Back in the Ring, to Take Another Swing

EUR/USD, Daily

Double bottom here, huge one. Slow and steady uptrend since March. This has been coming for a long time. Ride it.

You know how parents have grand plans for their kids to become doctors or lawyers or whatever? Or how kids have dreams to be maybe dentists or teachers or pilots or something outlandish like astronauts? You hardly ever see any kid writing English compositions about how they want to be bankers or traders or oil barons or CEOs. Why? Because Business is a dirty world.

But I'm going to make my kid a hardcore trader. From the day he can count he'll be doing mental sums about bid-ask spreads and holding period yields and margin requirements. Plus minus times divide? Are you freaking kidding me? Are you a wimpy kid or what?

Kenny Props

I dunno what mathematics he did here but yeah easy to understand right? Do something real with your lives and stop chasing stupid ass jobs!

1 Life

When resources are limitingly finite opportunity cost is at its ass-kicking best. I'm not talking about how many barrels of oil there are left to pump from beneath the Earth's surface or how much corn there is to go around this harvest. They are not that limitingly finite.

When you have only one life, what do you do?

Career applications are such philosophical exercises; you can't even begin to understand what thoughts those behavioural/competency questions stir up in you even when you bullshit about how you're so suited for energy trading or how you're the perfect candidate to be the next generation leader or how you are so focused and single-minded about your desired position yet you use the same old shitty catch phrases for every application diverse as they are.

Today in the office the boss wasn't in, so when the sun went down and all was dark, I reached for his laser pointer, stood by the window, and started pointing at the people on the street for a laugh.

Car Challenge

Guowei says that if I do this to my Porsche, he will do a similarly-styled bodywork for his Ferrari in a Doraemon theme.

It's all about Control

Ctrl: the usefulness of which you cannot even begin to understand.

• + PgUp/PgDn
• + Shift+Enter
• + Tab
• + Up/Down/Left/Right
• + Shift
• + d
• + s
• + c/v
• + b/i/u
• + scroll
• + Alt+Del
• + Freak

Stop reaching for your mouse instinctively like the old folk grab for their walking sticks!

Pound this Shawty

EUR/GBP, 30m, Today

Short this shit right now for a quick buck.

Sticks and stones may break my bones...

... But words will never hurt me! (so you think)

The daily assault interns in the research office endure:

1) This is just retarded, right?

2) You don't know this? You guys are f'king joking, right?

3) I thought you're university students? I learnt this in 10th grade!

4) Why are you so slow? I hate slow people.

5) You, and you: Am I looking at two hiring mistakes in front of me?

6) Why's the data wrong? Is it sheer stupidity or sabotage?

7) If I produced this work, I'll be ashamed! Embarrassed! Mortified!

8) So I'm looking at this shit, and I'm thinking one of you has low IQ.

Man I can't wait to spring out of bed just to go to work each morning!

Re-Cess

Recess is composed of two parts; 'Re', as a prefix, and 'Cess', as in 'Shit'. Put it together and of course you get 'Shit happening all over again'.

Rabbit and Guinea Pig at a casual dinner

It's Race Day, Sucka

Courtesy of Yiling, who shot this thru some ring she found

It's been more than a year since those days at 4 Robinson Road

Ferrari-red Hot

Too Fast, Too Fast for Love

For as long as Singapore has the F1 night race contract, I think Char and I will be there every year. Pretty good fun! Best way to kick off a school break too. Need a Ferrari flag for next year. Maybe it'll be good to pick one up from Italy when I visit again!

Meet the Basterds

We ain't in the girlfriend-sharin' bidness. We're in the ass-kickin' bidness. And cousin, business is a-boomin'!

Thanks for the support, guys. I think he dried up in fear and wilted already.

Quit Flappin' yer Gums, Biatch!

The most irritating thing in our computer rooms is that you sometimes get the unholy misfortune of being sat next to ridiculously chatty airhead girls whining about everything from dolling up for interviews to cooing over semi-cute sissy boys.

One of the big pluses Bocconi has over Nanyang. You get assigned random seats in Bocconi. So if you come in with a huge group of friends, you'll be scattered, and that is the easy mechanism they have to prevent turning the computer room into a conference hall.

GPA is SEX

Got a call from career services to remind me to apply for HSBC's investment banking internship. Ended up having a chat and getting feedback about my work performance at my internship, and about the informal discussion I had with that FX trader I met some weeks back. It was mostly music to my ears.

So, somehow, the conversation got steered into the use of your GPA as a gauge of your sex life. I presume he did not mean that the level of your love-making correlates positively with your grade point average in school.

I'm on the verge of sinking into 2nd lower territory. Draw your own conclusions!

Fortune Told

For her Spanish dog we decided to go visit a Spanish restaurant. Haha your Spanish dog should be proud. Paella and tapas in Barcelona and Madrid were great.
-

Took a drive through parts of the Formula One circuit. The fences along the roads make sure that spectators are safe and no Final Destination 4 moments occur with debris on the road. Char can't wait for F1!
-

Met up with the boys since Kong's back in town. Great laughs, great food. It's been 6 years and we're still reliving the same old things just as we do each time we meet up. Incidentally Kong is wearing the exact same thing as he was the last time I saw him in London.
-

Now, do you know exactly when you're going to get married? When you'll see your cash holdings hit 7 figures? How many kids you'll have? How to avert calamity in your life? Nothing to see here, move along now, sucka.

Week of Anniversaries

First, the terrorist declaration of war on the world (2001), and then, the crumbling of Lehman (2008).

Today I had to sit in with The Boss to interview a candidate. Poor guy. When was the American revolution? Russian revolution? French revolution?

Also today, The Boss talked about girls. He says he's having a hard time finding a girl to settle down with, because as he ages, acquires more languages, and travels more widely with time, the constraints on his dating get lifted one by one, till it's hard to do a full scale optimisation of his choices now.

I recommended settling for a portfolio, then.