My background. No college degree. I began working in finance back in 2012-ish. Literally began at an equities day trading shop. I had no idea what I was doing, and I got ran over. I went into back office, then worked my way into middle office then transitioned into trading at a small hedge fund in CT, trading energy derivatives. Even though I was market making for the fund, I was still spec trading on the side. I made my own strategy over time. The whole pricing products across the curve, trading Illiquid products, constantly hedging my risks, and talking to brokers bored me. So I went into the Army full time, serving in Special Operations as an Army Ranger in the 75th. I'm still serving, but I'm in my 30s and getting burnt out, and my contract ends this year in October. My PnL on an equity curve is pretty low vol and consistent as it is mostly intraday, and I can make money in any regime. My PnL ranges between $20K to $50K per day, maybe even $80K (very rare), and that highly depends on the volatility and my risk appetite. My strategy is similar to a systematic CTA. I'm not here to predict where WTI, natgas or gold will be trading a week from now. I have set conditions and I trade off that model. It can be automated. I just want to know what my options are? I did have a head hunter who was recruiting on behalf of Millennium and BAM reach out to me and I told him, no bs, I don't think my PnL in the range of $1mm to $10mm is something they will sought after. He did say there are one or two man PODs who do have a 7 figure PnL but aren't many, and because my product is more niche (energies) versus rates and equities, it is more forgivable. He asked me if it's scalable and I told them it's not, because it's mostly intraday and I'm not trying to move the market trying to deploy 100mm capital every day. I can do just fine with 1mm because at the moment, I'm currently discretionary, and I can't look at everything at once. A prop trading firm told me they can bring me in as long as I can deposit an insane amount, which is not really do-a-ble, given I blew a lot of my savings being in the Army. To me, trading is boring because it's very individualistic, so even if I make 7 figures trading by myself, I would die from boredom. Would any firm or fund even consider giving me a shot?
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I know you don’t like brokers but in terms of employment there’s an Energy Broker Trader spot at Edgehog in Chicago.
Could be interesting or not. Just trying to do my part
Thanks for your input. Brokering and trading are contradictory. Usually, the bad traders move to brokering because they weren't good traders. Haha. That's not the case with me. Brokering at the end of the day is just sales. Providing color and essentially moving risk from one trader to the next.
Yup. Pretty sure this is a Trader role that’s dealing with primarily brokers. But what do I know
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