I would tend to agree more with the article linked below. Human traders have little or no input into trades nowadays, the big money is in high frequency trading on the margins, when this programs go wrong the impact is quite massive. http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/05/high-speed-trading-glitch/

Get a job in a bank or insurance company. They'll train you in and you should be up on your own as an operator in about a year. Its really not to complicated. Only cavet is its mostly shift work, people don't tend to last long at it and don't stay with it for more than 10 years unless they really love working nights. The trick is to get good enough as a mere operator to get into consulating, thats where the real fun stuff is and the money