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darkearth
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Joined: March 23rd, 2006, 1:42 am

Senior EQD Trader Interview

May 20th, 2015, 8:32 pm

What interview questions would you ask a senior EQD trader?
 
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DominicConnor
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Senior EQD Trader Interview

May 21st, 2015, 10:05 am

That's a pretty broad area...A key pat of that is the word "senior" which implies a few things. For a start that they'd be leading and not merely be led.That means I'd want to know about their ideas for change and developing the business and whether they understood things outside the normal comfort zone of a junior trader, which would encompass details of settlements and compliance as well obviously as models. They also would be able to articulate what they're doing beyond merely doing it so that they might lead and educate the juniors.I'd also want to establish that they're not a one trick pony, ie someone who's made money from executing one strategy, no matter how clever it was.Also I'd be looking for a sense of "where the money comes from". In any trading, you need a sense of which players are putting money into the pot and why. It may be that directly or indirectly you're providing liquidity, but that's a shallow view, I'd want them to know and be able to articulate how that wealth exchange makes it way to them, the stability of this and what if anything they can do to maintain it.Note that so far I've not asked any model questions...
 
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darkearth
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Senior EQD Trader Interview

May 21st, 2015, 8:23 pm

Thank you Dominic.Your answers make complete sense. A manager would ask this kind of questions and a well prepared candidate will make his way through them.I was more thinking about "what kind of tricky technical questions you would ask?"Exp: How to hedge your quanto correlation exposure? How to hedge your skew exposure? How to hedge your spot/div convexity exposure ? Etc...Would you have some examples of "nasty" questions?Thanks