{"id":5641,"date":"2012-10-02T18:20:06","date_gmt":"2012-10-03T04:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tradingheroes.com\/?p=5641"},"modified":"2025-07-30T00:34:58","modified_gmt":"2025-07-30T07:34:58","slug":"5-unexpected-lessons-that-i-learned-from-working-at-a-hedge-fund","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tradingheroes.com\/5-unexpected-lessons-that-i-learned-from-working-at-a-hedge-fund\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Unexpected Lessons I Learned Working at a Hedge Fund"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Trading<\/p>\n

When you buy something through one of the links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.<\/div><\/p>\n

I had no business being at a hedge fund.<\/p>\n

At that point in my life, my previous job was doing IT Consulting and the entirety of my financial education consisted of reading Market Wizards<\/a> (and a few more trading books).<\/p>\n

Yes, I'm completely<\/span> serious.<\/em><\/p>\n

But I did understand the concept of being able to go short and long…so maybe I had that going for me.<\/p>\n

The reality of the situation was that the Headhunter for the position was a fellow Hawaii native and I guess he just wanted to give me a shot.<\/p>\n

Whatever the case, there I was…sitting at a tiny trading desk in Santa Monica, California.<\/p>\n

The desk took up the entirety of the tiny room it sat in, with barely enough room to walk around it.<\/p>\n

There were a total of six seats at the desk and the Bloomberg terminal was crammed in a corner.<\/p>\n

I had the illustrious responsibility of reconciling Excel spreadsheets with the trades for the day, passing out P\/L statements every morning, sending faxes, checking trades with counter parties and marking positions to market.<\/p>\n

Pretty much everything short of getting coffee. But what do you expect with a Biology degree?<\/p>\n

Working at this hedge fund is classified under the category of: coolest things that I have ever done, but would never do again<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Right up there with ATV riding (because I flipped mine) and deep sea fishing on 15 foot seas (for obvious reasons).<\/p>\n

It was awesome because I got to sit at the same trading desk as one of the best Bond Arbitrage traders in the business.<\/p>\n

I would never do it again because I am the absolute worst data entry clerk that has ever lived.<\/p>\n

In addition, as cool as most people were there, that work environment wasn't for me.<\/p>\n

However, I did learn a few important lessons from that experience that shaped my view of people and money.<\/p>\n

Most of them surprised me, being a recent college graduate at the time and never having been in that type of environment before.<\/p>\n

Be wary of anyone who cannot use some form of the word “fuck” as a noun, adjective and verb, in the same sentence<\/h2>\n

This is a rule of thumb that I still follow to this day.<\/p>\n

Not that I necessarily appreciate gratuitous cussing, but if I sit down with someone for a coffee or a beer and I don't get so much as a “shit” out of them, then they could be prone to hiding stuff.<\/p>\n

Not in a kleptomaniac kind of way, but in terms of holding back information and what they are really thinking.<\/p>\n

My boss would use “fuck” like it went out of style 10 years ago and she wanted to bring it back retro.<\/p>\n

I was slightly taken aback in the beginning.<\/p>\n

But she is one of the most genuine, competent and caring people I have ever met.<\/p>\n

Find your trading advantage and stick to it<\/h2>\n

One of the traders would sometimes only do a couple of trades in a week.<\/p>\n

On a quiet week he would bullshit on the phone in hushed tones for 30 minutes, then walk over with his trade ticket.<\/p>\n

Then he would sit around for the rest of the week, watching the markets, surfing a little porn and causing trouble.<\/p>\n

He knew what his advantage was and the exploited the hell out of it when it was there and sat on his hands when it wasn't.<\/p>\n

I saw his P\/Ls every day and he was very consistent.<\/p>\n

While everyone else was doing dozens of trades a week, he had the discipline to wait for the right conditions.<\/p>\n

Badass traders aren't necessarily Zen<\/h2>\n

\"Trader<\/p>\n

One of the best traders was normally a pretty quiet guy in most social situations.<\/p>\n

But get him into a bad trade and copious desk pounding and aforementioned f-bombs started to drop like dollar bills at a strip bar.<\/p>\n

But it seemed like it was all part of the fun and was a release for him when he was in a bad trade.<\/p>\n

The bottom line is to figure out your emotional makeup and do what will get you centered as soon as possible.<\/p>\n

Don't try to be like Buddha, when you really are like Chuck Norris.<\/p>\n

Having a lot of money doesn't turn you into Gordon Gekko<\/h2>\n

With all of the good traders at that hedge fund<\/a>, they started making a lot of money and were soon able to move out of that cramped office into some really awesome digs.<\/p>\n

Maybe not Steve Cohen<\/a> nice, but still pretty damn classy.<\/p>\n

They started flying on private jets more often and their capital under management grew quickly.<\/p>\n

During this whole time, everyone remained exactly the same.<\/p>\n

They still held lunch parties for everyone at the company when it was someone's birthday (even little ol' me) and I didn't feel like anything changed.<\/p>\n

Being responsible for that much money requires having much more integrity.<\/p>\n

Regardless of what your parents told you.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

This is probably the biggest thing that I learned there. On a busy week, there would literally be BILLIONS of dollars in trade tickets coming across my desk. But how was this possible?<\/p>\n

They learned how to trade, found opportunities in the market, clicked the mouse a couple of times and established a track record (yeah, it's slightly more complicated than that).<\/p>\n

They showed their record to investors and got more money to trade.<\/p>\n

It's just based on ideas.<\/p>\n

The best part is that ideas are free.<\/p>\n

Along the same lines, I also learned that some people there, in spite of their high salaries were just as broke as I was.<\/p>\n

That was a revelation to me.<\/p>\n

They had really nice homes, beautiful cars and their kids went to expensive private schools.<\/p>\n

But they were only a couple of paychecks away from the poorhouse.<\/p>\n

Being in that kind of financial situation is also based on how you think of money.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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