What's it like?

What's it like working at a hedge fund/in a market-based role during times like these? What's going through your head? How do you feel today/this week compared to a "regular" day or are you perpetually in the same frame of mind? Is everybody up all night? What's the look on your boss's face? Is the floor silent or screaming? etc. But then again would you have time to browse wso... --kid who knows nothing about markets

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It’s the most stressful thing I ever experienced. My boss is just stressed out of his mind as our positions are being marked down every. Single. Day. What if we get redemptions? How tf am I going to pay my mortgage. What if we enter a depression and market doesn’t recover for years.

 

It’s important to step off the ledge and remember one important fact - the US has lost nearly zero real wealth in the last 2 weeks. All out of real world physical capital still exists. All of our human capital still exists.

And for stock prices only about 6% of valuation in a dcf is first year earnings. In a couple months we could be back booming. All depends if we can solved the Washington DC babysitter coop shortage of script at scale.

 
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It is obviously a very stressful time, less stressful if you are up and more if you are down, but stressful regardless. The volatility means that being up today doesn’t guarantee anything tomorrow, just look at how many circuit breaker days we have had in the last few weeks (in equities), and then look at the volatility in other markets (bonds, emerging markets, even currencies), the risk of getting caught on the wrong side (and moving positions too often or early) is very real. Obviously depends on strategy and holding period, with the latter mattering, I.e. if you normally look over a few months you aren’t necessarily moving around with ever wiggle, but you are also asking yourself how long this will go on and how it will all shake out.

The biggest question everyone is asking (not just funds) is what now? What happens next week? Month? Over the year? How all of this play out? Matters less for market makers, high frequency, but matters much more for mid/long term strategies (ok stocks have fallen, is there value now?). It’s the same question people ask all the time but without the virus lurking, and without the speed of moves that have happened lately. Normally you can catch yourself when wrong (usually happens over a longer period), less so now.

 

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