What is needed to be a “broker”?
You must understand that: So, if you -- the prospective buyer -- are in Waukegan, do you take the train all the way to New York City just to buy 100 shares of stock?  No.  That would be absurdly expensive.  So, you hire an agent in NYC who will broker a deal for you in the exchange. Fast forward 100 years, to the time when instant communications is available.  Why do we now still need brokerages, when the Exchanges could set up web sites and let you do the trading? The answer is that the Exchanges don't want to have to develop the accounting systems to manage the transactions of hundreds of thousands of small traders, when existing brokerage firms already have those computerized processes in place and are opening their own web sites. Thus, in 2017 we have brokerage firms because of history.
For the lenders to sell their positions they need buyers on the other side. For a large brokerage that means they should always be able to find another lender. For many contracts the client may have no idea they are a lender as lending is part of their agreement with the broker I strongly suggest personal referral. Ask all of your friends/family/neighbors/co-workers/dog-sitter what they think of their brokers until you find someone who loves his broker. As for transferring assets, I've found it to be quite easy. It's in the new broker's best interest to get those assets, so he should be more than willing to help. "To trade stocks in India, you need a copy of your pan card, address proof(passport or driving license/electricity bill), income tax return (if you are trading futures & options and currencies), and a cancelled cheque from the bank. You will also need to sign across your recent photographs, and require various other forms from a brokerage house which need to be signed in the brokers presence. If your stock broker trusts you, and you have all these documents, then you CAN open a DEMAT account in India by signing and sending him all these documents. Otherwise you CANNOT, as every single form states that ""this particular document was signed in my presence"", and the stock broker needs to sign under that clause.  Chances are, if you live abroad, no broker will ever trust you with any kind of margin, and therefore cannot make profits from you, so they will not agree to open your account." "For a job doing that kind of stuff, what is PREFERRED is 4 year undergrad at ivy league school + 2 year MBA at ivy league school, and then several more years of experience, which you can sort of get by interning while in school this will of course saddle you with debt, which is counterintuitive to your plans basically, the easy way up is percentage based compensation. without knowing the right people, you will get a piss poor salary regardless of what you do, in the beginning. so portfolio managers earn money by percentage based fees, and can manage millions and billions. real estate agents can earn money by percentage based commissions if they close a property and other business venture/owners can do the same thing. the problem with ""how to trade"" books is that they are outdated by the time they are published. so you should just stick with literature that teaches a fundamental knowledge of the products you want to trade/make money from. ultimately regardless of how you get/earn your initial capital, you will still need to be an individual investor to grow your own capital. this has nothing to do with being a portfolio manager, even highly paid individuals on wall street are in debt to lavish expenditures and have zero capital for their own investments. hope this helps, you really need to be thinking in a certain way to just quickly deduce good ideas from bad ideas" I would suggest equity research, or as mentioned, consulting. You could go into IB. Your main hindrance is your age, how long has it been since you finished your PhD?  Equity Research: you will analyze companies, on an individual and micro basis, and provide macro point of views on the industry etc.   Sales/Trading: you will not get a job in trading, sales...maybe, if you get a bank large enough that has a healthcare/industrial chemicals sales positions, but this is a job that requires you to be able to sell your bank's point of view to large, very sophisticated clients, and provide them with better ideas than other sales guys, so that they will trade with your bank...can you learn finance and the industry fast enough? You would be better off working in a buy side shop (there are tons in boston)  IB: never met anyone that likes ib. depends on the bank but even mid market small banks it is 80hr weeks on avg. bulge bracket its 100. but you would likely start as an associate, (if at all) so that would go down really fast, (3-5 yrs to vp)  If you went to a top tier school, find alum from your school that work at banks and talk to them first, a 30 min conversation with anyone is incredibly useful. Just ask them how to get in. Also make sure you know all the capital markets firms in your area, know what all the fields are from a basic level (read the shit on wallstreetoasis etc) so that you dont waste time when talking to people.   You will likely need a CFA level 1 to get any traction, unless you can find some people that are willing to pull for you, which you will find is actually more simple than it seems - people love helping their alma matter, and every firm is always looking for smart people. anyways, sign up for the december 2012 cfa exam, and download/buy the schweser notes (don't read the actual books) this will be a great refresher about finance and economics even if you don't end up switching careers.  actual answers to your questions 1) yes 2) start as an associate in ib, spend 3 years doing bs, and workin average 90hrs a week, either quit of become vp and start selling work vs doing it 3) ib: immediate sales/trading: immediate, buy side: varies on the firm, size, performance, could be immediate, could be the year after, or you could get fired after 3 months because your phd isnt as useful as they thought it was. 4) mentioned above...a few years, its managable, suck it up 5) no sorry   goodluck Yeah. I'm in my junior year as a political science major but it's not holding my interest and to be honest, I hate it. I've always loved watching stocks and businesses and kept a close eye on financial news. I was just too blind to see that I could get an actual job doing that kind of stuff.    