Was told to expect a question like this in an upcoming interview. I've seen market making questions before but not involving measuring distance (usually see ones that involve something more easily guesstimated like population). Can anyone help me come up with a reasonable way to attack this question:

How far is it from Chicago to Rome?

Anytime there's a report "out," it affects the stock market either up or down be it retail numbers, jobless claims, agriculture #s, etc etc. Is there a list somewhere where we can check the schedule of what and when they report?

I am taking an investment class this summer and just scratched the surface of options and have a few easy questions I need answered.

Do you actually purchase options? The book explained the idea of options, but did not cover the purchase of them.....
The true question related to this is; what happens to your initial investment if you purchase a call option, its out of the money on its expiration date, and you do not exercise it?

This chapter didn't cover it and the internet just explains to only exercise in the money. I am just confused on what happens if you buy it, don't exercise it, and it expires out of the money. Do you just get your principal back or did you not put any up to begin with?

Thanks

So I understand that the Volcker Rule restricts banks from prop trading with FDIC insured capital/deposits (HF, Private Equity, etc.), but what if a bank uses non-deposit money? For example, capital raised from its own equity or debt, investor funds, profits, are these all part of the 3% exception? I tried searching for this but couldn't really find anything specific. Could someone please clarify for me?

Are there any tools online (or otherwise) that can help me understand how to be a better trader on the sell side? Basically, I deal with a fair amount of BitCoin on a market with a large Bid/Ask spread and for BTC/USD I'm usually on the Ask. I'm looking for help in situations where I have a fair amount to sell and I'm basically setting the market I know that trading is an art in itself but any (even rudimentary) help would be beneficial at this point.

Hello,
what are they referring to when they say,
"goldman sachs has made money every single day for the first quarter"?
how is daily P/L calculated when prop desks are gone?

They've both been skyrocketing recently with another spectacular day for both. Fannie gained 11% and Freddie is up 9.5% for the day. What do you guys think long-term? Will the government let these two ever go private? Will the common shareholders get wiped out?

Where can I view historical price data for call/put options? Not finding it on Google or Yahoo finance.

Hi everyone,

I am at a point in my life where I need some direction and asking the community for their feedback. I am 33 and have been an equities trader with a few prop firms in NY for the past seven years. I only graduated from a community college with an associates degree.

My passion has always been in trading and wanted to know at age 33 with my background what opportunities would there be coming from "prop firms" to get my foot in the door with a real bank?

If LNG is opened up for largely free/unlimited exports, will this likely lead to a new boom in natural gas trading? People i've talked with who work in the industry (E&P) seem very very excited about the possibility of gas exports.

This article came out a few days ago:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/05/17/usa-lng-...

Details the approval of the Freeport LNG terminal for exports.

Are there any news sources or blogs that extensively cover the major macro/policy events of the past few years? For example, the QE/Twist programs, LTROs, etc. And more recently, the OMT and the BoJ mega-intervention? I'm envisioning a 15-20 page article that gives the course of events along with the various risks along the way.

I've recently discovered that my knowledge of these events don't go very far past "buy bonds to frontrun the fed." I'm doing my own research but Im sure WSO can point me in the right direction.

What kinds of fixed income Excel models are used in trading/research? Is it usually just basic duration/PV01 stuff or something more complex? If anyone has a sample model they could share via PM or name some book/website that goes over any such model, that'd be great too.

Thanks, any insight is appreciated.

This has been something that's a complete plague for me for the longest time. As I got older I look pass it but every now and then this comes back to me and haunts me every time I make a trade.

Thinking of buying puts on NFLX. Don't want to short because I think the company has a slight chance of being bought even at its insane valuation that it currently trades at.

Any opinions?

On a tear, thanks to smaller than expected/forecasted losses.

Sure, gross margin is now "positive" (if one thinks 0.2% is positive), but operating income is still negative.

Yet, the market pushed JASO 50% higher today and most of the others are up by high single, low double digits.

Does anyone feel that solar stocks are actually different this time around or is this just another short-term rise before the prices deflate, yet again?

