Telegraph on the View from City Index's Trading Floor

[Bagehot]

For those posting on how rubbish the spreadbet firms were during the volatility over the last few days, this article might be interesting:

'You need nerves of steel to trade in this market' - Telegraph

 

[DC STOXX]

pussys

 

[foredog]

Do they run positions on risk or is it all offset and they just take the com?

 

[Cavalry Trader]

Do they run positions on risk or is it all offset and they just take the com?

I would have thought that although having the pressure of dealing with more transactions, most of the SB's have come out of the recent turmoil rather well

CT

 

[foredog]

If you're just processing orders with no risk then yes, you're busy, but the more you trade the better that old bonio could be at the end of the year......not too stressful

If they are going on risk then that's fair enough, you're positions changing every few seconds via computer so you can't really control it and the price running away from you as you sell yet more of that bear.....that's stress.

depends on the business model really how much risk and stress they were under

 

[Bagehot]

They might be directional in some markets, but they'll want to be as flat as possible in these. There'll be a fair amount of natural hedging I would have thought, as clients will be all over the place. And when it gets too hairy they can just take their website offline and claim 'technical problems', which is a luxury a real shop doesn't have. These are the times the guys in the big houses really earn their money. The noise on our floor was astonishing today I only saw one phone thrown across the room though...:whistling

 

[arabianights]

(and a few brave souls wanting to "short sell" or pile into the market, convinced they were buying at the bottom).

Bloody journalists. Look forward to reading their "layman's explanations" about SocGen.

 

[BSD]

The guys in this trading firm took anger management up to a whole new level ;-)

YouTube - Office fight

 

[shadowninja]

We had a couple of good old screaming ding dong arguments this week, but then again we get that a fair bit at my place. Couplf of boys and girls with real anger management issues, as well as appalling manners generally. No matter how frantic it gets on the floor, I don't think I could speak to someone the way some of the people in my firm do. Fortunately, my desk (FX trading / sales) is a little oasis of calm in it all. We just have people who don't flap. It's quite refreshing.

I find it difficult to understand how people start getting angry. It's not like they're being physically threatened or taunted etc.

I'd love to sit in the room and soak up everything that's going on. Just for amusement value.

 

[foredog]

You're spot on, talking it over calmly normally sorts it much quicker than screaming.

It's also amazing in the City enviroment how people think that becasue they've been promoted a few times, manage a bit of mney and get paid well that they can talk to more junior employees like a piece of sh*t and feel better than them just because they got the wrong sort of bread in a sandwich!