade or speak directly with clients, so much of your work will be shadowing traders and salespeople; please see our “Day in the Life of a Sales & Trading Intern” article for coverage.

You’ll assist the full-timers by creating tools that save them time, running errands, and doing work that keeps slipping off their “to-do” list.

As an Analyst, you’ll start out doing similar work to assist the senior traders and salespeople, and gradually you will be granted more trading/client responsibility if you perform well.

Your risk limits will increase over time so that you can make more aggressive trades with higher potential payoffs.

The day-to-day role will not necessarily change that much as you move from Analyst to Associate to VP to Director to Managing Director unless you move to the managerial side and stop trading actively.

That path offers less “career volatility,” but it also means a lower chance of an outsized bonus if your team performs well.

Equity Trader Salaries, Options Trader Salaries, and Derivatives Trader Salaries

Compensation for traders and salespeople is highly variable since so much of it is linked to your performance.

But as of 2018, you can expect the following rough ranges for traders at bulge-bracket banks in New York:

  • Analyst: $75K – $100K Base Salary; $125K – $150K Total Compensation
  • Associate: $100K – $125K Base Salary; $150K – $200K Total Compensation
  • VP: $150K – $200K Base Salary; $250K – $500K Total Compensation
  • SVP / Director: $180K – $250K Base Salary; $450K – $1,000K Total Compensation
  • EVP: $250K – $350K Base Salary; $650K – $1,200K Total Compensation
  • MD: $350K – $400K Base Salary; $1,500K+ Total Compensation

Traders typically earn 15-20% more than salespeople, so you should discount these figures appropriately if you’re on the sales side.

Sources for This Data:

  • Selby Jennings – Detailed Presentation on S&T Compensation
  • Michael Page – Front-Office Salary Report (pg. 8) (You can Google to find newer versions)
  • Emolument – Sales & Trading Compensation

Keep in mind that you will receive only a small portion of your bonus in Cash as you move up the ladder – an MD-level trader might get only ~20% in cash, with the rest in stock and deferred compensation.

That is one major disadvantage of working at the large banks: Cash compensation at the senior levels is much lower than it is at prop trading firms or hedge funds.

Equity Sales & Trading Exit Opportunities

Most traders stay in trading, move to a hedge fund or asset management firm, or join a prop trading firm.

The skill set you develop in trading isn’t so useful in roles like private equity, corporate finance, or corporate development, so your exit options are more limited than in investment banking.

You can move into an execution trading role at many types of hedge funds, but it’s trickier to win investment-analyst-to-Portfolio-Manager-track roles because you’ll also need fundamental analysis skills for those jobs.

Many traders move to global macro hedge funds, but if you work in Equities, you tend to focus on “micro” analysis – so you might not fit in as well at those funds.

To maximize your potential exit opportunities, avoid the Cash Equities desk – as we’ve been recommending – as well as specialized products where fundamental analysis is not required.

Derivatives desks tend to be good for exit opportunities, and many desks on in Fixed Income Trading also work well because they’re macro-oriented.

You’ll likely need 2-3 years of experience and 6-12 months of managing your own book to move into a buy-side role. If you want to do so, you should make a move sooner rather than later (e.g., after 2-4 years rather than 5-7 years) because there’s little benefit to waiting.

For more details, please see our articles on the hedge fund industry and the hedge fund career path.

If you’re really ambitious and want to know how to start a hedge fund, check out our article on the topic; the short answer is you won’t be able to do it without significant experience at a hedge fund first.

If you work in sales rather than trading, you will get broader, but slightly different exit opportunities.

For example, you could join the sales team at a normal company, or you could move into fields like investor relations that are relationship-oriented.

You’re not likely to win an investing or execution trading role at a hedge fund, but you could join in a fundraising or investor relations role.

Is Equity Trading Right for You?

Banks divide sales & trading into Equities and FICC, but it’s best to think about your ideal desk in terms of micro vs. macro analysis.

Equities sales & trading is more geared toward “micro” (individual company) analysis, so if you’re interested in trading derivatives based on companies’ stocks, it could be a good fit for you.

