One of our special developing traders failed to hit his stride with us.
He worked as hard as anyone at the firm. Everyday he sent me his in-depth daily trading review to my inbox.
His reviews set the standard for Junior traders.
He worked on his trading game in college, before he arrived at SMB. I have strongly advocated for aspiring traders to start working on their trading game in college in The PlayBook and here.
He was coached by one of the top three NYC traders, during his training with Team Trading.
He learned to us technology to assist his trading with custom filters and scanners.
He even built some automated trading models, which we ran at the firm.
His coach repeatedly mentioned him as the trader he most expected to break out. The trader who most reminded his coach of his journey and him.
He asked to chat with me the other day. During our chat, he shared he was going to accept a job at a Futures trading firm in his home country. I was sorry this trader did not hit his stride with us. We will miss him.
I have known and worked with this trader for many years. I met him first when he was in college working on his trading game. He sent me detailed monthly updates on his trading, while still in college. He hadn’t been hired or officially connected to the firm at the time. He just sent me his reviews because he wanted to improve. I remember him tracking me down at a trader event in Chicago to make his case to be considered for the desk. I remember our walk and talk in between presentations. He was a First Round draft choice, as that relates to fitting our culture. I remember that phone call from a hospital in Long Island, when I personally invited him to join our desk and his excitement. He is one of my favorite people to have trained.
And I feel bad for his coach, who invested so much time and energy into his trading progress.
I asked the trader, why he felt he did not see the progress he expected at our firm. I had thought a lot about this and was a bit puzzled. His coach had been puzzled. The trader said, “I am not sure. I had everything, I needed to succeed. I think maybe I just never found my niche. I did a little of everything. But I never found that one niche to consistently make money.”
We are not a perfect firm. And certainly he did not have “everything” he needed to hit his stride. But is fair to say, he had much more than almost all and more than enough.
I will really miss this trader. It reinforces to me the importance of helping and challenging traders to find their trading nice and build their career from it.
And hey, this whole trading thing is a tough business.
I look forward to staying in touch with him as he transitions into a new product, firm and country to trade. This futures firm just hired one special young man.
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*no relevant positions