Do It Yourself Masters in Financial Engineering • Hacker News Board

Re: Do It Yourself Masters in Financial Engineering

#11

Post by joshkaufman » Sat, Jan 22, 2011, 5:05 PM UTC

kmfrk wrote: post #7

joshkaufman wrote: post #3

This is exactly what I did with business, instead of getting an MBA or a PhD. Here's my reading list: http://personalmba.com/best-business-books/ Here's the book I wrote, condensing what I learned in the process: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591843529/ I now own my own business, work for myself as a business teacher and consultant, have an enormous amount of flexibility in my day-to-day schedule, and make more t…

Give yourself some credit for going through 99+ books, though; if something doesn't sink in after all that, then you should reconsider the way you read. :)

It wasn't just 99 - it was thousands. The books on the list are just the best. :-)

Re: Do It Yourself Masters in Financial Engineering

#12

Post by noname123 » Sat, Jan 22, 2011, 5:12 PM UTC

DIY Financial Engineering:

1. Sign up for an Interactive Brokers account; state that you want to trade options.

2. Transfer >25K (day-trading capability) or whatever is reasonable amount money for you. Enough for you to care about but not over the amount where if you lost it all, you'd lose sleep over.

3. Now use the highest/lowest volatility scanner and buy/sell some options randomly in that list; max out your real cash to accumulate positions (do not go on margin).

4. Now figure out what the fuck you just did and how much money you are going to lose. This is the most important step, nothing motivates you to learn security analysis, risk management, Black-Scholes/Bionomial Tree option pricing, post-transaction cost analysis than the threat of losing your money.

5. If you get over step 4, then you probably have a strategy that turn over 7% monthly, or turn over 100% annually. Now automate it as much as you can with IB API.

Re: Do It Yourself Masters in Financial Engineering

#13

Post by ecounysis » Sat, Jan 22, 2011, 5:12 PM UTC

kmfrk wrote: post #9

nerfhammer wrote: post #6

I'll just leave this here: http://www.khanacademy.org/

In its current state, Khan Academy's exercises are very basic, once you start following the courses. You learn the basics, but not enough to become an entrepreneur. I've been mulling over a project to deliver more courses in a similar vein, but I'm still struggling with how I'll manage to collate the user-submitted YouTube-videos automatically without mandatory approval on my side.

You're not going to learn enough to become an entrepreneur from any school. You just fucking do it. http://www.cloudave.com/1171/what-makes-an-entrepreneur-four...

Re: Do It Yourself Masters in Financial Engineering

#14

Post by tdyo » Sat, Jan 22, 2011, 5:22 PM UTC

noname123 wrote: post #12

DIY Financial Engineering: 1. Sign up for an Interactive Brokers account; state that you want to trade options. 2. Transfer >25K (day-trading capability) or whatever is reasonable amount money for you. Enough for you to care about but not over the amount where if you lost it all, you'd lose sleep over. 3. Now use the highest/lowest volatility scanner and buy/sell some options randomly in that list; max out your real…

I would subscribe to your newsletter.

Re: Do It Yourself Masters in Financial Engineering

#15

Post by tricky » Sat, Jan 22, 2011, 5:22 PM UTC

joshkaufman wrote: post #3

This is exactly what I did with business, instead of getting an MBA or a PhD. Here's my reading list: http://personalmba.com/best-business-books/ Here's the book I wrote, condensing what I learned in the process: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591843529/ I now own my own business, work for myself as a business teacher and consultant, have an enormous amount of flexibility in my day-to-day schedule, and make more t…

ha! i just picked your book up off the new arrivals shelf at the library. glad to see you're on hn.

Re: Do It Yourself Masters in Financial Engineering

#16

Post by joshkaufman » Sat, Jan 22, 2011, 5:28 PM UTC

tricky wrote: post #15

joshkaufman wrote: post #3

This is exactly what I did with business, instead of getting an MBA or a PhD. Here's my reading list: http://personalmba.com/best-business-books/ Here's the book I wrote, condensing what I learned in the process: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591843529/ I now own my own business, work for myself as a business teacher and consultant, have an enormous amount of flexibility in my day-to-day schedule, and make more t…

ha! i just picked your book up off the new arrivals shelf at the library. glad to see you're on hn.

Great to hear - please leave a review after you read it. Helps tremendously. Thanks!

Re: Do It Yourself Masters in Financial Engineering

#17

Post by jteo » Sat, Jan 22, 2011, 5:30 PM UTC

You go and get a Masters because of 2 reasons

1. Signalling to your future employer / Getting past the HR filter. 2. Networking with others.

Learning something useful is usually a bonus.

Re: Do It Yourself Masters in Financial Engineering

#18

Post by localhost3000 » Sat, Jan 22, 2011, 5:32 PM UTC

wondering how you compete with the MFEs from MIT / Harvard / Yale / [other top school] for that BSD quant job when on your resume it says "I read a lot of free shit on the internet" ?

you don't pay $100k for the knowledge, you pay $100k for a ticket to the party. everyone knows that.

of course, if you want to be an entrepreneur or trade your own $, that is a different story. but this seems unrealistic for any kind of mainstream career move.

Re: Do It Yourself Masters in Financial Engineering

#19

Post by iwwr » Sat, Jan 22, 2011, 5:34 PM UTC

noname123 wrote: post #12

DIY Financial Engineering: 1. Sign up for an Interactive Brokers account; state that you want to trade options. 2. Transfer >25K (day-trading capability) or whatever is reasonable amount money for you. Enough for you to care about but not over the amount where if you lost it all, you'd lose sleep over. 3. Now use the highest/lowest volatility scanner and buy/sell some options randomly in that list; max out your real…

DIY Financian Engineering Lite Edition (TM)

1. Go to Las Vegas

2. Transfer >25K in chips (high-roller capability), or whatever is reasonable amount of money for you

3. Play the tables

4. Figure out what the fuck you're doing while you're doing it

5. If you get over step 4, you probably think you have a solid strategy for winning against a casino. Now, automate the task by getting people to pay you for your new book/DVD and public talks.

Re: Do It Yourself Masters in Financial Engineering

#20

Post by thebigredjay » Sat, Jan 22, 2011, 5:55 PM UTC

It would be great to develop an open directory for all DIY degress. For each degree path you would have a list of freely available resources summarizing what knowledge you need to cram into your head, like you have done. Huurmm... I really like this idea...