What inspired you to pursue trading?
I have a university background and interest in both maths and finance, and trading presented a great opportunity to work in a fast-paced environment and a field that applied both.
What is your favourite thing about SIG?
I enjoy the entrepreneurial approach to trading at SIG. Traders are encouraged to come up with their own ideas and are helped to execute and evaluate them afterwards.
Additionally, SIG’s focus on the decision-making process and decision science when evaluating trading is very refreshing; it minimises the luck from trading when assessing decisions.
Finally, good communication is beneficial, there is a lot of benefit to being able to clearly communicate your decision process as well as understanding and react to feedback on the fly.
What does a typical day look like at SIG?
I start my day looking through overnight news alerts and emails from our Equity Research team, with a call one hour before trading with the team to discuss desk-specific events in more detail and do any project work I have.
From there I would look at market moves in the US and Europe and discuss any trading situations we have on the day with the rest of the desk.
Once the market opens, I am focussed on trading, and we use the HK market lunch break to flag any situations arising and gameplan for the post-lunch session.
After the close, we will have a desk huddle and recap our trading day to send to the rest of the firm.
Are there any specific skills or qualities that are essential to succeed at trading?
Trading allows for you to both showcase and capitalise on a wide range of skills. You will need a solid knowledge base in maths, including probability and distributions, plus an ability to quickly assess situations. Experience in competitive environments like sports or strategy games, can help an individual thrive in the fast-paced world of trading.
Furthermore, being generally inquisitive and enjoying assessing and solving complex problems is valuable, as well as an entrepreneurial mindset and an ability to lead projects.
How do you handle the stress of high stakes trading in your job?
While expectations are high at SIG and trading can be stressful by nature, the office culture is supportive rather than piling on pressure to perform.
I find keeping active helps me to relax as well, rock climbing and golf are my sports of choice.
What does typical career progression look like at SIG?
The trading intake starts with 6 months on-desk in Sydney, where you will learn about basic options and trading theory. From there you will join other Quantitative Traders at SIG’s US headquarters for 8-12 months, where you will further your trading education, culminating in SIG’s 10-week trading class. You would then be a junior trader and assigned to a desk.