It could also be a good fit if you’re more interested in the math/programming side and you want to work on technology to automate the job, or if you want to work with complex products such as exotics.

On the sales side, it depends on the product(s) you’re most interested in pitching to clients; if you’ve always followed individual companies, Equities or Equity Derivatives could work well.

Just don’t tell anyone exactly what you do, or you’re guaranteed to get that annoying question about “hot stock tips” at your next family gathering.

Trader’s exchange, trader on the stock market

It is not easy to choose a trader – an employee of a brokerage company, and if you find it difficult to choose a specific specialist, you can contact the so-called “traders’ exchange”. As a rule, this is a service or a project that brings together a group of specialists who offer their services to private investors. Traders work on different exchanges – for example, stock exchanges (trade bonds, stocks, options and futures). Traders also work on the foreign exchange market and on the commodity market (as an example, a grain trader). Traders can function both within an institution, an enterprise, and as independent traders who perform all operations on their own. nine0003

trader on the stock exchange

Exchange of traders from television Code

Profession

Professions

Types of traders

Earns on the exchange or who are

traders

What should be able stock exchange

A stock exchange trader either pursues his own interests or represents a company, a client, a group of clients. According to the strategy, traders who buy and sell shares and securities on the stock exchange are divided into two categories:

  • bulls (playing for an increase) – enter into contracts for the purchase of securities, and wait for their value to increase,
  • bears (playing for a fall) – their contracts for the sale after a decrease in the value of securities will allow you to buy new ones cheaper, remaining with a profit.

Traders on the stock exchange, when there was no Internet trading, had their own terminology, classification (“trader in the hall”, “trader at the monitor”, “trader in the pit”), and even sign language for basic actions. nine0003

TeleTrade Exchange of Traders

TeleTrade Exchange of Traders is a unique project of the Traders Exchange LLC of the same name. The project was launched in collaboration with TeleTrade specialists specifically to provide investors and traders with complete information about traders operating in the market, about investors looking for profitable investment opportunities. Investors through a large trading base from TeleTrade got the opportunity to select a trader on their own, based on public information about the trader. The database of traders from TeleTrade is the largest, most up-to-date and detailed to date. nine0003

Pros of the profession

A trader specializes in trading on stock exchanges, trades stocks, bonds, futures, earning his capital on the difference in the cost of exchange products. The main advantages of this profession are:

  • Absence of any border, income growth ceiling. There are no limits here and everything depends only on a particular trader.
  • In this profession, you can build a career from scratch in the shortest possible time. nine0026
  • Work in some of its part is connected with creativity. As a trader, you are unlikely to ever be bored. You will have to constantly analyze your own results, study the market.

Costs of the profession

Stockbrokers are often denied insurance by insurance companies. It will be quite difficult for a trader to issue a medical policy. For certain reasons, their work is considered dangerous (the danger is rather associated with high psychological stress).

On the stock exchange, the amounts of some transactions are quite huge for a person who has chosen the path of a trader. And large sums of money are always associated with a large responsibility, which will have to be taken on.

Trading will have to be done all the time. Many experts say that this profession is akin to a way of life. At first, it is especially often necessary to study the market and additional information.

Types of traders

Depending on your own view of the market situation, you can confidently identify such types of traders as:

  • Position trader. A trader who is looking for a fairly long-term trading strategy and tries to stick to it. Often, a trader spends several days to complete one transaction. During a decrease in activity in the market, such a trader fixes profits.
  • Day trader – a trader who makes transactions within one trading day. Such traders work with relatively small capitals, therefore, they cannot adhere to longer-term strategies. nine0026
  • A scalper is a trader who makes many transactions during one trading day. One such transaction can last only a few minutes. The performance of each transaction does not always have a positive trend, but their number allows you to come to an overall positive trading result.

