FX-related careers

Does anyone work in FX here? I enjoy following the forex market and have been researching different FX career paths, and was hoping to hear from anyone that has an FX-related job. Basically, I’m trying to learn more about the types of roles out there, how to break in, what you like/hate about it, etc. My background… L3 candidate w/Master’s in Finance, 3+ years experience doing attribution/portfolio analysis at an asset mgt firm. Any help is much appreciated.

Someone else will probably be a lot more insightful than me. I looked about getting into the trading aspect of FX. What I found was a lot of shops will charge you a desk fee of $250-$1000 per month. You need about 3-9 months of positive returns before the firm will start throwing client or prop money towards you. Once you get client money, you can make a ton of money as you compensation is almost entirely performance based. It was too risky of a career path for me. I didn’t want to take the risk of losing money for a few months while I prove myself. A successful trader I talked to said out of 10 friends who went into trading, 3 are doing extremely well, 3 couldn’t cut it and had to find a new job, and the other 4 are just getting by. But then again, if you are good at trading FX, your compensation is almost unlimited.

I do FX trading for a MNC, keep in mind we are mainly layering hedges and not speculating.

job71188 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Someone else will probably be a lot more > insightful than me. I looked about getting into > the trading aspect of FX. What I found was a lot > of shops will charge you a desk fee of $250-$1000 > per month. You need about 3-9 months of positive > returns before the firm will start throwing client > or prop money towards you. Once you get client > money, you can make a ton of money as you > compensation is almost entirely performance based. > > > It was too risky of a career path for me. I didn’t > want to take the risk of losing money for a few > months while I prove myself. A successful trader I > talked to said out of 10 friends who went into > trading, 3 are doing extremely well, 3 couldn’t > cut it and had to find a new job, and the other 4 > are just getting by. > > But then again, if you are good at trading FX, > your compensation is almost unlimited. ie. day trading

i too am interested in FX S&T, i don’t know too much about it but i’m guess they sell swaps, steepers, forwards, etc. to banks, corporations, and other multinationals. Also from what i’ve seen MFE/PhD are common requirements. Buy-side i’m guessing they analyze country’s currency based on relative & absolute PPP, BOP, currency reserves, yield premium differentials, etc. and hedge where needed.

Thanks everybody for your responses. Lanikai – FX within a MNC definitely interests me. Is your role part of Treasury or a separate department?

Yes, treasury. Most sell side guys are not phd’s or mfe… Maybe on trading side, but corporate sales is just bachelors degree. Normally banks will split their groups between real money vs corporates. I get access to each bank’s top economists, (have met each from jpm and gs in person) forecast dinners, market color from traders, seminars on different topics (technical trading, fx options, etc…) Each day is differrent in fx, so many things drive that market it keeps it interesting. You need to stay up to date on not only us markets and politics but also whats happening in bric, euro, Asia etc… Let me know if you have any specific questions though

Lanikai – Thanks. Could I email you some questions that I have? If you’d rather not leave your email address here, shoot me a line at bjg23nyc AT gmail dot com.

I was looking for some info on FX S&T and came across this thread. Is there anybody else who works with FX sales? Could you please throw some light on the career, compensation/day-to-day and the interaction between the traders and sales guys. (I’ve read Lewis’ book…). I’m thinking more institutional clients. Lanikai, can you share more? thanks.

I heard “The Practical guide to Wall Street” is a good read if you want to know more.

i trade fx for a long term institutional investor and i think more institutions have started looking at FX /global macro as a different asset class with good diversification benefits …think there are good opportunities with global macro funds though u mite need some prop trading experience first…