Learning stock trading financing etc for someone from mathematical background [duplicate]
Security Analysis(very difficult for beginners )& Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham. All about(book series by McGraw) on Stocks,Derivatives,Options,Futures,Market Timings. Reminiscence of a Stock Operator (Life of jesse Livermore). Memoirs , Popular Delusions and Madness of the Crowds by Charles Mackay. Basics of Technical analysis includig Trading Strategies via Youtube videos & Google. Also opt for Seeking alpha free version to learn about portfolio allocation under current scenario there will be few articles as it will ask for premium version if you love it then opt for it. But still these books will do.
"This is a complicated subject, because professional traders don't rely on brokers for stock quotes.  They have access to market data using Level II terminals, which show them all of the prices (buy and sell) for a given stock.   Every publicly traded stock (at least in the U.S.) relies on firms called ""market makers"".  Market makers are the ones who ultimately actually buy and sell the shares of companies, making their money on the difference between what they bought the stock at and what they can sell it for.  Sometimes those margins can be in hundreds of a cent per share, but if you trade enough shares...well, it adds up. The most widely traded stocks (Apple, Microsoft, BP, etc) may have hundreds of market makers who are willing to handle share trades.  Each market maker sets their own price on what they'll pay (the ""bid"") to buy someone's stock who wants to sell and what they'll sell (the ""ask"") that share for to someone who wants to buy it.   When a market maker wants to be competitive, he may price his bid/ask pretty aggressively, because automated trading systems are designed to seek out the best bid/ask prices for their trade executions.  As such, you might get a huge chunk of market makers in a popular stock to all set their prices almost identically to one another.  Other market makers who aren't as enthusiastic will set less competitive prices, so they don't get much (maybe no) business.  In any case, what you see when you pull up a stock quote is called the ""best bid/ask"" price.  In other words, you're seeing the highest price a market maker will pay to buy that stock, and the lowest price that a market maker will sell that stock.  You may get a best bid from one market maker and a best ask from a different one.  In any case, consumers must be given best bid/ask prices. Market makers actually control the prices of shares.  They can see what's out there in terms of what people want to buy or sell, and they modify their prices accordingly.  If they see a bunch of sell orders coming into the system, they'll start dropping prices, and if people are in a buying mood then they'll raise prices. Market makers can actually ignore requests for trades (whether buy or sell) if they choose to, and sometimes they do, which is why a limit order (a request to buy/sell a stock at a specific price, regardless of its current actual price) that someone places may go unfilled and die at the end of the trading session.  No market maker is willing to fill the order. Nowadays, these systems are largely automated, so they operate according to complex rules defined by their owners.  Very few trades actually involve human intervention, because people can't digest the information at a fast enough pace to keep up with automated platforms. So that's the basics of how share prices work.  I hope this answered your question without being too confusing! Good luck!" Venture Capital as others have said is one way. Another way is to become very involved in your start-up community. Go to the events, meet people...etc. Generally you will find that most of the individuals do not have a finance background and may want help from you.   This is one of the ways I stay involved in startups. Exactly the point I'm trying to make though. Everyone's downvoting this guy for making valid points about why HE is choosing not to buy Tesla. Sure if someone disagreed because they, like you said, preferred an optimistic long term analysis of Tesla because of a number of things like Elons track record or Tesla growth and position etc. then they shouldn't have *downvoted* him so it wasn't seen just because they disagreed. They should have argued their reasons why Tesla valuation makes sense.   Instead, peoples are stifling real discussion that helps everyone learn and participate. I am apart of these subreddits to learn more about business and also the world of finance and I think we can all agree that valid discussion about different strategies or preference and their success is one of the best ways to learn. I don't come view the comments of these posts for one viewpoint throughout the whole thread.   Anyway, I think I made my point. Thanks "Surprising that you have a ""finance background,"" but don't know what a cold-calling broker does - he calls people he's never met and tries to bullshit them into buying stock or making some other trade.  You can call people from contact lists obtained from marketing firms, people who hopefully fit a certain income and age bracket best suited to investing.  For some people it's ok, for others it's complete hell.  If you fall into the latter category, your salary being based on how much trading you generate every month can make it even worse.  If you want an idea of cold-calling, call 100 people today at random from the phonebook and try to convince them that they need to buy something." Algorithmic trading at www.quantopian.com or www.quantconnect.com  great for getting exposure and building a portfolio of work. I started at 19 and got very into it (75+ hours a week)... not the best for my grades but good for my wallet. LOL.   I prefer quantopian but quantopian is python based (and has more features, nicer API, pyfolio notebooks). quantopian also has a way for you to make money (contests) and is free. quant connect has python,C++ no research notebooks, costs money to live trade.  For the lols, here's a post of mine about using Twitter posts, ML models, and Tech stocks to yield high returns:   [DANK LINK](https://www.quantopian.com/posts/psychsignal-machine-learning-models-and-tech-stocks) As JoeTaxpayer has commented, the markets are littered with the carcasses of those who buy into the idea that markets submit readily to formal analysis.   Financial markets are amongst the most complex systems we know of.  To borrow a concept from mathematics - that of a chaotic system - one might say that financial markets are a chaotic system comprised of a nested structure of chaotic subsystems. For example, the unpredictable behaviour of a single (big) market participant can have dramatic effects on overall market behaviour. In my experience, becoming a successful investor requires a considerable amount of time and commitment and has a steep learning curve.  Your actions in abandoning your graduate studies hint that you are perhaps lacking in commitment. Most people believe that they are special and that investing will be easy money.  If you are currently entertaining such thoughts, then you would be well advised to forget them immediately and prepare to show some humility. TL/DR; It is currently considered that behavioural psychology is a valuable tool in understanding investors behaviour as well as overall market trends.  Also in the area of psychology, confirmation bias is another aspect of trading that it is important to keep in mind.  Quantitative analysis is a mathematical tool that is currently used by hedge funds and the big investment banks, however these methods require considerable resources and given the  performance of hedge funds in the last few years, it does not appear to be worth the investment. If you are serious in wanting to make the necessary commitments, then here are a few ideas on where to start : There are certain technical details that you will need to understand in order to quantify the risks you are taking beyond simple buying and holding financial instruments.  For example, how option strategies can be used limit your risk; how margin requirements may force your hand in volatile markets; how different markets impact on one another - e.g., the relationship between bond markets and equity markets; and a host of other issues.  Also, to repeat, it is important to understand how your own psychology can impact on your investment decisions. I was a Math-Econ interdisciplinary for my undergrad, have completed my MS in Math Finance, and am currently studying for a Ph.D. in Finance.  Verik's summary of the math required for a MS Math Finance program is accurate.  I'd also want to emphasize practicing your programming skills in general; depending on the professor, they may prefer you work in MATLAB, Stata, SAS, C++, etc., so a basic understanding of programming is helpful.  I can give you book suggestions for a few of these topics (for example, I'm fairly certain the Shreve books are the standard for Stochastic Calculus,) but it may not be much help if you're going to a program that is less quantitatively oriented.  Feel free to message me any random questions you have. I followed Economics by Michael Parkin for my college level course. It does not involve very complicated mathematics (beyond simple arithmetic and interpreting plots/charts). I found it very enjoyable.  Stocks, bonds, and other money market instruments are not covered under this subject usually. They are covered under finance. I normally recommend Hull to people but because you are not interested in mathematics I would recommend Stuart R Veale.