Bleak Market

I am so worried. In fact we are all jumpy in the trading room. Ringgit has fallen so badly in the last few weeks, making it the worst performing currencies in the region. Stock index has also shifted down so quickly (reasons unknown to us. could it possibly just because of oil price?)

More importantly bond market is expected to follow the downward pattern soon. In emerging market we can already see the impact of stronger dollars as opposed to the weakening emerging market currencies. Russia ruble has dropped so badly, its worst condition in 16 years. We have exposures to bonds in Russia and therefore this has hit us in terms of market value quite badly.

Why is this happening at the last stretch of 2014, nobody knows.. This worrying market condition is also the reason why I’m typing this at the office at 9pm tonight. Got to finish up some papers on this tonight. Sigh…

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The new job

So..

I got this new job and currently I’ve been here for almost a month. Gotta say I hardly feel it cause I’ve been busy with meetings, daily reportings and whatnots. Literally there have been daily meetings (up to 2-3 times a day) and conference calls with the portfolio managers. Draining, but all is well though. Still coping and learning the ropes around here.

I used to be on sell-side (the dark side of the investment banks, they say) but now I’m on the buy-side, specifically focusing on fixed income investments (bond and sukuk).

Apart from the awesome perks and benefits, there are some other things that I like about this new job. Am writing it here as part of my gratitude project (one thing that I promise to myself to constantly do).

– Opportunities to travel / attachment programs with the fund managers abroad

– Super nice bosses & colleagues. One has to experience dealing with harrowing bosses to appreciate these new superiors.

– New like minded friends. I think I made friends quite easily here, thank God for that.

– Messy but awesome trading desk with Bloomberg terminals just few steps away.

– Plenty of new things and areas to learn. Areas such as Emerging Market debt and Asian debt to look at with the differing geo-political situations, country ratings, potential rates and currencies strategies, etc.

– New phone 🙂

– Trading room is quite after market hours, thus I’m able to study after work

– There are 3 people in the trading room who are currently undertaking CFA. So yeah, glad to have these people to study with.

All in all, I am grateful to land this job. Of course there are few hiccups here and there (to mention a few; the slow bureaucratic process, yikes! and the attendance monitoring system – I have to be present at the office latest at 8.29am, imagine the traffic horror I have to face every morning), I am beyond grateful, nonetheless.