Saturday, April 12, 2003

Busy Week

Haven't updated my blog for a week, and this time I am not joking when I say that I am swamped with work. A trader went on holiday for the week and guess who got to trade this week? ME! Although I made my fair share of mistakes (confusing buying and selling is NOT funny), and almost lost the bank over 40,000 EUR, I learned so much more about the business this week compared to the whole term. Hands-on experience, ladies and gents, is definitely worthwhile.

So here is a summary of 'experiences' I had during the course of the week:
- Instead of 'selling' to hedge the risk of a 10 million bond I just bought, I pressed the button and 'bought' a whole lot of future options. Reminder: Do not press the wrong button. Luckily I sold all of them at the same price I bought them.. whew.
- Sold 15 million of a bond that I didn't even hear the name of. The sales person came over the speakerbus and asked for a price. Of course, I was a little slow on looking for the bond on the screen so my boss helped me. Afterwards the deal was done, and my boss asked what bond I sold. Uhh.. I hate these accents. Combine that with static over the speaker spells trouble.
- Made some excellent trades where I bought at three cents below the mid-price and sold them right after at two cents above the mid-price. Made the company a good chunk of money. (like 4,500 EUR each trade?)

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