Earnings on the stock exchange or who are traders

The essence of the trader’s work is that he carries out purchase and sale operations in the stock/currency markets. Its goal is to make a profit. And the essence of the work is quite simple: buy cheaper in order to sell more expensive later. The object of trade can be currency, securities (stocks, bonds, etc.). In order to carry out such activities profitably, it is necessary to constantly analyze the state of the market, be able to predict the fall or rise in prices for the object of trade, and respond to market changes. nine0003

Professional traders, as a rule, have a relevant financial or economic education, experience in banks, brokerage houses, think tanks or investment funds. However, people who come to trading without basic education are also capable of mastering this activity and successfully trading.

Where the trading elite works

Most of the really professional traders work in investment banks. Here the level of trade is conducted on a fundamentally different level than if we compare such work with the work of a beginner who has settled in the kitchen with a laptop computer. Professionals sit precisely in investment banks: their actions in trading can influence the market situation. In fact, the trading elite can move the market in principle. However, it is quite difficult to get a job in such a bank: interviews are held in several stages and only the best of the best get into the elite. Even a successful independent trader makes sense to get into a hedge fund – this will allow you to work with large amounts of money, reach a new level. nine0003

What a trader should be able to do

A good trader is a person who is able to control his own emotions. A professional must have strong nerves and a stable psyche. Emotions are the main enemy of even the specialist who has calculated everything to the smallest detail. Irritation and anger can only lead a trader to losses.

Learn to stick to the plan before the start of the working day. Learn to stop trading if you lose 50% of your investment. Don’t try to “negotiate the loss” back the same day. Close positions and never win back. It is difficult, but if a trader does not know how to do this, he will not last long on the exchange. nine0003

Always remember that greed and fear are your enemies. And a cold mind is the best ally.

how to make money in trading, starting with $100

2000, USA. Trader Alexander Gerchik leaves the office, gets into his car and starts screaming. This is how he reacts to the first $1 million he made trading a few hours ago. After a couple of months, Alexander will repeat his success – and will scream again. “Such a reaction helps to understand that this is really happening. I treat every million like this,” says Alexander. nine0003

In a partner article with the educational trading platform Gerchik, Alexander Gerchik told MC.today about how he left a taxi to trade on the stock exchange, why news and politicians’ statements affect the value of shares, and what kind of people can earn $1 million per year.

Project partner?

I learned about the stock market from brokers I took taxis from Wall Street

I was born and raised in Odessa, but my trading journey started in the USA. There after a divorce from my mother at 19My father left in 73. And 20 years later, he called me and invited me to his place in New York. I was 21, I came to America and went to work on the second day – it turned out that my father had no money at all.

I was a dishwasher, a parking lot handyman. I worked a little in a real estate agency and even sold one apartment. But when my father and I once had a fight, I decided to go home. At that time, he had already submitted my documents for a green card and insisted that I linger. I agreed. A year later they gave me a card, and I stayed in America. nine0003

Started working as a taxi driver and several times drove a man in his 70s to the stock exchange in Manhattan. He worked as a trader. This is a person who trades on the stock markets with his own money and earns on the difference in prices. On the exchanges, it is represented by a broker.

I became interested and got a job as a trader’s assistant. For eight months, I learned the basics and made several successful deals. Then he studied for a broker for four months and received a license that gives him the right to make deals on the US stock exchange. nine0003

In 1998, when I was 28 years old, I started working as a trader. I remember the first time I went into the office, and there it was like in the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street”: everyone is screaming, one earned $5 thousand, the other $10 thousand. The company employed 37 people, and almost all of them graduated from the best American universities. And I have a diploma from the Odessa Technical School and $400 in my pocket. But in the first year I made $198,000 – it was space for me.

One of the best years for me was 2000 when I made my first $1 million. I can’t even explain how I felt when I saw this number on a computer monitor. I got into the car and started screaming with joy. nine0003

One of the most profitable years was 2008, when the crisis began, but in just four months I managed to earn $1.450 million.

It was the hardest and best day of my life. It was a shock state: I have been in America for seven years, many friends have already taken place, they are earning something. Someone became a lawyer, someone a doctor.

