How long to get your own book?
Saw a similar thread but curious how this works through the broader industry. Have heard credit traders get books within their first year and others that take longer. Seems like it’s mostly related to seats and needs but is there an average or common timeline?
Can anyone give color on the average time to get a book on different desks? Interested in credit, fx, currencies, derivatives and equities.
Interested in commodities
In a sales seat, but anecdotally based on observations-
Batchmate (macro trader) got his book ~3mos into the job, albeit obv a very small one and circumstances given that desk was severely short-staffed (lots of senior departures etc)
jnr credit trader got his book ~1yr into a job - and this is a decent-size book mind you - think a sector/region HY book
not sure how risk limits n all that shebang work for them tho
A few seniors left so I got my book after 6 months. quant/structured product sales
Its for sure easiest in credit as there are just so many companies and sectors that it is impossible for a desk to cover all of them well. So it makes it really easy to give a junior person a small risk limit in a space that the desk is not active in and see what they can do. Generally it takes a year or so get that look and you will still be doing the grunt work and backing people up while trading that book as well. Most of the time you are just hoping to be in the right place at the right time when turnover happens, it always does and you will get your shot eventually.
To trade it can be as little as a few weeks but not taking any risk
To get your own book at least a year after you start trading
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