Thursday, January 31, 2008

H.O.T. Topic Meeting w/ Gardner

Our managing director has decided to have this weekly meetings for traders to discuss various topics. It's at 6:45am... yeah, it's early, even by my current "getting to work at 7:30am" standard. But if it's gonna help me make money, sure, I can wake my ass up an extra half an hour early.

Gardner is an obvious fan of discipline and routines. He mentioned that no professional athlete would scroll into the stadium or arena 2 minutes before the game, having not watching any film or preparation. And that's so true. Although we're in Austin where everything is relaxed and chilled, not to mention on top of that our company culture is very college-esque, this is still a job, we're professionals. We need to have the discipline to limit our losses and maintain the focus so that when the opportunity presents itself we can fucking kill it.

Some of the other quotables from the meeting...

"The market can stay irrational a lot longer than you can stay solvent. Yeah sure... you might be right but you might not be around long enough to see it."

"You can't win if you don't play. You can't play if you don't have money."

"For some of you young guys out there, that likes to, bar hop... please, protect your hands. If there's a fight breaking out... get out of there! How are you going to put orders out if something happens to your hand."
... If you gotta hit them, hit them w/ something else except your hand right? I was thinking it, I didn't say it. I can just imagine myself in a cockroach position going: NOT THE HANDS! NOT THE HANDS! instead of NOT THE FACE! NOT THE MONEY MAKER!

6 comments:

Catcher Freeman said...

I'm gonna apply to Kershner next week. What's the hiring process like?

MellowYellow said...

You'll get an interview by a coach that's looking to pick up someone for his team and it all depends on the person what he's looking for. After that there's some assessment tests... really just to make sure you know how to type and not fully retarded I guess. And then you'll have to pass the Series 7 and 63.

Catcher Freeman said...

I took a tour there last semester and they mentioned poker a lot. Do they ask poker questions or anything like that during the interview?

MellowYellow said...

No, you shouldn't get any poker questions. If you don't know have the slightest idea on how to play poker it's not gonna be held against you. Although, I (and many other traders) would say that there's a good correlation between good poker players and good traders. If you do play poker or anything else that you're good at that you believe would translate into your ability as a trader, by all means work that into your interview somehow.

Catcher Freeman said...

What is the typing test like? Do you remember the name of the program they used? What is the min score?

MellowYellow said...

It's just a in house program someone wrote. Words will fall down kind of tetris and you're suppose to type as fast as you can to get rid of them. I don't know if there's a min score but in my interview I said I type somewhere between 60-80 WPM and I knew I shouldn't deviate too much from that.