Well, I guess now that the FT says it, then it can be believed by the guys here on the board. Where Next for Equities Traders? By Sarah Butcher 20 Sep 2005 This isnât a great time to be working as an equities trader. In the past four months, both Goldman Sachs and UBS have slashed U.S. equity trading teams by up to 10%. Recruiters warn of more cuts to come, and lower bonuses. âThere will be further redundancies for equities traders before December,â predicts Joe McCann, chief executive officer of McCann & Company, a New York-based executive search firm with a finance specialty. âWhen banks like Goldman and UBS make cuts everyone else has to sit up and take notice,â he adds. âBy some accounts, thereâs a 30% surplus of people trading equities right now: too many people have time to look at screen savers and chit chat about taking holidaysâ ------------------- I've been saying this for a long time now, and yet the people on the board, with dreams of "jobs" on Wall Street as a trader, were still arguing the point. I even used Goldman as a reference. Oh well, we know where the good traders go, they will always thrive on their own. Don
I agree....provided they are "grandfathered in" on the floor of the CME and paying 35 cents for a round turn....it's pretty hard to compete with someone paying 5-10% of what you pay. Don
well its all a question of time frame don. sure i couldnt compete with the locals if scalping was my game (well not with my set up), but trading a more relaxed 10min chart isnt a problem most of the time!!! sorry - didnt want to go down the pointless futs v stocks debate. i tell you what though - this article has NOTHING to do with traders though. it has EVERYTHING to do with institutional brokerage and the way they fill large orders. order fillers like these guys getting sacked couldnt trade themselves out of a wet paper bag. they just sit there making the spread between client & market. not much skill there my friends. REAL traders (ie SPECULATORS) who can cut the mustard wont give a damn about this. they will always be in high demand as they are such a rare commodity (sorry - im starting to talk futures again )
I agree with you about the article and "order takers." Our traders who have been fortunate enough to dually register on the CME (Hi Gennady) have done extremely well with those super low trading costs.....and, if you have done well with "normal"' fees, I certainly respect you for that!! All the best, Don
These guys are the flow traders (aka they execute client orders with minimal slippage and make money with profit). Not the prop desk at GS and MS.
This story has been played out way too often: the order desk guys at Goldman/Morgan/UBS are no different than the market makers that got sacked at Herzog, Madoff, MASH years ago. This should not come as a surprise to anyone as the rise of automation and efficiency from the buyside has has literally "squeezed out" the middleman-man order taker/trader. What <b> SHOULD </b> be chronicled and reported is the rise of the proprietary trader in the investment bank hierarchy, especially in a shop like Goldman. They are the new rock-stars (sorry I-bankers).