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In partnership with Raging Bull
I decided to mix it up this time around because 1.) I’ve had a rough few days in the ol’ market (as I’m sure many have), and 2.) there seems to be a bunch of finance folk reading this website, so why not?
First of all, I didn’t make any moves today because it’s wild out there. Per my mentor Kyle’s advice, I’m treading lightly. You know, sometimes the best moves are the ones you don’t make at all. Someone said that once. With that being said, I’m actually up slightly on the day. Pardon the flex.
Finance Fam: What’s a normal day looking like for you? I’m talking to the traders and analysts who I presume are glued to the market at all times. Can you even take lunch, or are you glued to this shit all day? I’m guessing #tech has made it pretty easy to get all the info you need on your phone, but again, I have no idea. Because I missed out on some moves last week, I went ahead and downloaded the E*TRADE app which feels like a basic move I should’ve made weeks ago.
Next, what are you reading and watching? I’ve always wondered what value the cable news finance networks have, if any, or if they’re pure waste like their cable news brethren. I’m imagining multiple TVs on CNBC or anything with a ticker, but again, I’m just a lawyer-podcast guy who knows very little about your world.
Finally, is your standard junior associate/analyst just doing research all day and running the intel up the chain, or are you granted the freedom to pull trig every now and then? Just curious.
As for Dave vs. Will, I think he has a decent lead on me at this point, but he left me way too much time on the clock..
Respond
Dave
Lawyer. Writer. Dude doing business. I'm the meatloaf guy from tv.
@dcarterruff
@dcruff
dcarterruff
david@grandex.co
I work as a Tech/Healthcare analyst for a long only large cap growth fund. I finished my CFA last year. Here are my answers for your questions which I’m sure will be much different than others.
Normal Day – checking what happened in the markets over night, going through new sell side research (investment banks sell their research to companies like mine. they have better access to management teams and only cover a limited number of companies in a specific industry so they’re experts on a small niche. in comparison, I know a little bit about a lot of things in tech and healthcare), I’m spending time looking at new developments for companies we already own and deciding if it changes my original investment thesis, I’m also working on coming up with new ideas that fit themes I think I’ve identified (like datacenter/cloud computing investment), and other misc. things. Writing white papers and marketing pieces for client and potential clients takes up a little bit of time. I’m more busy during earnings season when I might have 4-5 conference calls to listen to and report on to my boss. My company is pretty chill and we’re a boutique so my work life balance is insanely good vs. the guys that work on the street or for elite funds.
What I’m Reading/watching – Like I mentioned earlier I’m reading a ton of research from sell side shops, also looking at things like the WSJ, NYT, Barrons, IBD, Bloomberg etc. Twitter is surprisingly good if you follow the right people. There are some very good biotech twitter guys that cut through the sell side bullshit. I also look at business journals to pick up on things some people might be missing, like a company expanding into a new office or the opposite. CNBC is on the background but It’s mostly meaningless fluff, so I generally ignore.
As far as running things up the chain. I make new buy or sell recommendations and my boss can decide what he wants to do with my opinion. If I’m doing my job well he should following my advice. 1) I’m following these companies more closely than he is, 2) I’m trying to frame my arguments in a way that I know he will agree with, 3) hopefully I’m right more often than I’m wrong. Sometimes he doesn’t listen to me and I’m right other times I’m wrong but the bottom line is persuasiveness. I manage a small account on the side for our owner that I can do whatever I want with but it’s nerve wracking and not really my main focus.
Sorry for the long post. Bottom line, I do this every day and I have a master’s degree and professional certification that should qualify me. Here’s the thing though, if I’m right 55% of the time over my career I am absolutely killing it. It’s unfair to think that someone who is looking at an e-trade account for 20 minutes while they’re on the shitter is going to be better than a professional over the long term. Here’s the other catch most professional investors aren’t right more than 50% of the time. So you’re better off buying a cheap index fund and forgetting you even own it until you’re ready to retire.
AAA rated breakdown right here. It’s brutal out there for the retail pimps.
Username does not check out. Please adjust. Congrats on the CFA
Violation of Standard VII(B) reporting you to the holy institute
R.I.P. PGP, you’ll be missed
Rumor has it that The Water Coolest is an informative and entertaining source for a recap of the prior days’ business news.
I can attest to this statement
Morning Brew is also a pretty good one.
