I graduated college in 2000 with a double-major in Finance and BIS (programming).
I had three choices:
1) Stay in college to get my MBA so I could become an analyst.
2) Go into the retail side.
3) Become a computer programmer.
As I weighed the choices, it seemed that I could be making the same money immediately as a programmer that I could post-MBA as an analyst--and I'd have a fraction of the college debt.
My friend's older brother did the retail brokerage thing. The system is basically designed to make you fail. The environment is hyper-competitive. You will earn peanuts until you can build a book of business. Only after you have established yourself will you make any money. Basically, the brokerages don't want to pay for you until you prove yourself worthwhile. If you go this route, expect something like 90% of the people you went through training with to be gone in the first two years. It kind of struck me as a used-car salesman kind of environment, but with more educated people. Expect to work ungodly long hours to make sales--and drink heavily when you are not working.
On the stock analyst side, it is even more competitive: longer hours, heavier drinking, less sleep. You have to differentiate yourself. You need to get yourself on TV with some wild predictions--that turn out true (if not, you're toast). You need to be in a big city like New York, St. Louis (A.G. Edwards and Edward Jones are based there, IIRC), Chicago or such.
That was my impression of these two jobs when I looked into it and started talking to people in the field.
I opted for a cushy, 38.75-hour-a-week job without overtime...
