I’ve recently come across some friends who are doing trading out of school but I’ve never truly understood what traders do. I’ve done some research but it’s hard to find all of the info in one consolidated place. Can someone help me out to understand the difference between buy side and sell side traders? What about prop vs. market makers (do these fall under buy and/or sell side)? Are there other types too? Just wondering if I can get a brief job description plus your opinion on these roles on things like lifestyle, difficulty getting into and out of, career paths, and relevance to CFA. Thanks in advance for any help at all.
Generally, buy side = buy/sell stuff to execute proprietary strategies, for example hedge funds. Sell side = issue stuff for customers to buy and make money from flow/commissions/hedging. By this definition, prop traders are buy side and market makers are sell side. Generally, people think buy side is more prestigious but more stressful. I don’t think it really matters. If you are good, you can make a lot of money either way. Both are relatively hard to break into, and few people do it right out of college compared to other jobs in finance.