Timothy Good

6.30 AM

Wake up, make a small breakfast and start heading to work. I use the train trip as a time to check Slack for any important messages or notices from overnight that may have been left by my colleagues. The trip is only a short one; ten-minute train to Wynyard station in Sydney and then a five-minute walk to the MLC Centre, our new office space as of November 2018.

7.00 AM

Grab a coffee and talk game-plan for the day with my senior trader. We assess market movements overnight, and evaluate positions and strategies we want to trade into today. I also use this time to send out a few reports to my trading desk regarding news surrounding the markets I am currently trading.

8.00 AM

Get out of the office and go for a run. The day is going to be long and tiring so it helps to clock up a few k's before we strap in for the day. A few of my colleagues and I have a running group underway, so we head out for a 6k run around Circular Quay.

9.30 AM

Time to get down to business. Markets are opening gradually throughout the morning, and this is when I need to fully switch on. We have just taken our opening position for the day. No room for mistakes at this point. Don't get me wrong; trading is a lot of fun, but it is also high pressure. That's what I love about the job, the intensity, knowing that my decisions will directly affect our PnL at the end of the day. It is a quick, on-your-toes environment and it makes the day go all the faster!

12.00 PM

Lunchtime! One of the great perks of working at Expo is the in-house cooked lunches every day! Today, as usual, lunch is enjoyed at the desk due to the fact we are still trading currently. A small price to pay for a great job and fantastic food though, I say.

2.00 PM

All trading! As a first year, I (surprisingly, I thought) have a lot of responsibilities on the desk. This includes relaying key information to my senior trader regarding our trades, analysing the profitability and execution of specific trades using Excel and Python, and even executing trades myself as of recently. My direct senior and boss have both placed a lot of responsibility and pressure on me from the start of my career here at Exponential, encouraging me to learn through practice rather than solely theory. It was pretty daunting at first but I quickly realised I have been provided with an amazing graduate opportunity.

5.00 PM

Time to wind down for the day! We close out of any existing positions as desired, assess risk metrics for holding our overnight positions and send out a daily report detailing how well we traded for today. For every trade that we do, there is a lot of time spent at the end of day analysing it! There is no such thing as good enough, we always want to be one step ahead of the game here at Expo!

6.00 PM

The Arena gets a workout before I head home: the table tennis table. Personally, I think I have the best backhand in the office but my boss and a few of the software developers would say otherwise. My forehand is rubbish though.

6.30 PM

Time to go home. I am sweaty from table-tennis, mentally exhausted from trading all day, but feel like I have accomplished quite a bit with the day. Rest up and get ready for a complete different day tomorrow!