I may have found the perfect job for Aspies

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I studied economics and I didn´t have any success in any jobs with finance! . Maybe that is because I didn´t like stocks, bonds, etc... I don´t even read the economics section of the newspaper! It is strange how the aspies are that different. I plan to study physics now. I recommend the books on opitions by John Hull. Paul Wilmott´s books on quantitative finance are also good. I don´t know how much you already know! Strangely one of the books I liked most is about finance, it is Benoît Mandelbrot´s "The (mis)Behaviour of Markets: A Fractal View of Risk, Ruin, and Reward". Good luck.

personally I think academia works out nicely. I have never seen more people with serious cases of executive dysfunction working together under one roof. And somehow managing to make it, mostly, work.

The stock market is, for me, only interesting at the level of pattern and information. I taught myself some stochastic calculus a few years back to see if I could get a more firm theoretical grasph of stock market gyrations. To some extant, I did, but once I learned the basics, I lost interest. Money is not my prime motivator.

Its nice to see people taking an interest in this. as for being a fund manager I'd say why not jsut become a day trader and work from home. or work at a prop firm. its allot eaiser and quicker and youll probably learn faster and its funner and you dont have to have a boss and you can make alot if your good. just as long as you dont follow 99% of the information that is out there you should be fine

I study economics, so I know my fair share. I personally really liked the subjects on stocks, especially Risk Management, because it's very mathematical and also very logical. It's not easy to get a job from the economy side, though, as actual funds tend to prefer pure mathematicians.

It's more than just numbers, though. You have to be able to predict irregularities. And, as Keynes once said, "the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

This is a great topic!
Ever since I was young, stocks etc have been my obsession and yes, it's a pretty "aspie" thing to do. The reason why is that most people don't use a lot of logic to invest. Most people get into stocks when it's very dangerous (high P/E ratios like in 1929, 1987, 1999/2000...) and when things finally go bad, they sell every stock they have at ridiculous losses. That's because people tend to follow other people rather than think for themselves. Using the 90s as an example, somebody might have gotten into stocks because their neighbour - who wasn't even smart or rich - bought a $100.000 car because he bet on technology companies. So instead of learning and understanding the stock market they get greedy and try the same. Which eventually leads to disaster, because when it's easy to make money in the stock market that's what usually happens. People with asperger's don't naturally follow others, but they do like to learn things, hence why they can think independently and pick cheap stocks that others don't buy because the company isn't in a "cool" business or something.

I can talk about this for hours, but I don't want you guys to get annoyed about it (like my family lol) so I'm gonna stop here. Just one thing. In OP you said you look at graphs and try to predict the further stock movements. Don't do this, it's what everyone does and it has no relation whatsoever to the intrinsic value of a stock, always use fundamentals (balance sheet/income account) to make decisions!

EDIT: just one more thing (sorry I really can't stop talking about my obsessions xD) you should read:
security analysis - benjamin graham
the intelligent investor - benjamin graham
value investing - bruce greenwald

Those are pretty lofty goals.

Finance (banking, trading, hedge funds, PE funds) is an extremely networking-intensive job as it's one of the few ways to set you apart from other candidates (this automatically makes it an awful choice for Aspies). Everyone has perfect GPAs from Ivy League schools with internships at the best banks/funds.

You also don't just become a Hedge Fund Manager. Most started off on prop trading desks (bet the bank's own money) at major investment banks and earned a reputation for having the ability to make money in a cutthroat environment. They then had to go out and raise money from wealthy individuals/institutions in order to get started (more networking + schmoozing).

The easiest way for an Aspie to get involved would be to get a PhD/Masters in Physics or Math and try to get hired by one of the High-Frequency Trading funds/desks where you will be writing algorithms all day.

I don't think I could morally have such a job......I could not knowingly be part of the screwing most of the world over so that a few people can make a crap load of money from doing that. I guess I am one of the screwed over sort of.......but yeah and I suck at math and that sounds like it might involve math. So yeah no getting rich for me.

Congrats on picking a topic Aspies can truly thrive in. I don't know I'd you've done so yet but I'd recommend reading "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis. It features a great profile of Dr. Michael Burry and how being an Aspie allowed him to see the mortgage meltdown long before the rest of the market. Have fun in your new occupation.

I don't blame you, some of the worst people are in that business, and they're usually the ones making the most money. I just wanted to point out that not everyone who works in finance is evil or immoral.