I can only speak for myself, a non-target HF junior PM. I transitioned from being an analyst at a BB to a Macro L/S HF. Went from working 80+ hour work weeks at MS doing grunt work a golden doodle could be trained to do, to actively managing a small book as a junior PM. Generally in the office at 6:30am for an industry specific risk meeting, by 8am I’m on the desk and pretty much stay there all day watching the market and monitoring the watch lists. Order a thick lunch around noon, look for company specific arbitrage opportunities until 5pm. Market wrap meeting and another industry specific risk meeting from 5-6pm. After the meetings wrap up delete some vodka sodas with coworkers and friends from my analyst class who are still in the industry. As far as news goes, it’s the job of active managers to be ahead of news cycles so cable business news is only useful in certain circumstances, the analysis of the company and actually meeting the company heads tells the real tape. Generally speaking traders at hedge funds have the ability to take positions in the market (proprietary trading) if an opportunity presents itself.
S/O to the non-targets in Front Office roles
Slutty lunches make the world go ’round
With the way things are going right now you could probably smoke Will just going long cash.
Most of the upside on anything you’ll see (aside from a momentum play) has already been realized once it’s hitting CNBC/WSJ. Read market commentary to get a picture of where things are (many large asset managers release weekly/monthly/quarterly papers to the public). Try and get a feel for what’s moving and in what direction. Once you have a picture of the state of play you’ll be better equipped to identify emerging trends.
If you’re seriously interested in developing your own ideas I would highly recommend starting with a top-down research approach, very easy to pick up from a layman’s perspective if you understand fundamental economic concepts. You’ll learn far more useful info along the way than trying to pick out a winner from penny stocks.
Simply put, you start with a broader trend and through directed questioning, arrive at the ultimate beneficiaries of said trend. For example, oil prices are cratering right now amid demand concerns. What does that mean for exporters / producers of oil? What does that mean for those whose businesses are heavily reliant on oil as a production input? Of these businesses, which has the most attractive valuation and for what reason? Why are they trading at a discount to their peers?
It can be anything as short term as buying up lumber producers with high sales in an area hammered by a hurricane or long term as loading up on chip companies and 5G providers anticipating broad adoption of autonomous cars.
You might not see the binary +30% overnight jumps, but you will learn important market mechanics that you can then re-use in other ideas. Arguably more important than gambling on a small cap and hitting it big once. You will grow your broad market acumen and if done right, end up with a portfolio that’s appropriately positioned for the next few months/years.
Let’s just say my work has me very involved in 5G and Autonomous cars…my advice to you is to invest in something else for a while before converting to an autonomous car strategy
every response here made me feel dumb.
Buy and hold. I don’t do research or analyze to deductions myself like CFA does (we have an arm who does that for us) so there are some days I don’t even look at the market and it doesn’t even matter because it’s the long term that really matters in my business — think 5+ years. Unless we downgrade a company to a sell I don’t even care unless I’m tax loss harvesting in non-qual accounts at the end of the year. But I’m a lot different than a research analyst or even that realm of the business so I trade for buy and hold for clients, not to make quick bucks or inform folks on detailed top down or bottom up company reports.
Also if you’re looking for some decent in-depth analysis, SeekingAlpha can be a good website to read, as well as ZeroHedge, although they’ve dove more into politics than economics lately.
I’d excercise caution with SA—take anything on there with a grain of salt. Good to see what people are talking about but there is some terrible stocktwat analysis on there
As any prudent investor should take their financial news: With caution. But yes there is some awful stuff on there. Oh, and if Gartman longs, go short.
ZeroHedge is a great balance, also a WILD read. Like Infowars for intellectuals sometimes.
Just work in corporate finance as a cube slave. In at 8am out at 5pm, sprinkle a few emails from your phone in the evening and repeat until your 7%-10% bonus shows up
It’s not too terrible
No it is not.
Day trading has to be about routine. Doing the same things for the same reasons. Set your indicators set your scale and set your stops. I work in grains so I’m a hedger not a speculator in a market that is very liquid. For this kind of casual exercise buying with a stop and then ignore the market is a great move. Bears make money, bulls make money, pigs get slaughtered.
Dave, we miss you…. love you, bye
Corporate real estate banking treasury sales analyst at a bulge bracket bank here. Hours ~8-5. I’m working on selling cashflow solutions and managing my portfolio rather than trading but do deal with investments in the form of following the Fed’s rate movements and advising clients on where to park their operating cash. For us that’s generally in an interest-bearing or money market account (banks are offering competitive rates right now, and it’s good for us to have high deposit balances) or CD’s, etc. through our liquidity partners.
Get in on the ground floor of the weed industry, more formally known as “bioceuticals”.