My second gig out of undergrad was trading spot at Solly (boss' name was Newman). I still have my Metriplex Global24 somewhere. I Have no idea what goes on in MMing at these banks in 2012, but I'd bet I've been trading FX since you were in middle-school. I was referring to Hathersage and FX Concepts and their proclivity for trading vol.
After I posted the article, I saw the slant more towards bashing the central banks, and knew their #1 defender would rush in!
Most of the fx spot traders in banks are lazy as far as doing specific research on their pairs is concerned. Typically (not always) deepest research that Japanese do is to look at ichimoku, other Asians, Europeans and Americans look at moving averages and news and flow. Front-running every 100mm+ flow is the standard practice. Don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, but a good chunk of their time is spent on comparing their most modern ipads and iphones, on bloomberg chat, on sniffing information about bonuses (who is getting paid how much), on office/desk politics, on evening visits to pubs and finally on trying to seduce fx salesgirls and middle office girls; compared to doing market research. Since modern technology and advent of algos has reduced the spread and availability of real (not fake) screen with every buyside firm, this development has forced the sell side guys to stop the practice of buying 5-10 pips below the market and selling 5-10 above the market. Its obvious that these dinosaurs are finding it very hard to continue being relevant and make money. However, guys who embrace modern technology and even those who rely on traditional fundamental/technical analysis to take their trades but put their 100% into this business are minting money. Heck, I know a guy who is doing algo trading for FX (he works for a major bank's prop desk) and his algos made 10 million+ last year. So, its just a question of whether the traditional fx dealer in the bank is willing to re-tool himself by putting in the hard work or instead continues to harbor his massive ego and not work as sincerely as he/she could.
Atticus, with all due respect, but you miss the point here. This is not a pissing contest contrary to what you may believe. And its not about personal attacks. Thanks for schooling us all on FXC. Most institutional prop fx traders, however, care very little about vol. Maybe you belittle that but most of those guys are not getting off on watching vol creep from 12 to 13 in a month's time. I was serious when I asked you to stay away from topics you seem to only have limited knowledge of. Now I do it in the kind and friendly way maybe this approach sits with you better. If you cannot refrain from personal attacks then you are asking for people to not take you serious aside your core options posts. Maybe that is what you want?
I was not referring to dealers at all (who by my definition are not even considered traders but salesmen). I was talking about institutional prop traders who are to generate pnl without flow information (for most part). No successful inst. prop trader I know gives the slightest credibility to Ichimoku, MAs, and they have very limited access to flow info (aside the chatter with dealers which is 95% of the times pure bs and the other 5% you need to be very careful who is talking which books). 5-10 bucks is generally the minimum that has to be generated just to keep your seat within a prop team, not any extraordinary accomplishment. Big prop traders generally spend a lot of time on the phone talking to as many people as possible. They travel around if given the opportunity to speak to members/staffers of central banks, and attempt every effort to glean as much as possible into what the market thinks about any of the more important econ releases and what have you. I have not found many of them playing with gadgets but maybe its because the ones I know consider houses, women, yachts, and trips their gadgets rather than ipads. Back to my point, liquidity is definitely at historically low levels and the slightest news chatter throws markets into a disarray. Even many hft guys have issues coping with that. I am approached on an almost daily basis by funds that want to migrate from equity space into fx and look for people to bring with them and implement new hft fx strategies. Most of those houses are highly dishonest (especially M......m), out to only harvest new ideas (not particularly new though) and offer ridiculously stringent contractual agreements. I am glad I made it on my own and I am proud to hire and employ people. I never thought it would feel that great to actually be able to provide others with a salary they can rely on to found and feed family.
With all due respect; I will forget more about FX than you'll ever know. To elaborate; I was doing triangular arbs in Lotus while you were doing book reports. GFY, and have a nice day.