I don't care how long it take to get there, as long as I get there. So maybe finance and stats? I was told that there isn't a real specific degree needed to be a prop trader, but some degrees help more than others. There are several paths of study you could undertake. If you want to learn the fundamentals of the stock market and become a financial analyst, then finance, economics, and accounting (yes, accounting) are all good to study either on your own or in an institution. Furthermore, if you want to study a specific industry, it can't hurt to know a fair amount of the science behind that particular industry. For example, if you want to understand the pharmaceutical or biotechnology industries, knowledge of clinical trials, the FDA's approval process (in the US, at least), off-label uses for drugs, genetic engineering, etc. are all good to know. You don't have to become an expert, but having a firm grasp on the science is extremely useful when evaluating a company's prospects. If you're interested in becoming an algorithmic trader or a quant, then physics, certain fields of engineering, signals processing, applied math, computer science, or econometrics will get you much farther than a standard finance or accounting degree. Most people can learn the basics of finance; not everyone can learn advanced mathematics. A lot of the above applies to learning about the forex market as well. Economics is certainly helpful, especially central bank policy, but since the forex market is so massive and liquid, many mathematical tools are necessary because algorithms play a key role as well. Per littleadv's suggestion, an MBA with a concentration in finance may be an option for someone who already has a degree. Also, an MSF (Master of Science in Finance) or a degree in financial engineering (called an MFE, or ORFE, for Operations Research and Financial Engineering) are other, potentially better options for someone pursuing a more technical career. A high-octane trading firm may not care that you've taken marketing and management classes; they want to hire someone who can understand complex algorithms and design and implement new ones quickly.  Some MSF programs are pre-experience programs, which means that in exchange for taking more time to complete, they don't expect you to have significant work experience in the financial industry. An MBA might require such experience, however. It would be tough to make that move.  The traders at my work look down on the settlements desk, which is wrong because they do great work and without them we wouldn't be able to have a viable business. so thank you for your work! but to answer your question I would suggest making friends with the traders, joke around, find out where they go for drinks and just show up! be outgoing. make friends with them and mention you'd like a shot at it at some point. You don't have to use an agent (broker, as you call it), but it is strongly advised. In some counties lawyers are required, in some not. Check your local requirements. Similarly the escrow companies that usually deal with recording and disbursing of money. You will probably not be able to get a title insurance without using an escrow service (I'm guessing here, but it makes sense to me). You will not be able to secure financing through a bank or a mortgage broker without an escrow company, and it might be hard without an agent. Agents required by law to know all the details of the process, and they can guide you through what to do and what to look into. They have experience reading and understanding the inspection reports, they know what to demand from the seller (disclosures, information, etc), they know how and from where to get the HOA docs and disclosures, and can help you negotiate the price knowing the market information (comparable sales, comparable listings, list vs sales statistics, etc). It is hard to do all that alone, but if you do - you should definitely get a discount over the market price of the property of about 5% (the agents' fees are up to 5% mostly). I bought several properties in California and in other states, and I wouldn't do it without an agent on my side. But if you trust the other side entirely and willing to take the risk of missing a step and having problems later with title, mortgage, insurance or resale, then you can definitely save some money and do it without an agent, and there are people doing that. Off the top of my head I can think of 10 prop shops in Chicago that don't require any sort of certifications.  Most those certification requirements are there only when you are managing outside investor money. I was under the impression you are just trading the firm's capital, not outside investor capital, which is why I asked (which, to me, is the definition of a prop shop.) thanks for the advice, I still have few weeks before my master course starts and would like to do more reading regarding trading, any books that you would recommend ?   Also I always assume that modelling skill is not that important in sales and trading, is my assumption correct ? Modelling is probably one of my weak skills but if it is needed I would like to work further on it   thank you Most big commercial brokerage houses are always hiring and more often than not you will be able to at least score an interview to work in their research/marketing department. Once in the door, it would be much easier to network from the inside as you get to know brokers and their teams. Companies like CBRE, HFF, Marcus &amp; Millichap, JLL, Berkadia, &amp; Cushman &amp; Wakefield would all be good places to look. The fact you have some hospitality management experience is a plus. These company's are hungry for talent that show initiative and interest in the field. Lead with your strengths. THANK YOU so much! That is exactly what I was looking for.  Unfortunately I'm goign to be really busy for 7 days but I'd love to tear through some of this material and ask you some questions if you don't mind.  What do you do for a living now? Still in real estate? Did you go toward the brokerage side or are you still consulting?  What's the atmosphere/day-to-day like? "Think about it this way: prop desks wouldn't exist if trading didn't work.     Part of trading is adapting.  That includes algos, manipulation, housing crashes, etc.  On a practical side, you have to find a way to make money or else you won't last long.  I have heard that it takes longer for new traders to be protifable, but that's second/third hand.   Personally, my first few years were tough, but I still think it's better to try to achieve something and fail than to be content in mediocrity.  Despite wanting to quit a couple times and thinking, ""I should be doing better"", I stuck through it and it's worked out pretty well." "I'm posting this because I think I can do a better job of explaining and detailing everything from start to stop. :) A ""broker"" is just someone who connect buyers and sellers - a middleman of sorts who is easy to deal with. There are many kinds of brokers; the ones you'll most commonly hear about these days are ""mortgage broker"" (for arranging home loans) and ""stockbroker"". The stockbroker helps you buy and sell stock. The stockbroker has a connection to one or more stock exchanges (e.g. Nasdaq, NYSE) and will submit your orders to them in order to fulfill it. This way Nasdaq and NYSE don't have to be in the business of managing millions of customer accounts (and submitting tax information about those accounts to the government and what-not) - they just manage relationships with brokerages, which is much easier for them. To invest in a stock, you will need to: In this day and age, most brokers that you care about will be easily accessed via the Internet, the applications will be available on the Internet, and the trading interface will be over the Internet. There may also be paper and/or telephone interfaces to the brokerage, but the Internet interface will work better. Be aware that post-IPO social media stock is risky; don't invest any money if you're not prepared for the possibility of losing every penny of it. Also, don't forget that a variety of alternative things exist that you can buy from a broker, such as an S&P 500 index fund or exchange-traded corporate bond fund; these will earn you some reward over time with significantly less risk. If you do not already have similar holdings through a retirement plan, you should consider purchasing some of these sooner or later."