It’s like a bazaar: you buy at cost and sell at a higher price

Over time, I began to teach others how to trade. My student Anna opened a brokerage account four years ago and started investing free money in stocks. Sometimes there was more money in her portfolio, sometimes less, but there was no tangible income. Then Anna decided to get into trading. She learned to understand charts of rising and falling stock prices from my free YouTube videos and earned $40,000.

Sign up for the course “Trading. Fundamentals»

A trader buys and sells securities on an online exchange – stocks, bonds, options. It’s like a bazaar: you come with your product, which you bought at cost, and you try to sell it more expensive to make money on the difference. For example, I bought an Apple share for $30 and sold it for $80.

The task of a trader is to buy a stock that can rise in price and sell one that can fall.

To do this, the trader uses two analyzes – technical and fundamental. The first is the analysis of the schedule, it contains 85% of success. For example, if a stock went up for a long time and quickly, at some point it will have a “reversal” – growth and speed will begin to slow down. Often prices “draw” figures on the chart. The trader analyzes them and understands where the stock will move. If a trader correctly determines its movement according to the chart, he will be able to earn both on growth and on a fall. This is the analysis Anna learned from me. nine0003

The second analysis is the news and financial performance of companies for three months, a year.

For example, during the 2016 US presidential race, Hillary Clinton said that if she wins, all private prisons in America will be closed. Immediately after that, shares of private prisons fell from an average of $35 to $14. But when it was announced that Trump won, the price began to rise and returned to the same level in two weeks. This is how politicians’ statements and news influence the stock market. Analyzing them, a trader can buy or sell a share in time. nine0003

How much can a trader earn

I have a student, Maxim Kanate, who is a professional basketball player. With the onset of the pandemic, the team stopped training, and Maxim was not paid for six months. He began to look for new ways to earn money and so came to trading. Maxim started trading cryptocurrency and lost $25,000 in two weeks. But he did not break down and became even more interested in trading. He began to read books, then came to me for a 10-day course, and a few months later – for an annual course. nine0003

I saw a great potential in Maxim – as an athlete he knows how to deal with his emotions. But he did not have enough money to pay for the annual course. I believed in him so much that I gave him my money and continued teaching. Three months later, Maxim increased the deposit by 100% for the first time, and soon repeated this success again.

In trading, you can both earn a certain amount and lose the deposit completely – there are no guarantees. One of my students’ starting amount increased by 300% in eight months. nine0106

But the average monthly income is 2–5%, which is considered a good return. Most students take an average of a year to start making money on the stock exchange. But some get good results in three to four months. There are people who have earned more than $1 million in two or three years. with a job in a bank. And when, after eight months, he began to make progress in trading, he left his main job. nine0003

When I became a trader, I came to the office at 4:15 am and spent five hours preparing to trade. I analyzed thousands of charts, chose companies whose shares I was going to buy, and read the news.

The first year, while studying, I could trade up to 11 hours a day. Now I work no more than eight hours: for about two hours I prepare and study charts, I devote a few hours to trading, the rest of the time I teach trading.

If at first I made two or three deals a day, now there are hundreds. My record is 2 thousand trades per day. I allow my students to spend no more than three or five a day, because they have little experience. nine0003

Trading is a full-time job, you need to devote the whole working day to it. It will not be possible to trade three hours a week and earn good money, this is a myth.

Rules + discipline = guaranteed earnings

Andrey, one of my students, became interested in trading in 2019: he read books, watched charts. A year later, he left his job and devoted himself entirely to this business. I started with my studies: I completed a one-year course with me and found a suitable trading style. It was possible to earn the first impressive money after four months of trading – Andrey doubled the initial deposit. During trading, he adhered to the rule: he turned off his brain and became a robot that acts according to a clear scenario and repeats a certain algorithm. nine0003

Sign up for the course “Trading. Fundamentals»

Success in trading depends on technical knowledge and psychological traits. But if everyone can learn to understand the market, then curb their emotions – no. In the USA, 95% of traders leave the sphere every year. All because of the psychological factor: nothing shows the core of a person and his cockroaches like trading. For example, the worst caste for trading is excellent students, they cannot stand failure. Here are a few rules that will help you not to “drain” money:

