(Part 3) Top products from r/FinancialCareers

Though it depends on the area of finance you are in, VBA is a very good place to start out. You already know Excel and I bet it would be an easier sell at work to start using some homebrew macro rather than something else.

If I where you, I would pick up Financial Modelling by Simon Benninga. It's not focused heavily on VBA but does use it where relevant - this just shows that you really don't need VBA for a lot of finance applications anyway (you can do a lot with functions only!). Pick up any Excel/VBA book for the things that Benninga does not cover. A book similar to Benninga is Advanced Modelling in Finance
using Excel and VBA, which I'm not as familiar with as Benninga but it does seem more focused on VBA, if only slightly.

You mention databases, which would be another direction you could go in. Your biggest hurdle will probably be to convince someone to give you access to a database with relevant data - at least while you are still learning. Not to mention that on top of having to learn something like VBA to access the database, you will also have to learn SQL to query the database for data. It's not out of reach but perhaps a bit of a learning curve. I would suggest you find out if your company has something like a Enterprise Data Warehouse or any other databases where you are allowed to hook up and get data from.

Get a sales job somewhere.

Being a stock broker surprisingly has very little to do with selling stocks as it does with growing your assets under management. To grow your AUM you need to learn to sell a lifestyle to a potential client and give them the idea that their money is safe with you. Sales jobs will help structure your pitch.

You need to be able to learn about how you financial instruments work and explain the daily economic events in plain english to people but the expectation isn't to call the market 100% of the time. The firm you work for will have an entire research department to support you and they'll usually do most of the hard work, just read the reports every morning and parrot their advice. I've met IA's that have never made their own call on a position their entire career.

This is one of the careers in finance where you're ability to succeed isn't dictated by your smarts but by who you and your family knows. You could hustle all day but if you don't know any rich folks its going to be a hard uphill battle.

One book that I was given early on that did help me was
https://www.amazon.ca/Serious-Money-Marketing-Mutual-Funds/dp/0943570115

Not the best but it helped point me in the right direction mentality wise.

Are you familiar with the various career paths in CRE? If not, I found this book helpful. I can't say that this is the best book for this purpose, just one that I liked.

If your goal is to work for a large REPE shop (e.g. Blackstone), your best path is to go the IB route.

If you want to get more into development, or working for an operator/sponsor or perhaps even a lender, learn the CRE basics and NETWORK. Learning Argus will also be a huge step. Networking is always important but I think it goes a lot farther in CRE than in other industries. There are plenty of professional groups out there (ULI, NAIOP, ICSC, etc.) that have events catering to younger professionals that can be helpful.

Lastly (and this is more of a personal opinion), people always talk about getting a CFA or any of the other designations but I think getting a real estate brokers license is extremely helpful even if you don't go the brokerage route.

You'll hear this a thousand times but read A Random Walk Down Wall Street. It has a good overview of America's market history, specifically the last decade. Make sure you buy a revised version.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0393352242/ref=dp_ob_neva_mobile

Some people may suggest Intelligent Investor and Securities Analysis but I found them very dated.

Also here is the r/personalfinance reading list:

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/readinglist

www.investopedia.com for looking up financial terms.

www.bloomberg.com for financial news.

Warren Buffet talk on youtube

Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letters

Books-

The warren buffet way will help you analyse companies.

The intelligent investor the book on value investing.

Common stocks and uncommon profits the book on picking growth stocks.

The black swan useful insight into options trading.

Anything and everything by Michael Lewis, he writes so well, his books will give you insight into how the finance industry actually works and they're entertaining; Liars Poker chronicles how the Mortgage Backed Security was created and is a good start.

When you're done with all that, let me know and I'll send more your way! Studying for the CFA helps too as recommended by the other guy posting here but you by no means need a finance/business major.

You're wrong. Optimization in a FE sense is mathematical optimization, not process optimization.

You're effectively preparing for a quant role by taking the degree. Most of what you learn will be of no practical relevance to your intended direction unless you feel that virtue-signalling your intelligence is worthwhile.

Their course book on optimization: https://www.amazon.com/Optimization-Methods-Finance-Mathematics-Risk/dp/0521861705/

You absolutely should not take the course with your target industries in mind.

I would keep it. Studying biology teaches you to approach problem solving from a rational, scientific perspective. That method of approaching markets will be useful. Plus, if you believe Andrew Lo, markets are adaptive much like biology. He just wrote a compelling book called Adaptive Markets. Perhaps you should read it to help you decide. https://www.amazon.com/Adaptive-Markets-Financial-Evolution-Thought/dp/0691135142

Read this:

http://www.amazon.com/The-Practical-Guide-Wall-Street/dp/0470383720

The book covers the basics of what you would want to know going into banking and will help you learn products and jargon. A managing director at MS suggested to me a few years back and it was very helpful.

This book is good for structured credit area: click here

Sounds like this would be a good start: http://www.amazon.com/Valuation-Measuring-Managing-Companies-Edition/dp/0470424656

Read books like this: http://www.amazon.com/Valuation-Measuring-Managing-Companies-Fourth/dp/0471702188
If you have access at your university, get the Vault Guide for Finance.
Join the investment Club.
Get on as many email listserves as you can regarding finance.

I have had a couple of meetings with a financial planner as of late getting some information about the job from him. He recommended this and I'm about 4 chapters in and have learned a ton.

Is this the book your referring to https://www.amazon.ca/Linear-Algebra-Primer-Financial-Engineering/dp/0979757657 ?

https://www.amazon.com/Heard-Street-Quantitative-Questions-Interviews/dp/0994118252/ref=pd_sbs_14_img_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=KM9G1KXVSBXFDH3VBCYE

https://www.amazon.com/Mathematics-Financial-Engineering-Advanced-Background/dp/0979757622

https://www.amazon.com/Little-Book-Still-Beats-Market/dp/0470624159

Work in the industry, what he said is largely true... and has been for a while. the last few hold outs on the industry just started flipping everyone to fee based inflow the DOL started putting pressure off things. You can read when this initial movement started when ML first started moving to annuitized/advisory business: The Supernova Advisor .

Primary difference is at most of these you can offer a breadth of different products to clients once you survive the first 3-5 years. At that point there will always be pressure to do things that maximize income, but you can largely ignore that which you think is improper or does not benefit clients.