I thought that I’d mentioned that at the time.
It paid the bills.
I don’t believe that I ever said that it was random chance.
It was serendipity: luck that takes the form of finding valuable or pleasant things that are not looked for.
haha if you won the lottery you would trade all day, gtfoh.
You want something challenging, cure cancer, aids, or any other epidemic out there. You want to better society, construct a plausible city which promotes affordable housing while reducing emissions while keeping nature alive.
Ramos, i thought you PE guys invested, fired half the staff and made the remaining staff work harder, haha.
The only true benefit finance brings to society is the sales guys (and sales women) because we are entertaining, charming, and for the latter case, usually attractive.
http://www.analystforum.com/forums/investments/91327805
Ah, you mentioned it above my post but not in response to the editing. I wasn’t paying attention.
is there anything more tedious and mind numbing than trying to make money in public markets? If that’s your passion I’m guessing you’re a complete bore outside of a computer screen. Even PE is pretty lame if you think about it – you watch/oversee people create value in the real world. You’re basically another annoying hurdle for doers to overcome in order to create something. And this may shatter your fragile ego, but guess what, no one likes you as much as you think they do, and you’re not funny. people who use your capital like having the use of the money you manage, they don’t like you. They think you’re a joke and you add no value to the process of creating something.
I finally wised up and got out of buy side hell to become one of the doers. I’ll make a small fraction of my former earnings in the next couple years, but my life is infinitely better and more interesting.
Some heat in this post. TF ain’t nothing to f with!
Ramos, i suggest you invest in his firm and fire him. Jookkkkeess aside, I’ll see all of you Monday morning.
I’m probably the exception, truly stumbled into finance by random chance.
I was a freakin’ marketing major, totally directionless after college, working crap temp jobs for like $10/hr. Stumbled into some low-level accounting assignment by chance (I bluffed that I even had basic Excel). Pathetic, I know. But it instantly became apparent I was made for it. Excel skills shot thru the roof, surpassing the CPAs in months. Was problem solving and getting the right answer faster/better than people with a real education and years of experience. There were layoffs and they fired 90% of the office, and hired me, which no doubt pissed off the people with a real resume. So I signed up for CFA to catch up. One year after starting in finance I had modeled subprime and called it as unsustainable nonsense, this was back in the early days before most people had figured that out. Do agree there are barriers to entry, mostly you need years of preparation, but natural ability can jump some of those barriers. BTW, this story is not meant to inspire some IT dweeb into entering investment management.
how much do you manage
don’t encourage them PureAlpha sir.
It’s the best I can do. It’s interesting, challenging, analytical, and somewhat fun. If I could have done something more exciting I totally would’ve.
Oh and yea, I freaking love excel
I am not sure if it is me growing up but when I recently hear the “passion about finance” thing, I want to laugh. Unless you are deprived of any basic talent or gift, finance is the limit of your dream horizon and this is trully sad IMO. To me, the passion could be for art, music, fashion, science maybe but … a job in finance… not sure I would buy it))).
Now I see why the whole “finance will leave you dead inside” mentality comes from. I don’t think most people see it like I do. That was why I started this post. I was hoping for some excited conversation on how awesome this stuff is.
I can be the one with the proper perspective in this case as I have had many passions from elite endurance racing to deveopling my own mixed media techniques for large scale landscape painting. In school I studied mathematics, physics and science in general out of the love of it’s fundamental nature. But what I find so fascinating about finance is it is a synthesis of so much that I am passionate about. The fact that it is all about collecting information in spheres from world politics to weather patterns to industry outlook to bahavioral pyschology …to even personal psychology …to asset valuation to derivative instruments and so on…THEN taking all of that and having the creativity and ingenutiy to come up with a strategy. We have the analysis of infromation of the scientist, the love of competition of the athlete, and the creativity/ intution of the artist.
I have not been at this stuff very long BUT, I can say that the more I learn, the more I love it. I started my first brokerage account in February. I can see personally through experience I am right on with the scope of the industry… as least how I perceive the buy side. Every choice you make is a sythesis of the academic knowldege of how the industry works (CFA stuff), the data collected from the world in general, awarness of collective psychology (technical analysis) and the awareness of your own psychology. That last one is actually one of the more difficult to master I have found.
I have learned enough, however, that on the evening of August 23 when the Shanghai broke though it’s “line in the sand” and futures started tumbling, I could connect enough of the dots to be really excited about what was going on. Being at my little trading desk at 9:30 on the morning of the 24th… well that was it… I’m in love for life!
com’on guys… stop being so cool… you know you LOVE this stuff!
^you’re romanticising it. Once you’ve seen behind the curtain, it’s not that impressive. You’d be surprised how basic and unsophisicated many managers are. Many times people just found that doing a certain thing seems to work. All the analysis and ‘intellectual apparatus’ is just window dressing that comes afterwards so it can be sold to institutions. you’d be surprised what passes as compelling analysis for an institution. At any rate, it’s all window dressing to cover your ass. it has very little to do with actual investment performance.
^^ I appreciate that splash of cold water, TF. I can use a trip back to earth every now and then. I tend to have an active imagination.
That being said… if it really does turn out to be way more banal than I can stand, I can just take the money I earn, go get one of those “small house” cabins in the woods, and just paint and trade my own account. Glorious!
^What do you do? You should write seeking alpha articles.
^^ I would like to write SA articles for practice when I have the proper amount of analysis skill to do a half decent job at it. My line of work is… we will just say… unusual. I may be bringing up that topic in the career section at some point.
I’m with KMD on this thread.
I’m bumping this thread! I’m reading Market Wizards and I’m feeling it… 
^when are you going to come to boston and join up for one of our AF get togethers