Just out of curiosity, what would be an average daily P/L within a specific group at a trading house ? 50k? 500k?

I am sure it depends of the products being traded, but it would be nice to have an indication of what would a great trading team can do

I think that the answer to this question depends largely on one's trading style. For instance, value investors might believe that the markets are never or maybe sometimes right. Those who rely solely on technical analysis to follow trends may believe that the markets are always right and trades that go against them are because of improper analysis.

I think it would be interesting to hear those with different strategies and how their strategies affect their approach to this question. What do you guys think and why?

I don't quite understand how some of these banks are offering "quant" internships (citi quant, ms strats & modeling, etc.) for undergrads when they don't even require a course in stochastic calculus/monte-carlo siulation as a requirement. I've taken two sem. of stochastic calc and don't believe it's just something you can "pick up" over the summer, so are these "quant" internships indeed legit or is it more that they just call it "quant trading" when really all it is just a normal trading internship.

It'd be great if someone can shed some light on this

Hello Monkeys,

A little background about myself, I am currently in my 1st yr at a BB doing BO stuff and I've been trying every means possible to get into trading. So long story short, I am part of several committees in my bank that does some stuff outside of work and it turns out that one of the members is a director from the prop FID desk. I'll probably get a good 30mins or so chatting with the director during the next event.

How should i strategize or network my way into trading? Any tips?
Should i enquire about the job and express my interest?
How do i impress a trader?

I just started working in a company that trade across the barrel.
Would like to ask any experience oil trader/operator which stream of oil is the most knowledge intensive in terms of operational aspect (e.g. blending).

Hi,

I'd like to know how interest or interest rates are used (if they are used at all) in trading, specifically algorithmic trading.

I was under the impression that for HFT a trading firm creates algorithms to trade at high volumes, does the firm use their own money or a pool of peoples money like a hedge fund?

Also, someone else told me that they leverage money by borrowing and pay interest on that borrowed money to leverage, is that also true?

Does anybody working in the firm, either an algo developer or trader/analyst deal with interest directly?

Thanks.

Hi guys,

I have got 2 offers from the same bank (top 3 american) for summer analyst 2014.
One is on the cross asset structuring desk and the other for credit hybrids trading.
I liked them both very much in interviews, in the next few days someone from each desk is going to call me, what kind of things would you ask?
Also, what would you choose?

Thank you very much.

This has been brought up countless times, however I'm not sure there's good evidence/discussions. The equities business is clearly changing; I know two directors from sales at BB's that suddenly found themselves without jobs.

Would you recommend that someone with a specialized equity skill-set learn debt before it's too late in their career. Talking sell-side ER/S&T etc. but-side is obviously always trying to generate alpha.

Interested to hear your thoughts. Thx

Hello everyone,

I have a second phone interview and a on-site interview for a real-time power trading position. This is a entry-level position with about a year or less of experience required.

I was wondering if any of you guys can give any insight on what questions to expect, what they will be looking for in a candidate, etc. I imagine it will be mostly behavioral questions, since I do not have much experience in energy trading. I just finished an internship at a energy trading prop shop.

Better late than never if you are the Japanese I suppose.

"Japan's economy grew faster than expected in January-March, expanding at its quickest pace in a year on the back of solid private consumption and a rise in exports spurred by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's aggressive monetary and fiscal stimulus."

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/japans-first-quarter...

You can now send money as an attachment. The whole Google I/O event wrapped up today and left us some nifty little tidbits.

You can still send over funds from a connected bank account, but those who prefer to pay with credit or debit cards are subject to an additional 2.9 percent fee tacked on.

You also need to be over 18 to take part in the funding fun, though.

Can anyone recommend any good books on event-driven strategies? I want to learn more about event-driven trading, and it would be great if you guys could shed some light. Thanks.

Is Thomson Reuters Eikon an Acceptable Substitute for Bloomberg?

Hey, guys,

I am a Chinese senior student just got an offer from Corporate Sales in the Commerzbank Beijing branch. Our major products are FX spot, FX forward, structured deposit, etc. I am not quite familiar with this field, so can anyone tell me what is the future career development of a sales person? Thx!