GUEST COMMENT: Where have all the real traders gone?
I now work on the trading floor as a trader's assistant. It's a pretty basic job to be honest, less challenging than other roles I have done. However, it's a job with far higher historical probability of getting onto the desk.
Being on the floor is a good feeling. The traders are always cracking jokes, and there's a general sense of enthusiasm on the floor. At other banks I've worked in, traders have been arrogant. It's not like that here, for which I'm glad.
However, I'm finding that trading isn't necessarily as I'd conceived it. My interest in trading has always stemmed from anticipating and acting upon changes in the market. The desk I support isn't of this nature.
No one here cared about gold when it broke through $1,270, or how the market is likely to react to non-farm payrolls in August, or how the US 2yr is a buy. The desk is basically focused on hedging its risk, and making their spread. Which is fair enough I guess.
Having read an elaborate research article a few weeks ago by a senior commodities research analyst, showing that gold was not an effective hedge for inflation and his scepticism over continuation of the rally, I put it to the analyst that the rally was not about inflation, or deflation, simply the fear of debasement of currencies, as governments try and devalue to protect their economies. Gold was at $1,200 then, and it's around $1,340 as I write.
I've made many good calls on the market. However, I'm starting to appreciate that most desks aren't about markets as such - they're about clients.
Positioning yourself to get into trading is one thing, but position yourself to join a desk where you could aptly place your skills is another.
I'm not going to let this phase me. I'm patient. I don't care if it takes me ten years, of middle office, to get a position I want. I'll sit by, and keep doing what I'm doing, honing my skills. Just for that chance, to one day show you guys, how it's really done.
