That still doesn't make any sense. Do you mean he had passed the FINRA Series 7 Exam? Anyone with money can trade, with or without a Bloomberg terminal. Order execution speed will depend on the exact type of order the trader puts in and where he directs it; there are multiple types other than simple market sell orders and there are trade-offs between speed and price. And if he had evidence of his dealer engaging in illegal front running then he should have reported that to the regulators.
Anyway, it sounds like your colleague was just an idiot who didn't understand the basics of professional trading and got in over his head. He should have stuck with buying index funds on a Vanguard account.
> didn't understand the basics of professional trading
I don't know why you are so quick to assume that.. that guy did a year with some large firm before breaking out on his own.. a YEAR of full time I think
> it sounds like your colleague was just an idiot
oh I see, you want to call people that name.. got it
A YEAR of full time means nothing. The big financial services firms hire thousands of entry level brokers and traders. Spending a year in that type of job is not even remotely adequate preparation for setting out on your own. At that point you don't know what you don't know. But there are a lot of overconfident idiots out there, and the real professional traders love to take advantage of them for an easy profit. The Dunning–Kruger effect strikes again.
yes, that is what I thought about it.. that someone was taking advantage of him.. and yes, I agree that a year in a sophisticated environment is not necessarily enough.. You know and I know that people in that field don't need a sophisticated analogy in order to rationalize just .. cheating someone to get more money that day.
I can do a lot more math than the guy I knew in that story, but I would not call him an idiot lightly
You haven't provided evidence of front running or any other form of cheating. Idiots lose money on bad trades every day with no cheating involved, and then they try to excuse their failures by falsely claiming that someone took advantage of them. Math skills alone are only a minor factor in trading.
Anyway, it sounds like your colleague was just an idiot who didn't understand the basics of professional trading and got in over his head. He should have stuck with buying index funds on a Vanguard account.