Interview Q: A different "Make me a market" question

Hi guys

I have my first ever trader interview (physical commodities) coming up and could use some help with the following question that's been sent to me to prep on:

"Make me a 2 wide market given the following information: 70 32 39 83 27 50 54 65 66 34"

I know the "make me a market" question has been covered many time but I'm not sure I got this right. Is the answer simply 51/53 based on the mean of 52? Or are there more things to consider, like the direction of the market, trend, volatility, last number of the sequence, skew, etc.?

Has anyone seen this version of the MM question or know how to solve it?

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"azer" Hi guys

I have my first ever trader interview (physical commodities) coming up and could use some help with the following question that's been sent to me to prep on:

"Make me a 2 wide market given the following information: 70 32 39 83 27 50 54 65 66 34"

I know the "make me a market" question has been covered many time but I'm not sure I got this right. Is the answer simply 51/53 based on the mean of 52? Or are there more things to consider, like the direction of the market, trend, volatility, last number of the sequence, skew, etc.?

Has anyone seen this version of the MM question or know how to solve it?

making a 51 @ 53 market when the last price is 34 is a sure way to bring a lot of flow to the desk :)
I have a friend who lives in the country, and it's supposed to be an hour from 42nd Street. A lie! The only thing that's an hour from 42nd Street is 43rd Street!
 

haha that's right, this is what I was suspecting and it's why giving me some problems. It's not a standard "make me a market for a roll of 3 dices" or "make me a market for the number of windows in this room# question.

The problem is that the question doesn't really specify what the numbers are. They could be a price over time, but they could just as easily be random numbers (of an unspecified range) picked from a hat.

 
"azer" How would you price it if you treat it as a prices in time considering a 2 wide spread?
If someone asked me something like this, I'd be 34 @ 36 with a justification that the mean is much higher than the last price and that it had recovered from the similar levels before. But it's a judgement call and an interviewer is looking to to "discuss", in my opinion.

There are a number of market making games that people used to play in banks, the fixing game is the typical one.

I have a friend who lives in the country, and it's supposed to be an hour from 42nd Street. A lie! The only thing that's an hour from 42nd Street is 43rd Street!
 

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I have a friend who lives in the country, and it's supposed to be an hour from 42nd Street. A lie! The only thing that's an hour from 42nd Street is 43rd Street!

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