When you ask the punter on the street about trading jobs, the typical answer is of traders taking big risks in high pressure situations to make big profits… yet this fails to answer the variety of trading jobs. Many of these are interlinked, overlap and could not function without each other.
The firm's main research and development office is based in Tel Aviv Israel. It originally specialized in Forex and indices spreadbetting and CFDs but has recently expanded in stock trading also. At the time of writing, eToro has 2.2 out of 5 star on Trust pilot. The comments suggest that the platform offers some impressive features but withdrawing money can be difficult. Having said that, some of the negative reviews appear to be rants rather than constructive criticism. This can be examples of traders losing money through their own recklessness rather than eToro's fault. You should therefore take this reviews with a pinch of salt. OANDA is a global financial services company providing advanced currency solutions to both retail and corporate clients all over the world. In this article, we are going to review this broker’s trading options, tools, platforms, spreads, commissions, security measures, and educational resources to help traders make the right choice. AvaTrade offers a wide variety of trading solutions (spread trading, CFDs, and social trading), and peace of mind with its comprehensive regulation, covering the EU, Australia, Canada and South Africa. Clients can use a variety of platforms for discretionary and automated trading.
Best Award Winning Brokers
Show Search Filters
76% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.
76.6% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider. You should consider whether you understand how CFDs work and whether you can afford to take the high risk of losing
76% of retail investor accounts lose money when trading CFDs with this provider.
Fund managers are typically analytically focused people who will take a strategic long-term view of investments and are prepared to accept short-time under-performance for long-time gain. Fund managers don't normally interact directly with the market as this is the job of dealers.
Also known as portfolio or asset managers, they are influential within the trading community, as they actually wield the funds and take a long-term view in their investments (months and years). They can manage billions on behalf of pensions and wealthy private individuals. A fund manager has the least stressful of the trading jobs in this article.
Fund managers can also manage 'active' funds, so called as a human is actively trying to beat the market, which they seek to sell to the average investor. The rise of index trackers and ETFs has not dented their power. One of the largest ETF providers, iShares, is owned by one of the largest asset managers in the world: Blackrock Inc.
Dealers are precise, organised (they often have to handle multiple large trades) and ideally sociable so they can build relationships with other dealers to help them offload a large potentially iliquid position discreetly. Dealers are important as when a fund manager decides to sell their entire holding (which can run into tens of millions) in say Shell, the dealers will seek to place the order in the market without moving the price against them.
This is to ensure you get the best price. (You wouldn't buy something today if you knew you could get it 20% cheaper tomorrow). Dealers will often call up other dealers to place part of what they are selling in a large chunk. This ensures they are able to quietly sell the holding quickly.
Traders roles are mixture of the above two roles as they will have funds to manage: 'their book' and will likely place their own trades directly in the market. Often seen as the high-octane high pressure job within trading jobs, traders are likely to hold positions for short periods of time, such as a few minutes though usually hours and days are more common. They have much in common with retail day traders.
Traders are usually the first and fastest to spot an opportunity in the market. Although George Soros has gained the credit for famously breaking the Bank of England in 1992, it was actually one of his traders, Stanley Druckenmiller, who first spotted the opportunity. Traders are highly numerical. They can sense and spot an opportunity in a flash and then have the psychology to act on this opportunity.
Sales brokers are focused on selling investment ideas to anyone who will buy them. Within trading jobs this means the fund managers but can also be traders. They are usually employed by big investment banks. These seek to get fund managers to use their dealers to buy a large position in the investment idea. This generates a commission for the investment bank in the process. Sales brokers will need to match analytical skills to spot an investment whilst being able to explain it. They will also be able to have the sales skills to convince fund managers to pay for their research.
Without fund managers to provide the funds for trading, dealers could not exist to get a better price. Traders rely on fund managers to lend them stock. This allows them to go 'short' (when you bet a position will go down) a stock.
Fund managers also contribute 'flow' (i.e. liquidity) for traders to trade in and out of. Sales brokers can be useful to fund managers as they provide them with ideas. They also introduce them to the management of a company they are keen to invest in.
Dealers are needed by fund managers to regularly get them a good (better) price than their competitors. If you imagine that your dealer can sell/buy shares for 0.1% more/less every time you trade and you trade 10 times a year, that is 1% of performance you are gaining or loosing versus a rival!
All these trading jobs have one thing in common. They all interact with the market. This is achieved by either directly buying and selling securities or by creating orders to be executed in the market. What's important to remember is that we may have dreams to perform one role but our skill set may be more suited to another. Research these roles in more depth and compare the requirements with your perceived abilities. This will highlight deficiencies you should work on and whether the role works for you. Don't be disheartened if there are many, as these can be worked on - there is no substitute for hard work!
You May Also Like…
