One down ....

On the eve of starting my new job, I need to finish up my story of how I got here. I don't know if I will finish tonight, but I am going to give it a shot.

I left my last post having accepted the position with the trading company. However, actually being a day trader was still far from being set in stone. In order to work for the company, I now had to take and pass three NASD exams. For those of you who are unfamiliar, NASD is the National Assocation of Securities Dealers. Two of the exams, the Series 7 and the Series 63, are the same exams that stock brokers have to take in order to be licensed. The third test, the Series 55, is an exam specially geared toward day traders. By passing all of these exams, the NASD feels you are better qualified to trade and allows you to trade on 10:1 margin. (Don't quote me on that last statement.)

The trading company is very strict in terms of performance on the exams. While the NASD will allow you to take the exam as many times as needed in order to pass, the trading company will only allow you to fail each of the exams once. If you did not pass any of the exams a second time, the company would not hire you. Of course, this left me in a very delicate situation with my old employer. Having switched departments and jobs with the technology company, I was now being asked to learn something completely new on an accelerated schedule. At the same time, I was having to master the NASD material for the exams. Needless to say, there were times in the months of December and January where my brain was full. Also, I couldn't broadcast my new opportunity to everyone since if I happened to fail any of the exams twice, I would be disqualified from working there and would still need my original job.

The amount of time necessary to take and pass all the NASD exams is anywhere between 8 to 12 weeks. I won't lie and say the tests were a piece of cake. I studied my butt off for them especially since I didn't have any formal finance training in college. A lot of the material was new to me on all of the exams, but it was very learnable. So any of you thinking about doing this, it is possible, but be prepared to put some time into studying (especially for the Series 55).

On November 29th, I received my study material for the Series 7 and away I went. I spent a lot of time studying for this exam. It was by far the longest at 6+ hours and 250+ questions. I spent all my spare time (and then some) studying over Christmas vacation. In fact, I couldn't really enjoy Christmas time this past year as much as I normally do. I really have to thank my wife for being so understanding during this time. I know I was probably a little overboard on the studying, but I wanted to be prepared and make sure I was giving 100% effort. I was so focused on being ready for this test, and nothing was going to stop me. I used the Dearborn study materials and took numerous practice tests. Finally on January 4th, I took the exam.

The exam is administered in two 3+-hour sections. Each section has 125+ questions. The first half was killer. I remember calling my wife after the first section being totally depressed. The study material just didn't prepare me adequately enough. I thought I was going down in flames. She told me to "get a grip" and "calm down" and "fight through it" ... all the things I needed to hear. I went in to the 2nd section with a better attitude and felt much better about it upon completion. Now came the tough part ... waiting for the immediate test results.

Let me tell you ... nothing is a bigger rush than pressing the button on the test that says "Press here to see your exam results." I had just poured the last 5 weeks of my life into studying for this exam .. I had to pass. I was ready for defeat based on the first section alone, but was hoping for the best. The score popped up ... 88%. Since 70% is passing and anything higher doesn't really matter, some people would say I overstudied. I felt slightly lucky, but at least I had one test down .. the longest one.

Next post ... the trickiest exam - the Series 55 .. and the last straw with the (bad) manager