The Anticlimax

I was waiting for 25th June for quite a while. Since 5th June, to be precise. After the loss that I had mustered that day, I needed a day that could prompt a big movement in the market. Only a large movement, of course, couldn't be enough to serve the purpose. One must be on the right side of the movement too. The much anticipated FOMC results were due today. These results are notoriously famous for shaking the market in unknown, unpredictable ways. Incidentally, a couple of my large intraday gains, however small, have been on FOMC days. So, I find these FOMC result-days pleasant in a way. A quiet enthusiasm had, therefore, already clustered inside me. Or so I thought.

The environment in the pit few minutes before an important announcement is, if put simply, like the calm before the storm. The pit goes unusually quiet. The intermittent giggles desert the place and one can actually hear the hearbeat. The liquidity in the market suddenly takes a massive dip. The sight of every trader remains glued to the screens while the ears await the news on the radio. It's almost war-like situation. I somehow find this sharp change in the mood of the pit quite amusing.

Anyway, coming back to the FOMC results, the news was pretty much on the expected lines and market movements were rather subdued. A few ticks here and there and we all knew that the much awaited FOMC results were not nearly enough to cheer anyone. But I was glad that I ended the day with decent gains.

One another note, it's amazing how every day of a trader starts with absolutely no knowledge about how the day would turn out for him. Every time one think that all the shades of the market has been seen, its hue changes. The market simply refuses to grow old. And that is what makes this job full of fun. There can and will be difficult days once in a while but that's just the proverbial part and parcel of the game. The important thing is that the captivation this job brings with itself never really diminishes. Confucius once said,"find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life." I am sure he was talking about trading.

The Friday Fiasco

It will take me quite some time to forget June 5. It doesn't come to me as a surprise that it was a Friday. It had to be a Friday. Losing days more often than not happen to be Fridays. Illogical yet true.

The day started with open positions left on the previous night. It was already showing a pretty large number in red. But then, what the heck. 23 out of last 25 trading days had ended with gross profit. I would manage to turn things around, I thought. A decent run of profitable days does fill one with naive confidence which, of course, can backfire.

The non-farm payroll data which hadn't caused much turbulence in the market during last few months was due in the evening. It came, it saw, it conquered. Pure and simple. Whatever gains I had mustered during the last month was wiped out in a matter of minutes. Prashant, my manager, had told quite a few times that market can be a monster. I was aware of that but I guess I had to experience it for myself in order to know and understand what that monster is capable of. Despite the huge loss that I made, I took it unusually well. Though I wasn't too flustered, I knew that I could have avoided a large chunk of that loss.

Most if not all the guys in my pit had made losses in those few insane minutes. After dinner, Prashant took us out for coffee. Quite amazingly, the guys didn't look gloomy at all. Prashant quipped that the money management session that we recently had didn't come our minds ( and rescue) while piling the loss. Trading, as they say, can be learnt only by trading. The work teaches how to do it.

We laughed at each others' losses and mistakes, came back to office, watched Netherlands win a nail-biter against England and left for our respective homes. It was an amazing day for sure. Invaluable lessons were learnt. And how.

The Showtime

Though I have been blogging for last few years, I thought of starting a new blog. A blog that would be devoted to the professional part of my life. A blog where I would be penning down how my profession has changed and has been continuously changing the personality that I have. It's a mere attempt to follow the journey of knowing myself better. Discovering oneself, one might say. I see the process of feeding this blog on a regular basis as a way to help myself getting more deeply involved in my job.

I am a derivatives trader by profession. A relatively new one but a trader, nonetheless. As a college student, I, like most of my peers, didn't know where I would land professionally. To be honest, at that time I didn't really know what to do with my life. But one thing I was quite sure of. In the long run, I didn't want to do something that won't guarantee me happiness. Well, let's not use the word guarantee. That word refuses to appear in a trader's dictionary. Let's just say that I wanted to do something that would give me a decent chance of being happy and satisfied. Chance....well, now that's a word that appears in the trading dictionary every now and then, irrespective of the fact that one word isn't allowed to appear more than once in a dictionary. But then, normals rule don't apply here. Or may be, no rules apply here. That's what this profession is all about: the absence of a rulebook and the presence of a zillion mutually contradicting theories. Call it a complete chaos or even an unhealthy madness but the thing is what's the fun in order and sanity anyway!!