Sucking as a junior trader
hi all. I've been working as a junior trader at one of the bigger prop shops (Akuna/Optiver/IMC/DRW/Belvedere/SIG) for 6 months now and have been screen trading (options MM) for the past 3 months or so. I have been struggling a lot and my constant fuckups (ex. hedging the wrong way, making shitty markets to brokers, making bad trades in general because I am not processing what's going on in the market, etc) are really taking a toll on my self-confidence and stressing me the fuck out. I understand (nominally) that I am relatively new and shit happens, but in the moment when I mess up and the senior traders are yelling at me, it just feels like I am a gigantic fuckup and just costing the firm money. Also because I'm the only junior trader in my group, it's hard to get a sense of what a normal/expected progression as a trader is supposed to look like and how good I should be at this point.
So given all this, I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on the following: - how long does it take to become a good/confident trader - dealing with fuckups when trading (moreso mentally, I feel like I get pretty tilted when I make mistakes, and that just leads itself to more mistakes) - any general advice that might be helpful to a junior trader
Appreciate the help!
Sit down and write a list (pen and paper):
It's tough when you're just starting out, but as you indicated, you're new and there's a learning curve. With that said, it's your responsibility to maximize your efficiency and optimize your performance.
You're never going to stop fucking up in your life, ever, regardless of how senior you get. Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone will continue to make mistakes - it's human to err. Just accept that it happens, learn from it (this is the most important part), let it go, and improve.
I've actually been through this, getting yelled at for doing and saying the wrong thing as a junior trader. For example, I was losing money when I making market on the screen and I can prop trade on the side but I wasn't communicating with my senior trader on when risk I was putting on and the main boss was going around people's screen to see their fills and he saw me putting up 10 clips and PV01 for that size is a hundred bucks and me being a junior trader, he didn't want me to put that kind of size on because I was also trading a super volatile product. Even worse, I was losing money on it. Another trader took over my seat and he told me to come into his office, I thought he was going to fire me. As I sat there and he asked me who the fuck gave me the permission to put that kind of size on? I told him, I was losing money making market from getting run over and I thought I had conviction on the prop trade but at the EOD, I had no edge. He told me he doesn't care if I made money on it, this business is about trust and when it comes to trading, trust is the most important. I felt like a piece of shit and I told him I'll never do it again. He said if I did, he will take it out of my pay check. Another example, natural gas was trading during settlements and it was my job to look at the outright and report where the prices were heading and my senior trader was looking at our positions across the curve... I said "fifty five and five"... He yelled at me and said "DUDE IT'S FUCKING FIFTY FIVE AND A HALF... JUST SHUT UP!".
if you want to succeed in this business, first own up to what you fucked up on. Did you lose their trust and why? Also when you're outside of work, sit down and read a sit ton of trading books and try to find edge and the way you find edge is by reading something and asking yourself why does it work and what is the rationale for doing this and actually, literally trying it on the screen and improving it with your own touch. The way I gained my edge was looking at the market differently as opposed to just candlestick charts and trying to predict directionally.. No one book will give you an edge because screen time and trying to create various technical strategies plays a huge part. The trading platform that we were using had over hundreds of various indicators and I could create my own, as well, from scratch. When I see these wanna be traders explaining what a stochastic indicator is and the first thing they say is "overbought/oversold". This is what I said initially too... He screamed, "NO THE FUCK ITS NOT!!! IF SO, WHY?! EXPLAIN IT. GIVE ME THE FUCKING MATH BEHIND IT" and he literally yelled and told me to "fucking look deeper" so I can explain it better. I remember my job was to look for various strategies and he told me write a list of shit that works and what doesn't work and why. I think having a boss like him made me realize trading isn't simplistic and just giving binary answer. You always need to back it up with the rationale for doing it and explaining the outcome thoroughly, you need to have a level of curiosity, experimenting, why it works and doesn't work and talking like a trader and thinking like one is what elevates a junior trader into a senior trader.
On the hedging I'd suggest writing out on your notes or in excel the physical and the derivative portion of what you are trying to accomplish this will ensure that you do not "go the wrong way" and if you are taking orders from others on the hedges just reconfirm the order with them before enacting (completely spell it out). "Buying/selling X contracts of Y; Confirmed?". It might sound overkill but thats the point. Keep your head up everyone makes mistakes but there are no excuses for not learning from them and being careless.
Sorry your rent seeking is being removed