Fixed Income Capital Markets chez BNP Paribas

Fixed Income Capital Markets at BNP Paribas

My name is Ira Auerbach. I studied at Cornell University in the Engineering school and studied Operations Research. I joined the firm approximately a year ago now under the Fixed Income branch doing currency trading.

I am a Foreign Exchange Spot Trader. We take speculative positions on the movements of various currencies. Being able to trade after only two, three, four months on the job is very exciting; to have your ideas respected to the point where the company will actually put up money for you to implement your ideas is just a very exciting feeling.

The ideas that I implement are basically global macro economic ideas. Being in currencies, I don’t really analyse the balance sheets of various companies, but take a view on what the world’s going to be like tomorrow and then implement that idea…and put my money where my mouth is.

When I first started trading I was trading a million dollars at a time and after about 6 months of trading I’m up to 5 million dollars a trade. So the more you’re here, you just keep going up in size.

Being in the Foreign Exchange Market and Fixed Income, my day starts early but ends earlier than some other markets. So when I get in first thing in the morning around 6.30, I immediately get on the phone and talk to our traders in London, to see what they’ve seen overnight, get a feel for the trading environment for the day. So it’s almost like you’re on a countdown all throughout the day and you have to be constantly aware of what’s going on.

Starting out as a Junior Trader, a junior on any desk, I believe the two most important qualities to have are strict attention to detail and a positive attitude because starting at a job nobody wants to sit next to somebody for 10 hours a day that isn’t having fun.

Here we have my computer screens. This is where I do my technical analysis and read about the market every morning. At any given point, I can press a button and will immediately be heard by our traders over in London or Singapore…it’s a blast. I love hearing my own voice…!

It’s very difficult to learn this industry from a book. At BNP Paribas’ New York Office we have a very flat hierarchy, so I have a very, very close relationship with my boss and other senior members of the trading team, that I think is unique.

In the past year that I’ve worked at BNP Paribas, I’ve definitely worked very, very hard. But the feeling of success and pride that you get after making a big trade, doing all your research, putting in the time and putting in the hours, coming up with the idea and trading and hopefully realising some profits is unparalleled by anything I’ve experienced in any other job.