Any good books?

Good job starting to get into the technicals so early, that is I think the number one thing that seperates candidates from the average oxbridge applicant.

In terms of books Id suggest:

For general options this is probably my favorite, most practically oriented vanilla options book out there: www.amazon.co.uk/Option-Trading-Volatility-Strategies-Techniques/dp/0470497106/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1389190320&sr=8-2&keywords=Euan+sinclair

Another good one is Dynamic Hedging by Taleb, but only read that after you have some grounding in options.

For FX specific: www.amazon.co.uk/Options-Smile-Wiley-Finance-Series/dp/0470754192/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389189904&sr=8-1&keywords=FX+options

But again, would read the FX one after the first generic vanilla options one.

Couple extra things:

1) An option is a subset of the label "derivatives" (i.e. an option is a derivative but a derivative is not necessarily an option). Derivative is just the all around word for any instrument that takes its value from another underlying security. Thats sort of the official nomenclature. In practice the words are used interchangeably quite a bit, and if someone says they trade FX derivatives it most likely includes options, and on a trading floor options is used for the vanilla options and derivatives as a whole is used for bot the vanilla options and more structured exotic options.

2) Just a word of caution in interviews, try not to every just say you are interested in derivatives trading. In the industry derivatives is very very vague and when a student says that it comes off as them saying a buzzword that they think is in vogue. You want to specify a product/underlying with it (not saying you arent doing this as you clearly are interested in FX, but just saying remember to express the interest in FX as well). Whenever I interviewed and heard someone say they wanted to do derivatives trading I immediately got a liscence to try and trip them up with technical questions because in my eyes they did not know what they were talking about. A CDS is a derivative, so a is a cliquet option on an equity index, as is a vanilla option on a commodity. Someone saying they want to do "derivatives trading" is like saying you want to be a pro athlete. /rant over

3) Watch out with regards to pigeon hole-ing yourself too early. The expectation with spring week applicatns (and summer applicants) is that you dont know anything, so if you say you want to do FX then you better be ready to back that up. Much better to say you have an interest in the more macro oriented desks. Also some banks like for you to be very flexible (ie Goldman's) and so you want to show you have interest in a specific area but are not so focused on it that you are inflexible. GS will expect you to move where it feels you can add most value, even if it may not 100% be your first choice (part of the teamwork culture).

1) For spring interns I think its very much HR focused, I didnt go through this process but i never once saw a CV book on the desk for spring interns. For some if there is some form of assessment center or physical interview there might be some business contact, but in general it will be HR heavy. That is why for these you sort of need to fill the mould (i.e. school, academics, some form of work experience etc), its sort of a box ticking. For summer its a bit different, ive looked through CV books for summer interns to pick out which kids to interview (altho this has already gone through an HR screen, so once again need to tick the main boxes). But the difference is that in the later stages the final decisions and judgement are mostly done by people in the business area, therefore whats important much more is clicking with the interviewer etc. I would say for spring things, as long as you have a good uni, good academics, some relevant work experience (literally anything finance related) and can go through a standard behavioural interview then you should be more than fine. For summer you need more of an X factor if you will (which on the path you are on you should be ok with by then).

2) Uhm, strengths of desks is a funny thing. Somethings its in terms of first mover advantage (i.e. JPM essentially invented the credit derivatives space), and a lot of the time its just willingness to take on risk. Also keep in mind that market share doesnt always equate to P&L. I remember in equity derivatives one bank was basically given leeway to lose XX million for a year to print client flow and get market share with aggressive pricing. They probably gained a lot of flow/market share that year but lost a lot of money. Also be careful about "trying to choose the right bank" or "the right product", these things change very quickly. I always advise to just pursue the product you are most interested and try to land on a desk that does that product the best.

3) I dont have too much experience with spot FX trading, but I personally would avoid anything that is so liquid and for lack of a better work "basic". FX spot is great if you want to take large prop positions because its liquid and spreads are so tight, but I think you really want to not just learn an asset but also a product. Trading derivs just presents more opportunities, its more fun/interesting, theres more exit opps (as a general rule, you can move down in complexity with a product much more easily). Personally, I think flow option sand light exotics provide the perfect balance of product and asset.

4) Well exactly, most of the time spot is the first hedging tool you use. When you trade options the first order risk is delta that is hedged with the underlying. When trading an equity derivatives book for example I could often express views for the underlying just by leaving my delta unhedged or overhedging

5) Uhm I think from the time i was looking from a brokerage trading platform SaxoBank was quite good, but you would have to do more research on pricing and the risk mngt tools they have. (Although you can build a lot of risk management tools in excel just by using black scholes equations in VBA, very rough but can do the trick). But beware, any money you put in you might have to write off as tuition , if you do it properly, as in not just punt around but actually start very small, log results, what you have learnt, then it could be very useful. It doesnt make a CV (so many kids have "brokerage account" on that it doesnt even register, but the value from it comes when you are actually interviewing and can start a discussion. I would be very impressed with someone discussing how they are managing their greeks exposure in their FX options account. On the other hand, if you just say "I bought some calls becausse I thought EURUSD was going to strengthen" id sort of write it off)

If you want, once you get it started you can write a blog on here (I can set up a thread) and just keep a log of the results (then I can help wherever possible).