Proprietary Trading at Investment Banks

99-
Having read some of your posts, I can see that you and I share similar backgrounds. I have also pointed out in the past that education is no guarantee of success in trading at an IB it is just a filter.

That said, the only 18 year old kids (with or without a degree) I ever saw on our desk were delivering lunch. I wish I knew that I could've just gone to "The City" to get a job at an IB and saved myself the headache of all that useless education.

But hey, with job security being so wonderful at investment banks, what's the worst that could happen to the guy that hires the 18 y/o kid?? Its only money, lets taker a flyer and give the kid a shot!!!
 
Prop traders in fx are totally separate from market makers, when there was a large order they all get together and to save trashing the amrket they spread it out to tap the liquidity through different deal matching systems and voice brokers buut the prop traders are not involved, and all market makers are short term they rarely hold positions for more than a day although they are allowed overnights.

They try to build up a position over a few hours by quoting prices to make sure people deal the side they want but they are always short term.

On the prop desks there are the short term guys who are tracking price action looking at momentum and some technicals to try and get a good idea of wether the market is long or short and at what levels they wil offload or buy back and the resistance levels, then ther are the long and medium term guys who want their positions for over a day to sort of 6 months who will get in and out the market but with the same vie in all the time during that period unless the fundamentals change.
 
Actually London, should you manage to land a job in an investment bank, your first task is going to be remembering who takes milk and sugar. And if you manage to get that right, they may let you reconcile some of their positions.
 
I just looked at noticed at the end of your post you put LOL, you are trying to make out I don't know shit and you are mister genius, if you were so knowledgable you would of known the separation of prop and market makers and known that large orders which are of course orders as you have said have come through the sales desk and therefore have very little chance of touching the prop traders as they ar trading the bank's capital not clients and you would of known that market makers are always short term traders.
 
I have two internships behind me one in corporate finance(pile of shit) and one in trading, one had people who came orund delivering tea and coffee, well it was a prestigious bank but corporate finance bored me to tears, the other they sent you out I went a couple of times sugaars come in bags and all drinks were from Starbucks so it really wasn't hard to remember 12 drinks.
 
You were trying to take the piss out of me when what you were saying had no relevance and was bollocks therefore I pointed out that you were wrong, that's all, an ability to admit one's mistakes is vital in trading in big banks clearly you don't have that.
 
Here's a little something to ponder - in F/X there is no such thing as "Front Running" dealers can and do trade ahead of customer orders (unlike in equities). And most (not all - this is not an absolute) market makers do have p&l responsibility, so yes, they have some capital allocation for speculative positions.
 
I had an argument with someone the other day about this who told me fx traders would be front running if they talked to amrket makers and salesmen, I know they do they gather short term thoughts on the market by talking with market makers and as I have already said the market makers aim to build up a position over time through quoting prices to keep their position if it is favourable and they feel it is right, but proprietray traders do not get involved on tapping liquidity when there is a large order unless it';s some pants bank.

Banks like Deutsche, UBS, Citibank and Goldman have major prop trading operations and siginificant market making teams to not worry about orders beng dealt with by the 'whole' team. Many banks also trade internally the prop traders through the market making desk they are not allowed to trade externally therefore they could not tap liquidity to fill a big order.

When you say big orders I presume you mean some of the m and a trades, the market making teams at the major participants are very capable of dealing with these without help from the prop traders.
 
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