Securities Trader
The world of high finance, buying, selling and trading, corporate stocks, bonds, funds, commodities and currency, is a very risky and potentially very financially rewarding one for a securities trader.
The financial markets are unpredictable, filled with corporate and individual fraud and greed, speculation, government intervention and are risky places, where traders can lose capital, file for bankruptcy and live stressful, high-pressured lives. This happens if the trader makes the wrong trading decisions, or reads the market the wrong way.
For other traders, with educational backgrounds in finance, accounting, engineering, mathematics and economics, who make good trading decisions and read market and stock trends correctly, the financial rewards can be astounding and life can be rich and elegant.
Earnings Potential
With a professional growth rate of 21 percent, between 2006 and 2016, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that a stock trader, primarily stock or equity, had a median annual income of $68,500 in 2008 and that experienced traders of stocks, mutual funds, bonds and commodities, have the potential to earn more than a $145,000 annually. From anecdotal stories circulating on Wall Street, there are reports that it is not uncommon for a securities trader, with bonuses and capital gains, to earn annual million dollar and multi-million dollar fortunes through stock trading and investing activities.
Although not regarded as a pure stock trader, making short-term trades lasting only seconds and usually less than 30 days, Warren Buffett, of Omaha, is the world’s third most wealthiest man and considered a long-term value investor, reported gross 2010 income of $65.9 million to the U.S. Congress recently. In this report, Buffett said that he paid $6.3 million in income and personal gains taxes to the U.S. Treasury. Although Buffett is an exceptional investor with many years of experience buying and selling securities and whole businesses, he is an example of the potential income an experienced securities trader can earn.
Training And Background
Along with a degree in finance or business, a securities trader, if giving financial advice or executing trades for a client or employer, must hold a Series 63 and Series 65 securities license, authorized by the Financial Industry Regulatory Agency. This provides proof that the trader understands the financial markets, financial instruments and regulations and laws administered by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
To be successful in the risky markets, a trader must perform extensive research on the markets and on individual stocks from both a macro and microeconomic perspective and the trader must do extensive research and technical analysis of industries, stocks and markets. This intensive and extensive research and observation is done with the hope that a securities trader will make a profit for his client, as well as himself.
