glyder
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it makes for bland reading and muddles the terms stockbroker / trader.
But what do you expect....
Being a stockbroker for the day - In the know - MSN Him - MSN UK
It's probably fair to say that stockbrokers aren't the most popular people in the country right now. But are they wrongfully reviled?
After all how many of us have had the opportunity to walk a day in their shoes to see just how hard the job can be? We decided to find out by dipping our toes in the water, spending the day alongside those who buy and sell on the international markets to find out just what it's like to be a stockbroker.
A day in the life...
I wasn't exactly sure what to expect as I headed to the Legoland-like skyline of London's Canary Wharf to spend a day alongside the brokers at Amplify Trading, a trading house, which also trains students to prepare them for life on the markets.
From the picture that's painted of them in the press, I turned up fully expecting to find a room full of alpha-male Gordon Gecko types complete with pinstriped suits, red braces and a pretty big chip on their shoulders. The reality however, could not be further from the truth. Amplify's team were warm, welcoming and reassuringly normal. They're the type of guys who could happily grace any office in the country, so where does the stereotypical stockbroker image come from?
"I think there is a misconception of traders," Piers Curran, Amplify's head of trading tells me. "I think people still associate the role of a trader as it used to be ten years ago which was all the boozing and all these guys with their Rolexes and Ferraris swanning around giving a bad name for themselves. That used to happen, but definitely not now, there's no way."
Buy! Sell!
Introductions over with it was time to settle into some serious studying as I got to grips with the basics before being unleashed on the unsuspecting markets. The first thing that struck me is just how much information traders have to contend with. Modern technology has made the traditional image of a trading floor - a city-based area of square footage crammed with people in brightly coloured blazers yelling buy and sell at an alarming volume - all but redundant. Instead I was greeted by a trading suite complete with four computer screens containing an avalanche of graphs, charts and newsfeeds from which I had to syphon off the information I needed to predict the markets' movement.
Glancing over the constantly updated stream of information was like looking into The Matrix. Thankfully Piers was on hand to guide me through the torrent of facts and figures. A seasoned vet with more than a decade's worth of experience, Piers certainly knows his way around the job, so what would he say is the hardest part of it?
"I know it sounds a bit dramatic but it's like no other job...You can't hide behind anyone, as they say 'your profit and loss never lies', it's there in black and white, your performance every day is measured...From an outside point of view that may seem quite relentless but that's my norm."
A pressure cooker environment
Most of us experience stress as part of our jobs; but what struck me about the day-to-day lives of the stockbrokers I spent time with was just how much responsibility rests on their shoulders. Every decision is their own, and the fact that thousands of pounds rest on those decisions only ups the stakes. It's a very personal, very isolated endeavour. But that pressure, as well as being quantifiably judged on each and every decision you make is not for everybody. Amplify's Co-Founder Will de Lucy tells me:
"The biggest challenge is the emotional turmoil you can go through, because I don't think there's any other job like this where every single decision that you make is under scrutiny or under pressure. There aren't many jobs really where even though you're working hard you can actually be damaging what you're doing. As a trader you can have down days, you can have a period where you've worked incredibly hard for nine hours but in fact you've just gone backwards rather than forwards. It's something people find very difficult."
I may not have been trading with real money, but in my short time on the floor I got a taste of some of the highs and lows of stock market trading. Things started brightly as I correctly predicted, or completely fluked, a market drop, quickly notching up a $2,000 profit in the time it would normally take me to make a cup of tea. Revelling in my success I was already predicting how to spend my bonus, but before I knew it my profit was falling. I was so caught up in the thrill that I'd failed to spot the fact that the market had turned on a dime and was heading the other way.
My profits quickly became losses and I was left licking my wounds and nursing my pride a little as Will told me where I'd gone wrong. This is one of the most extreme pressures of working on such a changeable environment. An off day, an off hour, even an off five minutes could spell disaster for your average trader, who at best could miss an opportunity to make a good deal and at worst destroy a decade of work in a few short minutes. It's a rollercoaster ride of emotion.
So why do it?
Life in the financial sector has its rewards of course, as Canary Wharf's collection of well-appointed shopping centres play testament to. But from where I was sitting no amount of money would induce me onto the trading floor every day. The pressure cooker atmosphere alone was enough to put me off for life, let alone the long hours and social sacrifices traders have to make in order to follow their chosen profession. So what does draw these people to the job? Piers tells me:
"The thing about trading is there's no one day that's the same as any other. Every single morning something's going to happen that's never happened before, so it's always about the challenge. 'Can I be better than the rest of the market today?' It's that kind of competitive element and that excitement of the unknown I think and then trying to adapt and analyse and benefit from that unknown situation when it arises. There's never a dull moment, there's no repetition within the job which is a beautiful thing I think."
I ended my afternoon of trading in profit, finishing $1,000 in the green. I'd like to say it's because I was a natural, but in reality beginner's luck and the expert advice of Piers and co played the most important part.
Even though I hadn't spent any real money I was glad to step away from the trading suite. Drenched in sweat and with my heart pounding I can only imagine what it's like to trade for real. I'd walked just a short time in a stockbroker's well-heeled shoes but one thing I took away from the experience is that I'm glad I don't have to do it every day.
