US
I’ve written on here before, but as a reminder, I am the guy who asked the CEO to help me move out of the middle office. That was six months’ ago. I’m still in the middle office, but I am determined to get out. I know that trading is my vocation.
I entered the City at a bad time. The week my career began, Lehman went down and Merrill was falling apart. At any other time, I’m convinced that I would have gone into trading. At that time, there just weren’t the jobs.
My instinct is a trader’s instinct. For example, when the war in Afghanistan started, I remember thinking that it could go on longer than anticipated and the debt accrued would be bad news for the dollar.
I’ve been trading on my account for sometime. Having blown up several fantasy accounts over the previous year, I got into my stride by October 2008, and went short gbp/usd and short jpy/usd, and closed them out in late Feb 2009 (difficult to believe I know).
I’ve had several lucky calls. For example, I risked 10k going long GBP/USD on the day of the May 2009 interest rate release. I felt sure the dollar was going to weaken, despite our head of FX research saying he was looking for the dollar to strengthen based on various correlations, and despite our FX flow traders being bullish on the dollar according to what there “flows” were telling them. Three weeks later it hit 1.60, and a couple weeks after that, it hit 1.67.
I’ve also made more than a week’s wages at a time through successful gold trades – this was despite being called into inopportune meetings at work when three weeks’ profits were on the line! I’m convinced I’ve got what it takes. Why won’t someone give me a break???!
…yes, you’re so so good. you should set up your own shop instead of begging someone else foe a position
i’ve said it once and i’ll say it again, Gordon Gekko did not wear waist coats. innit. safe.
You’ll get your break kid. Keep trying and don’t give up. If i was in trading, i’d snap you up. But I prefer to rip off my clients by advising them on takeovers that will never work. You are young and hungry unlike most of the fiends with which you work. You bank probably has only two dozen or so good traders. The others are either chancers or risk averse followers. They slate you because they fear you. They are insecure and the only way to feel like a man is to deny you opportunity. If you are good, you’ll make it. If you are so_good, then you wont need a bank – open up your own hedge fund! Let me know if you do the latter, i have plenty of info. Sharing is caring. Laters!
Yet another psychopath….. cue calls from fellow loons to ‘hang in there kid’ and ‘get to the top’. See a psychiatrist.
If you are “built to be a trader”, then why not forgo the layers of bureaucracy in a bank, and trade from your own account full time? This way you have no one to answer to, and keep 100% of your own profits, as opposed to 10%. I would certainly be asking you that question in an interview, if you brought up such claims.
Did you get 5 A’s at A-level? Did you get a first in a heavily quant subject from Oxbridge? Did you also captain a sports team? Where you also the preseident of a society? My guess is no – u prob hit a middle of the road school with BBB at A-level and live in Guildford. That is why you ahven’t been given a ‘chance’. Wally.
manz can’t get da job done………..manz get da beanz????
@Real – where did you learn to spell ? Oxbridge or OXford Brookes ?
@City Kid – how about your losing trades ? You have only cited your winners … presumably you have had some losing trades ?
do you wear hair gel, pointy shoes, a chunky watch, live in Southend married to someone called Tracey, have 2 kids, Jordan and Natalie and holiday in Tenerife. If not any of thse things then forget being a trader.
probably won’t get promoted to be a trader because you are trading your own accounts from work. Master your own job and actually do it, then you might get promoted. Or go to a prop house.
It’s the haircut, for sure
Hmmm. I have a similar trading record – 10 years (started at a very young age!) of PA trading with an annualised return better than Buffett’s. In addition, I have my 4A A-Levels, 1st Class degree in a highly mathematical field from a top uni, 2 years of successful professional trading experience at a (formerly) large IB, another Bulge Bracket on the resume and even a brand new super-mathematical Master’s degree from one of the top universities in the world. I can’t get back into trading again either!
MNBennett & Real – a little deluded and/or naive to be quoting your GCSEs and SATs thinking they are of any real relevance here. I’m with DerivTrader on this one – 100%
@seriously. You are absolutely right, (except maybe the hair gel bit as quite a few of them are old now), if your not from Saf-End and not married to Tracy then you ain’t getting into my shop for certain. They seem to persistently hire essex boys who are very average on the degree/academics on the trading floor. The Old Boys club still lives on unfortunately. I got lucky getting in here as an ethnic! waiting for the racial abuse, it’ll start soon……….
@Real
Classic
@ MNBennett
Did you captain your sports team?
President of a prestigious society?
If NO to any of the above, forget it…
Isn’t it problematic trading your own account given all the internal info you have? In any event the big banks are moving away from pure prop trading (which is what it sounds like you want to do) so you are really barking up the wrong tree…. If you were networking in city bars trying to meet people in prop shops to give you the entry level shot, then I may have more sympathy for your lack of success. And newsflash for you, a lot of those formerly profitable prop traders have been laid off because guess what all those high frequency algos out there have been crowding out that turf…. Dude, good luck, coz you are gonna need it!
Kid, the “proofs” you show for your “trader’s instinct” dont mean anything.
Keeping track of your mispredictions too is what would make it informative.
Otherwise its not more impressive than the flip of a coin.
@Real : people does not need to be Quant to work as a trader.
Agree with ‘ni’ – get to grips with your current role and then you will actually look like a hard working member of the team rather than trying to make 20k in a year blowing 15k the year after, and while treating your role in MO with contempt.
Being a trader is about risk management, through facts (macro/micro) as well assessing the market psychology (charts, mkt sentiments), and some luck in timing.
I think you have some ability in trading but making a link with the depreciattion of the $ over the war in Afghanistan in 2001 misses out lot of other fundamentals at play.
the reality is you are average…
1. Forget about that trading role with your current employer. Theres been a lot of comments here explaining you why, but the most important reason is, in my opinion, that you probably dont even want it yourself. A real prop trader trades his own account, final.
2. Assuming you dont have sufficient capital yet to cover both your cost of living as well as trading your own prop book; keep a low profile in your current job (dont mention your plans/dreams again…), work like crazy, save as much as you can for you own account, write a fully detailed trading plan (trading strategie, money- & riskmanagement, etc…) start applying it in an absolute disciplined way on the higher timeframes….and when youre convinced you can make a decent living out of it (ie. CONSISTENT profitability/ nice Sharpe ratio), just jump! and go out on your own fulltime.
Trading is overrated. Poor traders tend to think that they are great traders. Get over yourself.
I think the real reason for his lack of success, is as he’s spending too much time on reality TV shows. Check out the photo, this guy looks like one half of Jedward
@Simon – that portrait is a silhouette of one member of Jedward and is not representative of the author’s true hairstyle.
Thats a bit of a harsh portrait to use in all fairness Sarah. Unless it is Jedward, in which case I apologise.
I used to work in the back office for 6 years. During that period I had joined a 1 year stock pick competition and I got top 1.5% at the end of the competition. I was trading my own account and I was doing well. I know that I have the capability of a trader but I do not have opportunity for those 6 years.
Suddenly my opportunity came after 6 years. Today I am a FX Sales trader advising high net worth clients on their trades and I am doing well.
Don’t give up, keep trying.
Why can’t people find a proper job and contribute to society for once?
The world needs less traders …..
grow some balls, quit your job and trade full-time.