so with trading being as competitive as it is, it's inevitable that there'll be ups and downs along the road. there's never a shortage of 'horror stories' in the news/ social media etc, but what about people's happiest memories in their trading journey to date? doesn't have to be something amazing like hitting the retirement jackpot by betting heavily against cable on night of Brexit (as a few junior guys in NY did apparently), i'm sure it's just as cool/meaningful personally to see a trade you anticipated play out exactly as you thought for me, a few in no particular order have been: - getting the corn trade right in fall of 2016, after doing quite a bit of fundamental work - early on, realizing that technicals do in fact work/ are used by some of the most influential money managers out there (from direct references and comments at professional events), esp. in macro - as compared to the traditional theory taught in school of 'nothing works'/efficient mkts hypothesis/only possible to get tiny outperformance per year if you're lucky, etc. maybe it sounds inconsequential now, but it was a true revelation of sorts for me then - feeling somewhat tempted to join in the momo stock frenzy in 2014/2015 around hyped-up names, but decided to hold back bc didn't want to take idiosyncratic risk, looking back that was right decision
lol, not necessarily, i'm sure some who lurk here on ET are pros, possibly trade on behalf of large portfolios where the $ amount avg. vol per day is rather high, and anyone doing that for some time would quickly get used to the back & forth. so just talking about dollar amounts isn't all that helpful, when the dollar swing on a large AAA bond portfolio could easily outweigh that of a dollar swing on a small tech book was only curious about stories/ interesting experiences of other ppl, which is what ET has been helpful for anyways
My happiest trading memories are from the friendships on the trading floor (AMEX) and the days I lost money, almost went out of business, but had the ability to recover and stay in business.
Buying Fed Funds futures during the US financial crisis and the years after. This was before the Fed gave out all the exact guidance they give now. I was still inexperienced and learning about trading but I was able to see that it was literally free money and sized accordingly
i've heard stories of how floor traders sometimes stake each other with new seed capital if a black swan event or something crazy like 1987 happened- was that true from what you've seen? that sounded like a good insurance policy, although the pressure must have been a lot greater though are most of your colleagues still trading on the screens, or went off to do something else?
They were a small number of floor traders that backed a large group of traders and trained them. I refer to them as the Bridge group because they were all top Bridge players. They would but together a small group of investors to back these guys. I only invested that way twice. As for floor traders bailing out friends to keep them in business, I'm not aware of any of that but it would surprise me. I would say that the X-floor traders come under a few categories. Some are broke and never really found there way after. Some made enough to retire to florida. Some still trade off floor with their own money. Some found jobs at regulators or big banks in non-trading roles. Most found other careers like Money Management, Real Estate sales or sales in general. I come under the category of choosing sales but staying in the industry that I love.
Well I'll throw my my 2 cents in: 2017. Long crypto. Crypto arb(fiat-fiat and fiat-crypto). Crypto trades. Crypto everything. ICOs. Literally printing money.
Long btc from 2010. Transferred to a friend in 2017 for equivalent amount in USD. Told him to sell, he didn't do it. Had to do it this way because I kept failing the KYC process. 2018 shifting portfolio into more stable assets a few months before The Great Correction. Return ended up being something like 20% if you include dividends. Return so far this year is similar due to this rotation. Right now sitting on my hands. 2019 avoiding my friend's penny stock advisory service .
Any time that I have been working on something, found it (even mildly) successful, and then looked into the future and perceived how that newly-finished work product would increase the trading profits or their stability -- *far* into the future. THAT is a kick. The "This can be done!" feeling -- THAT is just (as we used to say) "Tits." (Doesn't matter -- newb or fogey -- having that "Tits" feeling is still the same -- Tits.)