But what do you expect....
Being a stockbroker for the day - In the know - MSN Him - MSN UK
It's probably fair to say that stockbrokers aren't the most popular people in the country right now. But are they wrongfully reviled?
After all how many of us have had the opportunity to walk a day in their shoes to see just how hard the job can be? We decided to find out by dipping our toes in the water, spending the day alongside those who buy and sell on the international markets to find out just what it's like to be a stockbroker.
A day in the life...
I wasn't exactly sure what to expect as I headed to the Legoland-like skyline of London's Canary Wharf to spend a day alongside the brokers at Amplify Trading, a trading house, which also trains students to prepare them for life on the markets.
From the picture that's painted of them in the press, I turned up fully expecting to find a room full of alpha-male Gordon Gecko types complete with pinstriped suits, red braces and a pretty big chip on their shoulders. The reality however, could not be further from the truth. Amplify's team were warm, welcoming and reassuringly normal. They're the type of guys who could happily grace any office in the country, so where does the stereotypical stockbroker image come from?
"I think there is a misconception of traders," Piers Curran, Amplify's head of trading tells me. "I think people still associate the role of a trader as it used to be ten years ago which was all the boozing and all these guys with their Rolexes and Ferraris swanning around giving a bad name for themselves. That used to happen, but definitely not now, there's no way."
Buy! Sell!
Introductions over with it was time to settle into some serious studying as I got to grips with the basics before being unleashed on the unsuspecting markets. The first thing that struck me is just how much information traders have to contend with. Modern technology has made the traditional image of a trading floor - a city-based area of square footage crammed with people in brightly coloured blazers yelling buy and sell at an alarming volume - all but redundant. Instead I was greeted by a trading suite complete with four computer screens containing an avalanche of graphs, charts and newsfeeds from which I had to syphon off the information I needed to predict the markets' movement.
Glancing over the constantly updated stream of information was like looking into The Matrix. Thankfully Piers was on hand to guide me through the torrent of facts and figures. A seasoned vet with more than a decade's worth of experience, Piers certainly knows his way around the job, so what would he say is the hardest part of it?
"I know it sounds a bit dramatic but it's like no other job...You can't hide behind anyone, as they say 'your profit and loss never lies', it's there in black and white, your performance every day is measured...From an outside point of view that may seem quite relentless but that's my norm."
A pressure cooker environment
Most of us experience stress as part of our jobs; but what struck me about the day-to-day lives of the stockbrokers I spent time with was just how much responsibility rests on their shoulders. Every decision is their own, and the fact that thousands of pounds rest on those decisions only ups the stakes. It's a very personal, very isolated endeavour. But that pressure, as well as being quantifiably judged on each and every decision you make is not for everybody. Amplify's Co-Founder Will de Lucy tells me:
"The biggest challenge is the emotional turmoil you can go through, because I don't think there's any other job like this where every single decision that you make is under scrutiny or under pressure. There aren't many jobs really where even though you're working hard you can actually be damaging what you're doing. As a trader you can have down days, you can have a period where you've worked incredibly hard for nine hours but in fact you've just gone backwards rather than forwards. It's something people find very difficult."
I may not have been trading with real money, but in my short time on the floor I got a taste of some of the highs and lows of stock market trading. Things started brightly as I correctly predicted, or completely fluked, a market drop, quickly notching up a $2,000 profit in the time it would normally take me to make a cup of tea. Revelling in my success I was already predicting how to spend my bonus, but before I knew it my profit was falling. I was so caught up in the thrill that I'd failed to spot the fact that the market had turned on a dime and was heading the other way.
My profits quickly became losses and I was left licking my wounds and nursing my pride a little as Will told me where I'd gone wrong. This is one of the most extreme pressures of working on such a changeable environment. An off day, an off hour, even an off five minutes could spell disaster for your average trader, who at best could miss an opportunity to make a good deal and at worst destroy a decade of work in a few short minutes. It's a rollercoaster ride of emotion.
So why do it?
Life in the financial sector has its rewards of course, as Canary Wharf's collection of well-appointed shopping centres play testament to. But from where I was sitting no amount of money would induce me onto the trading floor every day. The pressure cooker atmosphere alone was enough to put me off for life, let alone the long hours and social sacrifices traders have to make in order to follow their chosen profession. So what does draw these people to the job? Piers tells me:
"The thing about trading is there's no one day that's the same as any other. Every single morning something's going to happen that's never happened before, so it's always about the challenge. 'Can I be better than the rest of the market today?' It's that kind of competitive element and that excitement of the unknown I think and then trying to adapt and analyse and benefit from that unknown situation when it arises. There's never a dull moment, there's no repetition within the job which is a beautiful thing I think."
I ended my afternoon of trading in profit, finishing $1,000 in the green. I'd like to say it's because I was a natural, but in reality beginner's luck and the expert advice of Piers and co played the most important part.
Even though I hadn't spent any real money I was glad to step away from the trading suite. Drenched in sweat and with my heart pounding I can only imagine what it's like to trade for real. I'd walked just a short time in a stockbroker's well-heeled shoes but one thing I took away from the experience is that I'm glad I don't have to do it every day.
