Trading Intern Question
Its halfway through my internship at a boutique. I have presented trading ideas, charts using technical analysis and views about the market.
Yesterday, my MD said its time to put money where the mouth is. He let me use his Reuters account so I can look at live data and recommend trades right away. I waited till I saw a shorting opportunity. I printscreen the chart with my technical analysis and explained why I wanted to short at a certain point. He said ok, talked to his broker and it was executed late yesterday.
Fast forward to today, in Asian hours, it was going in my short direction but when Europe opened today, the price missed my profit target by abit and went up. I looked at the other markets and to my horror, it is a bullish day today. The price hit my targetted spot loss and I am out.
I feel horrible. Its not like I have not traded before. I have so I know sometimes you lose, but in the past, that was my own money. If I lost it, I was accountable for it. Now I have lost the firm's money. Really sucked as well since its my first real trade. I mean if I had won my first trade and then lost at my second trade, the feeling won't be that bad? Money lost for that trade was about slightly more than one month's of my salary. I wonder whether he will deduct this from my salary.
I talked to another senior trader in another firm. He says that my MD approved it, he probably wanted to go short as well. But he said when things go wrong, they blame the juniors first and not themselves. Suck it up he says. Bosses are like that.
Sigh. Anyone got any comments? I don't know whether I got the confidence to face my MD later. :(
anything from: it's in the past, he approved it, sure it was your idea but anyone that takes an interns trades seriously.
tbh given the size of the position, it seems like a great use of a few dollars to test if you're a decent trader.
it's done, learn why it didnt work and what you would do differently. Hiding will make you really easy to fire.
Thing is the firm is not doing very well at the moment. Things were better during the first quarter of the year but things were not looking good for the last quarter for the firm. Thats why I felt more horrible making a loss for the firm. If the firm was very well and stable, I probably won't feel that bad.
You're an intern, most trading interns spend all summer getting coffee and lunch. If anything I'd say this is a sign that he likes you by giving you the opportunity to do something. So you got knocked down, stand back up...
Be a man, talk to him, you messed up, everybody makes mistakes, learn.
Thanks, will find a chance to talk to him.
You can't win it all.
Nobody cares.You're an intern, you want to show that you have what it takes to be a trader then don't let it bother you. The MD probably cares more about your reaction to the loss than to your trade idea. Man up because you're gonna be wrong as much as you are right in this game. Besides it was money the firm could afford to lose or they wouldn't have risked it. I'd be happy if I could use other people's money to trade especially if I lost haha.
You should be grateful to have been given the opportunity. Either he's got money to blow or he believes in you.
thanks for the comments guys. thinking back, it wasn't that bad. It just missed my profit target by a bit. If my profit target was higher, i would have made a profit on my shorts. As I am speaking, the markets are going down but too bad I am out of the trade. sigh.
I wish today was bullish...
This.
BOOYAH SKEEE DADDYYYY
Don't worry about it, you're an intern. I would guess that even a great trader is wrong ~30% of the time. Could of happened to anyone. Be happy that your trade idea was executed in real time - that's awesome.
I might be a little late to this thread, and you probably already talked to him.
So, you took a loss but you stuck to your own rules. That is actually a good sign. Going forward you will always develop rules and adjust them as needed. The most important thing for you, right now, is to stick to them.
I would say that your boss probably expected you to lose money. He knows that he will have to pay something for your education. What he wants to see is if you can stick to the rules you laid out for yourself or not.
No worries man..I am sure your MD might pick on you a couple of times because of the loss, but he won't hold it against you. Same thing happened to me, where I pitched an idea to go long Aussie IB futures ahead of the August central bank meeting. When we went in a 12bp cut was priced in the curve, as of now only 6bp of the cut is priced in. So we lost about 50k on that bet. I was talking to the trader and he was like don't worry about it, and if you say they're cheap enough we can buy more. The positive thing is that now only you can loose the 6bp as opposed to the 12bp from earlier.
Everyone's going to lose, it's more important about how you bounce back. Admit your mistake to MD, say you feel like crap for losing the firm's $$ and maybe even throw in why you messed up/how you might change your analysis moving forward.
Sucks for you that the market decided to overdose on cockiness and shoot the Dow past 13,000, but whatever, it happens. Short bears will see their day once people figure out what an awful Euro bank B.S. looks like.
learn to size
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