they want someone to talk on the phone 80% of the time, they obviously want a beginner/amateur. someone who's dependent on information/news to make trades. yeah, it's prolly a good beginner's job. ask 'em how much you'll make and if you need to put up any money - if you do, hang up. sounds like a dipsht firm to me. fx
In a bank, a FX trader acts as a dealer, so he executes customers orders all day long and does a little day trading on his own. Very little time is spent on the phone++
Ckid, I trade for a bank and only trade major forex crosses. We also have about 8 forex 'dealers' and thats where we make the distinction between dealer and trader. The dealers really do spend 80% plus on the phone to clients and clients phoning them. Its their job to get order flow for importers/exporters and some private punters. They are not brokers as they don't 'advertise' rates etc. A major client would phone in wanting to change one currency for another and the dealers do it for them. Therefore they have a good relationship with the clients (to keep the money coming). The dealers rarely if ever take a position not backed by a client's transaction. My job is to make money without any clients just use my own methods to trade (not deal) in and out. Hope this clears it up.
it's my understanding that "bank traders" loose their @$$. isn't that true? then steps in the "head currency strategist" and usually tells the losers to close the losing trade, whereby millions are lost. care to confirm that? fx
no thats not true. you are given risk limits within which to operate should you operate outside of them disciplinary action can be taken - rogue trader issues at the worst. the limits given is agreed upon between yourself and the institution. you live and die by them. a prudent trader will ensure he never pushes these limits. the limits are usually something like - no intraday open positions larger than $50 million. no single day loss larger than $200,000. 5 day rolling loss of $1million. monthly of ... annual loss not to exceed ... so as a trader you will know when you are reaching your loss limits and can close your own position before being forced to close by the treasurer or desk head or whoever oversees your positions. If you are forced to close you are not disciplined and therefore a risk to the institution. they will take action to prevent you from making the same mistake twice! sometimes if you feel strong on a position you will be allowed to keep it open BUT it has to be agreed BEFORE the pawpaw hits the fan. it is true that many institutional traders also loose money within these parameters. some have clients and they make their losses up by charging the clients larger spreads!!! etc. at the end of the day they just say 'ahh the market screwed me today'. these are dealers and not traders. Trading without the backup of clients is 'pure trading' and very easy once emotional issues around money is solved. until that time it is a very hard and difficult road and the main problem i encountered on this road is the huge amount of things you can do at any one time. Discipline and consistency is key. hope this helps
you guys only focus on the negative. like bank fx traders suck and we here scalping odd lots for .0002 are great. Neither is true. be warned. there are many talented disciplined traders that can trade 100,000,000 like people trade 10,000 on this crap.
from my experience in the financial markets (not as trader) over about 6 years i have to say that about 80% of institutional traders i have seen does not make money consistently. yeah they have good periods and bad periods but overall just a small percentage are consistent in their results. a trader might have a bumper year to be followed by a year of drought and then better again. constant performance is rare indeed both with private traders and bank traders. remember the market is a random process. if you match a random process with your own random actions (inconsistent behaviour from trade to trade) you cannot be consistently profitable. control what you can leave the rest to the markets.
Thanks for the help your information is very helpful and I appreciated. I have one more question for you, based on what you said you are basically trading your own account working for a bank. So the deal or payout you get is it salary+commission from your net p/l? And besides trading do you have any other administrative work attach to it. The reason I am asking this is because I am curious as for why some FX traders will work for a bank as others will opt to work for a prop firm.