To the traders out there
To the traders out there… What do you do and do you enjoy it? If you could’ve done something different as a profession, what would it be?
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Career Resources
I love what I do. I am at an options market maker and love my team, love the intellectual stimulation, love the pay and location, and have zero complaints. There are those firms where people tell you some of the traders/devs/SWEs might stay a little later in the day because they want to not because they have to and that's how I feel right now. I have great WLB and time to hang out with my fiancee on the weekends, grab dinner on the weekdays.
At our shop we're happy to warehouse some directional risk so it's not all immediate off-loading/flow trading, and we're not an agency shop. I feel comfortable pitching trade ideas and putting on prop views, and have learned a lot on the desk. I'm on our institutional/OTC market-making team so we deal with big size blocks/dark-pool type stuff against institutions.
I am very ADHD and the role fits my personality to a T. I have like 3 monitors with a bunch of different charts, some Python code, our central risk book and P/L, etc. If I could've done something different, it would've been launching some sort of entrepreneurial venture although I don't know what I just know that was the kind of role/culture I was looking for and trading fit it perfectly. Few months into the role I'm pitching ideas, taking ownership of risk, etc.
Broke in with a very non-traditional background and thankful for the firm that took a gamble on me as an intern which led to a couple of offers for full time a few years ago.
Cheeky and sarcastic comment here but aren't quants supposed to be super nerdy and have never touched a woman in their life?
LOL, there are definitely a mixed bag of personalities within many of the firms, so it's really easy to find a group of guys you vibe with during the workday; bonus points if it's the guys on your team trading your product as well.
I was in a social fraternity + a powerlifter in college, and also a grandmaster in Starcraft 2 and Global Elite in CS:GO, so I at least have something in common or get along with pretty much everyone. The guys who drink, game, workout, all of the above, etc. although I think many of the gamers at my firm play Dota 2 and League of Legends.
In all seriousness at least at our firm and my previous one, we'd rather take someone who knows 95% of what they need to know and we 100% get along with, over someone who knows 99% of what they need to know and we can barely hold a conversation with. Everyone at these firms are smart so you can easily learn what you don't know, but asking someone to learn new hobbies to fit in with teams doesn't make sense.
I don't really thing of prop trades as quants, although the could be. Quant functions are often separated from the trading function people wise. A lot of prop trading years back, but too many for me to remember, was done in a trading pit like in Trading Places, and there was a physical component to getting a trade done, like getting physically to the broker. Although it started to change after electronic trading began to take over, I think the culture around prop trading still originated in that Era. It is different now as you have many more resources to identify trades, the traders job is more about taking and managing risk and making smart decisions quickly while the Quant's job is usually modeling. Although there could be some overlap.
Some quants fit the stereotype, some don't.
Yes and no, correct on nerdy part, but no on the women part - quants still have chicks, it's just the chicks are mostly average or below in looks department.
Quants make a lot of money yeah, but given how geeky most quants look, and personality geared towards being reserved, quants don't score baddies. Simply don't have the rizz despite the bag. Heck, most quants ain't even stylish.
Can I ask, how did you get into your role currently? Did you always have a feeling this is where you would feel comfortable? Would love to hear your thoughts!
Yes, 100%. I am very competitive; I don't like having structure in a career, and I don't want to "climb a ladder" necessarily. I'd rather be in a career with an incredibly quick feedback loop and the ability to learn and improve rapidly. IB, VC, PE, Consulting, FP&A, Big Tech, etc. none of them are really like that. In IB you work on deals for weeks to months, same with PE, Consulting you're on a long-term stint for 3-6 months, Big Tech you work on the same feature for X weeks - months.
In Trading, you make trades and almost instantaneously know if you're winning or losing. If I go short Vega and CPI print comes out and everyone is buying up vol I instantly know I fucked up or was on the wrong side of the trade. It allows me to gauge what I could've done better to prevent that loss. Was my vega exposure too high and should I have hedged some? How should I have hedged it - should it have been on a monthly basis or something longer dated (what did the term-structure look like)? Should I have entered some spreads, should I have delta hedged it at a different interval, etc. Why did I put the trade on, did I misread the news, was there data I missed, etc.
Same thing if I won. Ok, I won the trade, should I have sized in more, what systematic features of this trade would've told me I should've sized up here, etc. there's a lot of finger in the air, but for Macro PMs and a lot of Macro trading it's experience with previous similar events in the past and knowing what market microstructure setups look like and become patterns. I'm on an options trading desk, I'm not an HFT coder or anything like that but I think the feedback there is even quicker. You can adjust a parameter in your algo and instantly lose 20K (there's a long tweet thread about this from someone who built a desk out and was mentoring a junior)
I don't really think any career has this short of a feedback loop from idea -> implementation -> feedback. Once I knew trading was a career that worked like this I knew 100% I'd feel comfortable here. I'm also very ADHD and all of the negative things about it kind of help me here in the career - being able to multi-task and jump from idea to idea quickly, looking at 6 different screens and processing information, etc.
Ex-trader here and I'm a bit of an outlier here compared to most trader types but honestly if I had come from a wealthy background, I would've studied literature or similiar. I love reading and analzying so wouldn't have been too far.
I work at a market maker and my job is great. I am responsible for routing retail buy orders on heavily shorted stocks from lit exchanges to dark pools so that the price never goes up despite natural buying pressure and lack of selling. On most days these stocks can have 50%+ of volume appearing in dark pools.
I also create phantom shares out of thin air for hedge funds to borrow so that they can continue their "naked shorts" practices. It's a great gig but annoying af that retail continues to direct register their shares.
Really insightful! That’s pretty cool you get to directly work with the dark pool trades.
What do you find helps traders get their edge over others? What types of skills or insight, etc would help one excel in the trader career?
I am in the physical trading space. What I love the most is the people aspect of it. Knowing the right people and managing relationships is the name of the game. Also needing to know operations is a huge boost as it helps you in understanding the logistics of the deal and asking the right questions. Given the qualitative nature of the business I'm not competing with super quantitative people meaning I do not have a disadvantage. I am negotiating on a daily basis which mostly feels good and sometimes bad when you know you are getting ripped off but have no other option. But that is the game and i like it that way.
I'm not really sure what else would I love to have been doing if not this. However, i might have liked marketing if i had taken more interest in it when in school but it did not really pique my interest then.
Awesome explanation of why you enjoy physical. I have a friend who is a few years younger interning at Exxon right now who is interested in physical trading and I'm going to show this post to her regarding what you love the most about physical. Totally makes sense why they have those 2 year TDPs and rotations through scheduling and what not
Is it just me or has there been an influx of commenters and posters about physical? Seems like S&T forum is just about quants and physical these days, and just do everyone knows, you can still make an enjoyable living in macro vol.
Trading is awesome...only career that beats it is pro athlete ;)
And in that you only have 5-8 years at peak performance....in trading you can potentially have 20, 30, even 40 years at your best - no other career that allows you to bet on yourself
cheers to all that make this a career
ps
If anyone has not watched "floored" I would highly reccomend it - gives you an insight to floor trading
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