justin88

Bit of a cliche all this trader stuff. How do these guys get in the door? You don't just walk in and start trading because you are street smart. A lot of mythology really. Here is street smart for you: use the information advantage that your firm possesses to make money. Flows / order books / unwitting clients etc. It is not because you are really something extraordinary, maybe just willing and able to use the information advantage at your disposal. It is about having the odds stacked in your favour and being given the opportunity to put capital at risk to take advantage of this fortunate circumstance they find themselves in. The rest is time and place. Ok, you have to have cojones to put on the risk, but the amount of blow ups suggest that they weren't street smart after all, just overly confident. Explains why all traders need an independent risk manager to stop them doing it more often. I accept that you have to have a certain amount of nous to use the privileged information at your disposal to your advantage. This is why CFA is of little relevance. Why have some theory of markets to fall back on, when you can buy a can of pop at $0.5 and sell it to a consumer at $1. That's all we're talking here.