Anyone been to a trading floor?
Well i am fortunate enough to visit CSFB's trading floor.
First Impressions, the floor isn't like what you see on drama serials with a crowd of people standing, shouting and hand signals in one lump. Its more of people being computers, phones, and occasionally stand,shout, hand signal.
First trader i met, a woman named Yuki Hamasuki. She was conversing in japanese but she can speak perfect accented english too. Way cool... I later found out that she was the MD for FX trading. Power... She went through briefly what her department does and of coz, little of it went into my mind as i could hardly the financial jargon and theories that are involved.
After that, met those who trade bonds. An indonesian girl, Sherly, was previously from the Operations dept (middle office) was a trader there. She too spoke perfect accented English. Traders are reall client focused people and with that, you need good communications skills to communicate to your clients. Especially so when you handle billions of dollars everyday.
Met a few more other traders but the above mentioned 2 were those that left the deeper impressions.
Traders, earn a hell damn lot but the conseqences of a slip up is just too high. Guess that's why i would not want to become a trader. What's a slip up? Having your fears realized in a speculation. Lose a hell lot of money. Money that you can only see in the form of numbers on screens. No physical dollar notes or gold bars. Just too huge an amount.
Of coz, traders have short working lifespans and definitly do not have a good work life balance if any at all. Sometimes we really got to ask ourselves, is this really what i want? Or is there a further cause that i want to fulfill in life.
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