Negative People in a trading office

[rs7]

Originally posted by Thug_Life
<i>Whats the worst you have ever seen on any given day?</i>

In the midst of a Fed announcement craziness, I had a guy pick up his keyboard and start slamming it against the desk. Each slam was punctuated by an expletive.

keyboards? i have seen monitors thrown, lunches thrown, walls punched through many times; the worst? a fistfight between a trader and the owner of the firm.....and no, he was not fired! actually, he was one of the nicest guys i knew. just a little crazy.

this same guy was in my opinion great to have around. he was very knowledgeable and very helpful to anyone that asked.

there were and are however, many very negative people in our office. i try and just laugh them off. what are the alternatives?

ps: i admit to losing my temper myself once....was loaded up pretty heavy, had a great mark, and then the market turned against me....went to get out, and the system went down. stayed down for hours, and a nice winning day turned into a disastrous day. but that wasn't what set me off...what set me off was one guy in my room not shutting up. cursing and yelling incessantly that the system sucked, etc......he was FLAT AT THE TIME....(so i lost it)

 

[Thug_Life]

I have not yet seen a monitor actually go airborne. Smacked around a little, yes, but not airborne. I guess I have something to look forward to. (And I mean a big CRT. A flat screen would be too easy - and expensive)

The gel-filled wrist supports that sit in front of keyboards seem to be popular projectiles. They are handy and do little damage.

 

[rs7]

Originally posted by Thug_Life
The gel-filled wrist supports that sit in front of keyboards seem to be popular projectiles. They are handy and do little damage.

Yes, but they are really disgusting when they open up.....look like boogers from outer space!

 

[rs7]

Originally posted by mattjclark


I canceled my cable (most importantly CNBC) in April, and I've been on fire ever since. I strongly recommend this to anyone who always has CNBC going in the background.

CNBC is not really a factor one way or the other....EXCEPT WHEN BOB PISANI OPENS HIS MOUTH!!!! Then we all get nauseated and positions go against us, long and short, at the same time (see thread on superstition) Gotta go for the mute button fast! We even tried to call CNBC to ask what his schedule was so we could pre-empt him...they said they couldn't give that information.

 

[mattjclark]

We as traders know that we must be ahead of the market in order to make money. We also know that CNBC is always way behind the curve as far as broadcasting information.

Here's the problem; on a subconscious level my brain tends to interpret what CNBC say's as what the market is currently thinking, then I get a comfort level thinking that my ideas are ahead of the market. What ultimately happens is that I make trades that aren't very timely and I can lose quite a bit of money having my decisions biased by CNBC.

Obviously if you're a good trader, and you don't let these sort of things affect your trading, then its very possible that CNBC doesn't affect your trading at all. I personally can't make that claim.

 

[cashonly]

Originally posted by Stock_Lover
Would anyone care to comment on negative people attitudes affecting them?

I remember when I was in an office that a new trader came in and he was put next to me. He was the most bearish trader I knew... thought the whole market was going to crash around our knees (1997). He also cussed a lot, but reigned it in a bit. He was a nice guy, but bad attitude.

However, he did make me money in his short stay there. One day, he shorted BAC three times and was sure the thing was going down. Each time, it went against him. The 4th time he did it, I bought bank. Sure enough it went up, I held it and it just kept going up (he shorted twice more before fuming out the door for the day.) By the end of the day, I collected a nice profit in it.

 

[cashonly]

Almost every office I've been in has one or more negative people. Or if they're not negative, they're just extremely distracting.

I've been in 10+ offices and can honestly say that no 2 are alike. They each have their own personality.

I think a lot of people want to trade in an office so they can pick up something from experienced traders. Unfortunately, the experienced traders are there to trade, not teach. The rare exception is the office manager where he's interested in you succeeding.

Usually, people find the office environment distracting and sometimes they find that it leads to over-trading (people jump on a stock because traders around them do).

In my experience, I have a few offices that are beneficial. In these rare cases, the office works together as a team and actively share information. Unfortunately, it won't help if you don't trade in the same style as the rest of the office. If you're a T/A trader and the office is full of scalpers, it won't help you.

In my position as a manager of remote traders, I've spoken to a number of remote traders over the years who have come from offices, and these are some of the "people" reasons why they don't like to trade in an office:
1. Other traders are noisy/obnoxious to the point of distraction.
2. They went into an office to get some pointers from other traders and the good traders are too busy or aren't interested in helping them
3. The office trades a different style than they do and it influences them to get into trades they shouldn't get into.

I've also known a number of remote traders who get the "office environment" they are looking for by gathering in an audio chatroom where they can talk with people of like minds. They have found this to be quite helpful. So, they kinda have their office, but only with the people of their choosing.

 

[SteveD]

I would think that people that trade without any input or information from the market (CNBC etc) are just asking to be killed at some point. The market trades off of emotion/crowd movement/etc. I want to know what people are saying and why they are saying it. It is not important whether it is true or not but it is what they believe at that point in time.

Traders that want to be ahead of the market are just using guess work as a market timing tool. Guessing is better known under it's real name, Gambling. Livermore did not trade in a vacuum. He was in the room!! I watched the market shoot up significantly when a rumor about Bin Laden being killed was announced. As I am shorting a lot I want to cover at once if that happens for real.

We now have instant news that affects the market that goes out all over the world in seconds. All of the TA in the world will not help you if the CEO is indicted for fraud or other problems with the company. Your stock is suddenly down 5 points and dropping fast. I do not understand how a daytrader can ignore this potential devastating danger lurking out there.

As a day/short term trader we are really "trading traders" as opposed to fundamentally investing in a company through the purchase of their public stock shares. There is a huge difference and I am beginning to understand why so many people fail at this business.

 

[chasinfla]

Livermore was said to trade from a cloistered office when he became big.

Also, some find that by watching the tape and the news ticker you can see, for the most part, all you need to see.

I suppose that CNBC or FNN or Bloomy can be indispensible from time to time, maybe more so as time goes on.

Individual preference governs, I think. I talk back to CNBC too much. I'd rather listen to the Mass at noon.

 

[vulture]

Before you continue on this rant and berate everyone who does something you do not do, there were a few people who explained why they do not use the news or listen to the news...BUt most importantly, the majority of people who do not use the news are trading indicies and are probably more keyed into specific price levels as opposed to glued to their Reuters or Dow Jones newswire, etc,etc...Also, it depends on time frames...A guy scalping the market with massive size on a very short time frame has alot of price shock risk...A guy trading smaller size with wider profit targets and more whip built into his system is probably not going to be too affected by a news spike...Sure, there are exceptions, like FOMC rate cuts over the past few years, but then there are also bogus rumors floating thru the market all day long...