Do SAs in S&T actually do any trading?

As Promised.....

From Trader Monthly September 2008

Jeff Lo Age:25 Firm: Citigroup City: New York Trades: Currency, rates, and commodities

Growing up in Hong Kong, Lo heard about the world of bank prop trading from a family friend. Those seeds planted, he made his way to Manhattan, attending New York University as an economics major. After his junior year, he applied for an internship at every major bank on Wall Street. "They all turned me down," he recalls. "Except one."

Lo got that shot at Deutsche Bank, interning one the firm's forex desk. Within a month (he spent his first four weeks e-mailing his boos, Maura Craven, three times a day with trading ideas), a million dollar limit was his to exploit. In the next two months, he generated profits totaling several hundred thousand dollars for the firm.

"That experience sealed it," he says. "I knew prop trading was for me."

In the spring of 2005, still a few credits shy of graduating, Lo snagged a pure prop-trading job at Citi on the firm's Global FX desk -- that family friend from years ago, Wayne Chang, worked at Citi and helped open the door. Lo made the most of it. Mentored by Street veteran Jeff Feig, Lo now runs positions totaling notionally, hundreds of millions, trading everything from spot dollar/yen to Eurodollar options. "My trading style can't be put in a box," he says. "Yout can't trade currencies these days without looking at equities, commodities, rates, everything - it's all intertwined.

"My boss likes to say that if you're comfortable, you probably don't have enough risk on," he adds. "We push it."

"Oh the ladies ever tell you that you look like a fucking optical illusion" - Frank Slaughtery 25th Hour.