Can I include my investing/trading activities in my essay?

Really,I din't know that.These markets are having volatile swings each day.So I thought day trading is a good strategy for now.

no on applications...if you talk about doing it on an essay you aren't doing yourself any favors.

Hear it from a zero admit guy from last year who included his own passion for trading in his essays last year. Do NOT use that stuff as a major part of your essay. At best a passing mention is enough. Think about it this way - any point you raise in your essay will be assessed on its impact (mostly on others). Trading is hardly an impact creating activity. Private trading is worse - it is difficult to attach any significance to it. In any case, you mention that you want to move to Strat consulting. This means that the trading stuff and passion for finance is extremely irrelevant as it has no bearing on your aims.

Even if you were wanting to transition to IB, don't be fooled into thinking that ad-com are gonna buy the argument that "I have passion for stocks, I trade actively and now I want to transition to IM/SnT via an MBA." Its a weak argument. You are competing with techies who have worked on goldman (or Lehman/Merryl) trading desks helping traders directly.

It depends.

Have you incorporated your trading activities into a business, i.e. set up an S Corp? How many hours in front of the computer screen do you spend trading and/or watching market activity? With how much of your available assets are you trading? Are you trading stocks? Options? Futures? What types of strategies are you using? What are your monthly, quarterly, and annual rates of return? What is the Sharpe ratio for your portfolio?

I traded full-time from home for the year prior to b-school, and I literally lived and breathed the markets day-in and day-out. I put this into my entrepreneurial essay for the Columbia application, but obviously I didn't get in there. I was interviewed and then wait-listed, and finally rejected at the end of last May. I also applied late in the admissions cycle, so I don't think my writing about my trading activities was the reason why I was ultimately rejected. I had heard from my friend at CBS that the class was already full when I was put on the waitlist...but, I digress.

If you are spending ~ 12 hours per day trading/observing the markets, then I would write about it. If not, forget about it.

Well,I'm not a full time trader.But I do follow the mkt min by min when I work from home.I started with stocks 2 yrs back and now trading stocks,ETFs and options,on both longside and shortside.I also advise my co-workers and friends.I made 75k+ this yr.Not sure whether that is a good amt.


What is S-corp?

75K in this market sounds great to me (assuming that isn't $75K on like $10M of principal heh)... the bigger issue honestly is that there is no congruence between trading and what you want to do. The two are completely unrelated and it would sound awful strange to talk about how passionate you are about trading but how you want to do strategy.

10 million If I had that I would not pursue b-school.

Since this is a public forum,I'm hesitant to put out numbers.But to give u an idea,I started working only 3 yrs ago.Also most of my returns are because of my trading on margin.

You dont have to give me numbers. To be honest, they don't really matter (other than to your bank account of course). I still stand by the prior statement that while impressive, and maybe even interesting, it just isn't congruent to your stated goals.

It's sorta like when you go to a bar and someone says "What are you drinking?" "You reply, oh a Stella." and the guy turns to the bartender and says "That sounds really good. I'll have a Miller Lite."

Ok, bad analogy but hey its 8:20am

Leverage is a double-edged sword. It's a sure way to make a lot of gains as it is a sure way to lose a lot of money. Don't get me wrong, I've traded on margin, and you have to in order to trade futures. Always have a plan with each trade and don't deviate from it. Cut losses quickly. I'm sure you know this already...

rhyme has an excellent point. I overlooked that your stated goal is to do strategy/management post-MBA. If that is what you really want to do, your trading activities don't really apply to that career path.

If you want to relate your trading activities to a relevant, post-MBA career path, i.e. asset management, sales&trading, etc., then by all means talk about it in your essays.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_corporation