I start next summer as a trader for a bulge bracket bank (Fixed income, IRP). I get to rotate about different desks in the group. What computing skills do I need to make myself useful on the exotics desk? And more improtantly which books do I read to get them? I think I just need to knwo excel and how to write macros in vba, but how do I learn how to do this? In years to come I want to move to a hedge fund and so I think I need these skills to seperate me form the competiotion and make me a better trader at the bank. I really want to learn this stuff (and don't want to waste time reading books that aren't much use) and so any help would be most appreciated. thank you.

I guess you should try and learn how to price options in excel using VBA, i.e MC methods or jsut BS. Then build up until you can price things a little more exotic. That way you can make yourself useful by being able to do ad hoc projects for the traders etc..C++ will defo make you useful so get wriitng some option pricing programs. I'd get various option pricing papers and try and code those for fun and calibrate etc. Hope this helps

Iceman,If you want to learn vba, which I think you should before/instead of c++,just go and buy vba programmer's reference and excel 2002 powerprogramming with vba. One month's everyday study spending 2-3 hoursa day and you'll be programming like I did when I started a couple of monthsago.

thanks for you reply. I have looked at this book on Amazon and it says that it isn't really suited to complete beginners (which is what I am, have used excel lots but only for graphs etc). Would you recommend any other books to learn vba from scratch or is this the best book I will find to learn vba? thanks.

The book I first learned from was "Excel Programming for Dummies". It's a bit embarassing to be seen with, but I think it's great for someone who is an absolute beginner. As you get more familiar, then you can move on to the previously mentioned books. Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the bank you're going to will have it's own in-house excel classes.

Indeed, I would like to run a series of books called "XX made hard"

Here is my 2 cents.I would recommend " Advanced Modelling in Finance using Excel and VBA."-Jackson and Staunton. After going through this book try and implement some of the pricing methods in C++. After this, you can read to a book like Excel and VBA for Dummies to learn extra tricks that will speed up your code. If you are going to be on an exotics desk knowledge of C++ will be useful.