  1. Don’t trade with your last money. This creates a psychological pressure that makes it impossible to control oneself. My student Dima was good at trading. But in 2013, he lost $200,000, all of his family’s money. Dima sat out in position – he hoped that the stock would continue to grow. He retired from trading and became a taxi driver.
  2. Always leave the “body” do not invest the amount with which you started trading. Even if you earn a lot. My student Ivan made $1 million out of $10,000 in a year. And four hours later he lost it. Ivan lost only the money that he earned in trading, so it didn’t hurt so much and he remained in the profession. nine0026
  3. If you bought shares and they started to fall, sell them. One day my friend made $70,000, after which the share price went down. Instead of immediately exiting the auction, he waited and hoped. As a result, he lost $ 25 thousand and a year later he left the sphere.
  4. If you get a good salary, take it. In 2006, I lost $15,000 after I violated my own trading rule – instead of taking the money, I did not close the trade and wanted to earn even more. For me it was a small amount, but admitting my mistake became a matter of principle. For the next six months, I lived with my family in a house in the forest and did not trade on the stock exchange. This is my only loss in 23 years of professional trading. nine0026
  5. If there were three losing trades in a row, stop trading – today is not your day. This rule has saved my money more than once.

Where and how to learn trading

In order not to “drain” money in trading, you need to impartially evaluate the chart using technical analysis. This is what I teach on my training platform for professional traders.

I run online seminars and courses on the platform. The distance course 3.0 “Trading from A to Z” is in the greatest demand – a kind of start in the profession, it lasts two months and costs 1197 euros. There are mandatory homework assignments in the course: students track the graphs, describe them, and at the end create their own algorithm. It specifies what to do in different scenarios.

Distance course 3.0 “Trading from A to Z” has an incentive system: students receive points for each test, homework and bonus task. Later they can be exchanged for useful materials, “buy” my other programs with them, and so on. This course is suitable for both employees and top managers and entrepreneurs. nine0003

A student of distance course 3.0 “Trading from A to Z” in three months will be able to look at the chart and with a probability of 80% say whether to buy or sell the company’s shares. I do not allow my students to trade for another two months after the course. It takes time for the euphoria to pass, and the information to digest.

To make trading training successful, I recommend to beginners in addition to courses:

  • regularly study other people’s trades and keep statistics of your own: what tools did you use, which one brought money; nine0026
  • track charts every day – you can do this in the finviz.com service;
  • read stock news;
  • read my book “Active Trading Course” – you can buy it on the Internet;
  • read my trading blog on Instagram and Telegram.

It doesn’t matter if you have $500, $5,000, or $50,000, the training will be the same. But in order not to lose a lot of money due to inexperience, you need to start trading on the stock exchange with small amounts, from $100.

The first steps of a trader who figured out how this business works

First, the trader needs to select the exchange he wants to trade on:

  • The European Exchange is open from 09:00 to 18:30;
  • American Exchange working hours – from 16:30 to 23:00;
  • you can trade on the Pacific Exchange from 00:00 to 09:00 Kyiv time;
  • trading session on the Asian Exchange runs from 03:00 to 11:00 Kyiv time.

On the online exchange, a trader works through an intermediary in the market – a broker. It must be searched on the Internet. After that, the trader opens an account and can buy and sell securities. nine0003

Sign up for the course “Trading. Basics»

Earned money can be withdrawn every day. To a Ukrainian card – via SWIFT transfers, PayPal, electronic and crypto wallets. If the amount exceeds UAH 400,000 per day, you must submit an income declaration once a year. It shows the total profit from all operations, and you will need to pay tax on it. So far, Ukrainian laws do not regulate trading as a type of activity, so income from this business is subject to personal income tax at a rate of 18% and a military tax of 1.5%. nine0003

There is a myth that trading is illegal. 80% of the US population owns shares – through the employer, pension savings, and someone inherited them from their parents. This is a legal activity, and the trader pays taxes on his income.