FX Trader Future

alexwalton2003

Hi all,

I'm looking for insight from those that are currently in banking.

In regards to FX traders, there has been a rise of algos taking away a lot of the smaller trades from the spot traders. My question is, if an opportunity to train as an FX Spot trader (As a Graduate) for an investment bank came up, would it be a great opportunity?

The obvious alternative would be a quantitative analyst, which are involved in the algo trading.

I'm just wondering what your thoughts and opinions are? Is it an amazing role that still has many years left, or is it slowly going to be wiped out by E-fx? Will there always be a need for FX Spot traders?

Any information / thoughts are greatly appreciated.

Thanks

A

Reply 1

Cleo1

i believe there will be. it is a misbelief that automated trading systems work well, in fact, most of them produce losses. discretionary trading is more successfull than automated, simply for a trading algorythm will mostly be based on historic price patterns, and banks got to learn the "folly of fully predetermined history" :smile:

Reply 2

alexwalton2003

So you think that Traders will remain?

I think that too, but it seems like the new "Trend" is towards algo's and e-trading. I just wanted peoples views and insights really as to what they think!

Reply 3

Cleo1

indeed, a lot of banks believe algos will give them the edge. but its mostly hft's that make money, not directly TRADING algorythms. hfts are basically like trojans. check out this doc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEAGdwHXfLQ#t=22

Reply 4

sadhukar

Original post by alexwalton2003

Traders will never go away, but your job prospects are very much getting limited for vanilla products like spots and cash equities. Options is still too complicated for machines to work properly but for cash, in my bank atleast, we have mostly bookrunners now and all client orders are fed to the market through algos for the e-trading desk. We still have a voice system but I think the plan is to phase it out in the future.

Original post by Cleo1

How do you know this? Do you work in one? All the top 5 banks investing millions into algos and tech are because they're dumb and want to produce losses, right?

(edited 9 years ago)

Reply 5

Cleo1

im sorry, my statements apparently made you show your deep and connected knowledge on the issue, and made you pose that you "work" in one of those banks. in fact, i sold a trading algo to one of "your" banks, for staff are obviously unable to do it in-house. please read again my statement before you try to impress with your work experience. i said "most" produce losses and discretionary trading is more successful. being discretionary does not mean that they cant be supported by algos. it means they are not fully automated.

p.s.: better luck next time with trying to be sarcastic.

Reply 6

ClickItBack

Original post by Cleo1

Hence why GS now mandates that 100% of customer flow in equities (up to a certain size and liquidity constraint) goes immediately via its central order processing system, rather than what used to be the case of letting the equity trader have discretion over how much to stick in the system and how much to hold on to? I guess they just like losing money eh?

Original post by Cleo1

Hence why you posted the below a week ago, right?

Original post by Cleo1

2015 Asset Management / Trading Graduate Programs
Hi, since there is no real thread on asset management / trading application, I thought I start one. I hope we can exchange progress.

I applied at:

DB, MS, JPMorgan, GS, UBS, HSCBS, Barclays, CS.

I have had one interview with barclays so far, but from the other ones nothing so far except numerical tests. Has anyone had interviews?

As for OP, spot equities is already pretty much dead, spot FX lives on somehow but is certainly in its death throes. You'll probably still have a serviceable life span but being a quant is a safer place to be overall. It's not typically the case that you'll be picking between a quant role and a spot FX trader role though - the skillsets and educational background required for each are quite different.