As a dollars and cents kind of guy who proudly admits to gripping a nickel so hard the buffalo screams (umm, I mean frugal), I have often tried to calculate the costs of educating myself as a trader. I've heard that the education of a trader can be dearly expensive, alluding to those who have blown out their accounts trying to learn this art.
I met with a friend today who saves all his magazines for me to read. It's been a while so there were over two dozen. I quickly discarded the rubbish: Newsweek, Entertainment Weekly, Money, and Kiplingers, to name a few. But among them were my regular favorites: This Old House, Food Channel magazine, Business Week, The New Yorker, Boston Magazine, and Forbes. And in the August 24th issue of Forbes was the annual ranking of Best Colleges.
Because I have a bachelors degree, I often refer to my stock market training as my self-directed masters degree. As such, the costs of masters degrees was particularly interesting to me. For MBAs at the top ten ranked MBA programs out of the list of 50 best programs, out-of-state tuition and fees averaged $96,800. The ten lowest priced programs averaged $48,200. There's no doubt that these are not representative of all MBA programs available. State schools with in-state rates would be cheaper; the University of Southern Maine charges about $21,000 for the 60 credit-hour program. No matter how you slice it, a masters degree is a big financial committment.
What has trading cost me thus far? Down $3800 over 8 months (actually a one day loss), "tuition" is running me about $475 per month on average. If one assumes that a masters is often earned in about 24 months, my "self-directed" masters will cost me $11,400 if I continue on this track.
Yes, I know this is not a carefully considered and well-researched essay. My clumsy point is this: As expensive as trading can be to learn, it still may be the best deal out there. And the best deal of all? We are in charge of the tuition rates we pay.
