Basically we would have meetings on
Mondays and express our thoughts so everyone knew what the others were
thinking. We also received info on expected client flows and big deals
we would do in that week that could affect the banks currency position
so we were asked to take this into consideration when opening large
positions.
Making decisions was up to you but it was considered stupid to go against the view of the larger desk - the bank is not making any money if they are $100bar long and you are short $10bar so you try and align your view with that of the larger bank or stay sidelined if you differ. As you make name less traders will oppose your view. Sometimes you trade and keep your cards close to your chest even from the other guys in your team so you don't antagonise them by going against them. Also it doesn't always make sense to have 4 guys and all of them trade in the same direction...why not just have 1 guy with 4 times the limit? Thats where I learned that even between 4 guys trading the same direction you can still have 1 losing while the others win as it all boils down to when you pull the plug.
One guy had quite an elaborate mathematical system and when he left us it was also put to him that the system belongs to the bank so he left it with them. Needless to say about 3 months later the system stopped working (the suspicion exist that he boobytrapped it, but nothing could be proved) and nobody in the bank tried to fix it as it was too complicated if you were not involved from the start.
I think the only real secrets that are kept by a bank is its knowledge of transactions it would have to execute sometime in the future. We definately did not have a magic black box telling us what to trade. Individual traders however did develop their own software like the EA's used by metatrader but this was never bank property as the bank would not know how to use it should the trader not support it. There was once a guy who developed something good on the interest rate desk and he offered it for purchase to the bank. The bank declined (even after his yearly P&L proved it to be consistent) so he took it and left the bank and went to a competitor. The bank only later realised what they have done. The sophistication of certain managers is not always what it should be.
Making decisions was up to you but it was considered stupid to go against the view of the larger desk - the bank is not making any money if they are $100bar long and you are short $10bar so you try and align your view with that of the larger bank or stay sidelined if you differ. As you make name less traders will oppose your view. Sometimes you trade and keep your cards close to your chest even from the other guys in your team so you don't antagonise them by going against them. Also it doesn't always make sense to have 4 guys and all of them trade in the same direction...why not just have 1 guy with 4 times the limit? Thats where I learned that even between 4 guys trading the same direction you can still have 1 losing while the others win as it all boils down to when you pull the plug.
One guy had quite an elaborate mathematical system and when he left us it was also put to him that the system belongs to the bank so he left it with them. Needless to say about 3 months later the system stopped working (the suspicion exist that he boobytrapped it, but nothing could be proved) and nobody in the bank tried to fix it as it was too complicated if you were not involved from the start.
I think the only real secrets that are kept by a bank is its knowledge of transactions it would have to execute sometime in the future. We definately did not have a magic black box telling us what to trade. Individual traders however did develop their own software like the EA's used by metatrader but this was never bank property as the bank would not know how to use it should the trader not support it. There was once a guy who developed something good on the interest rate desk and he offered it for purchase to the bank. The bank declined (even after his yearly P&L proved it to be consistent) so he took it and left the bank and went to a competitor. The bank only later realised what they have done. The sophistication of certain managers is not always what it should be.
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