I am often struck by perceptions both in person and the media of what traders do. Many of them are funny. Most of them are off base, but I find them entertaining! Is there a specific answer as to what traders do or look/act like? I’ll give you my own answer after a few laughs.
Screaming into a phone to control the float! Gordon Gekko at his best. Well,obviously the phone is a less used tool in our world any more. At least for talking on. I’ve made plenty of trades that way, but it’s been a few years. Most of us,the vast majority of us don’t have the power to scream at the people on the other end. We research and trade. Maybe it’s that I’ve never been important enough to get inside information lol, but it is not how I or most traders I know make our living. Still people envision it when you tell them what you do. It is a little sexier than a explaining you look at blinking lights and colors for hours to decide from that data. Meh, let em think.
“Where the hell is Beeks?”. Remember that movie line? Great movie. Shows the hustle of the floor. Very little trading activity like that left. Very little. Again showing manipulation and insider activity. Strange that it didn’t show the stars of the movie being carted away,as they would have been for blatant manipulation. Friends asked often for years if i stayed in Chicago or drove up each day to trade on the floor there. How can you trade professionally from home? Oh how things change,but many still think that. So hey if you think my day is like a classically awesome movie,I’ll take it!
The classic deal making master of the universe trader. Slick talking salesman. Putting together large mergers. Putting the hard sell on a big client to pitch a stock. Then sipping brandy in an oak paneled library wearing a smoking jacket. Yep that’s it. Investment banker/broker/trader all rolled in to one. I often feel this way when staring at charts and screens in my small office drinking bad coffee hour after hour. Yeah, its close to a castle. Kind of. And my fleece pullover kind of resembles a smoking jacket. Well you can wear both of them so they are similar.
So what is a real trader? I don’t think you can give a perfect answer. Firstly, many have different styles that work individually. Might work for me and not you. Our surroundings and work habits will be different. Add in that there are different trading jobs( execution,sales trader,proprietary, hft) and the definition gets harder. So I’ll stick with its whatever you do successfully. I’m sure I’ll come back to this with a few more versions(cloudy ones) of what people think we do.
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# trading #wherethehellisbeeks
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