Principles used in Wall Street trading algorithms

medium.com

14 points·christopherjgan··4 comments

Loved the article !! I’m just curious is working as a trader really stressful as you are making firm money and if so how do you guys deal with stress

Thank you for the feedback! It is incredibly stressful and honestly I left because I was seeing how it affected my personal life and vice versa. To be a trader, you need to lead a simple life.

General stress coping methods however are the basics - 8 hours sleep, 1 hour exercise everyday, socialise once or two a week and have family time!

8hrs? Hardly typical.

Common stress reducing tactics are

1) substances 2) sex 3) delusions of grandeur 4) myth of control (over things you can't control, like short term market movements) 5) interviewing for other jobs / negotiating more comp

None of this is helped by the fact that financial service fees are in secular decline, alpha is harder than ever to come by, and every day the machines take yet another trader's job.

I would like to argue that traders will always be necessary. The bulk of a trader's job is indeed automated. However models only work within their specified boundaries, and there are plenty of cases that require trader intervention. Also what you are seeing more of is that traders generate the ideas and logic that is used to fine tune these algorithmic models.

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