That year (2018) was the last unseasonal December for stocks. I
remember because I worked 14 hours that day buying stocks for
clients on Christmas Eve. We were down about 20% from the highs at
that point. It turned out to be an amazing buy and period to come
with that inventory. Just terrible having to do that over the
holidays though it was what it was. Stuff like that is why I'm glad
to no longer be in the business. It is hard to outperform machines
with all the regulation too, tons of work. You need a team and I
didn't want to hire people above and beyond the support staff for
my practice.
Sounds like you had an interesting and challenging career about
30 years after mine. I traded for a large Pension fund
manager and did everything by hand.
I don't know how interesting it was haha That's cool, thank you
for sharing. I've enjoyed talking to some guys who were around in
the last generations in markets. Yes,times have changed though
depending on how you are set up, they don't make it easy for doing
business with all the hoops you have to jump through to stay
compliant doing the actual business. And with so much risk for not
getting that part right, it created a lot of stress.
..couldn't just sit back and not help people rebalance their
portfolios when the opportunity was there to do so (during times of
extremes). A good fit for the clients though ultimately I burned
out after a few decades. I started my financial career in banking,
those were fun times. I remember when 7% money market accounts were
around and being hungry to bank everyone in the city. Our teams did
some amazing things, all in serving our customers' best
interests.
I think the good thing about looking back through the past to
the present is I gain perspective in life. There are times when you
have to navigate a lot of difficulty for a period, though it is a
chance to grow as a person, there is a lot of good on the other
side of it, and a lot to be grateful for everyday.
Hard for people to imagine but the exchange was closed on a
regular basis because back office could not keep up with all the
paperwork and no computers of course.
That year (2018) was the
SPY and ES systems early heads up
Posted by fundamentalvalues on 16th of Dec 2022 at 11:22 am
That year (2018) was the last unseasonal December for stocks. I remember because I worked 14 hours that day buying stocks for clients on Christmas Eve. We were down about 20% from the highs at that point. It turned out to be an amazing buy and period to come with that inventory. Just terrible having to do that over the holidays though it was what it was. Stuff like that is why I'm glad to no longer be in the business. It is hard to outperform machines with all the regulation too, tons of work. You need a team and I didn't want to hire people above and beyond the support staff for my practice.
Sounds like you had an
Posted by rbreese on 16th of Dec 2022 at 11:31 am
Sounds like you had an interesting and challenging career about 30 years after mine. I traded for a large Pension fund manager and did everything by hand.
I don't know how interesting
Posted by fundamentalvalues on 16th of Dec 2022 at 11:45 am
I don't know how interesting it was haha That's cool, thank you for sharing. I've enjoyed talking to some guys who were around in the last generations in markets. Yes,times have changed though depending on how you are set up, they don't make it easy for doing business with all the hoops you have to jump through to stay compliant doing the actual business. And with so much risk for not getting that part right, it created a lot of stress.
..couldn't just sit back and not help people rebalance their portfolios when the opportunity was there to do so (during times of extremes). A good fit for the clients though ultimately I burned out after a few decades. I started my financial career in banking, those were fun times. I remember when 7% money market accounts were around and being hungry to bank everyone in the city. Our teams did some amazing things, all in serving our customers' best interests.
I think the good thing about looking back through the past to the present is I gain perspective in life. There are times when you have to navigate a lot of difficulty for a period, though it is a chance to grow as a person, there is a lot of good on the other side of it, and a lot to be grateful for everyday.
Hard for people to imagine
Posted by rbreese on 16th of Dec 2022 at 11:53 am
Hard for people to imagine but the exchange was closed on a regular basis because back office could not keep up with all the paperwork and no computers of course.
Wow, I had not heard
Posted by fundamentalvalues on 16th of Dec 2022 at 11:55 am
Wow, I had not heard that before. I think there would be some good in more breaks from work in general.