Few days back I had the
opportunity to participate in a spot FX trading simulation program. It was
quite interesting to find out how a day for a FX trader looks like. FX trading
runs almost 24X7 and is the most widely traded across all the asset classes.
It started with a small
training which was followed by trading simulation. The training guided us on
the jargons used and how to place order, do some speculative trading and how to
entertain client requests. There was no need of a phone call as the simulation
program intelligently enabled all the scenarios on the user interface. There were marks for the net realised profit
and loss, how you handled the client requests, whether you crossed the limits
or not etc. There was no negative marking.
I started good but lost the
pace soon as there were so many dealer and client request in parallel. On the
sides, I was trying to cut my losses and book profits on the open positions. At a time, I was making a profit of USD 10
million but then the markets suddenly got volatile and I was negative with USD
3 million. In the end, my realised profit and loss was negative.
Though, it was only for an
hour the key takeaway was that the FX market is quite volatile to the news
specifically international news. A single wrong trade can wipe you out and why
the trading floor people keep yelling.
The core objective of this
program is to make people in the technology step into trader shoes and understand how a system breakdown
can impact the traders and overall the organisation. A good trading dashboard is very helpful and the flow of information has to be really quick and reliable. I strongly think the
program met its objective.
