Day 3 - The Morning Meeting, The Italian Desk and Structured Products

Day Three

Day three was easier. Maybe I was becoming used to the very early starts, or maybe I was becoming used to feeling like a spare part. It didn’t matter, it was easier and that was a good thing.

I attended my first morning meeting at SDB. I probably should have attended yesterday but no one had told me. The meeting was attended by the heads of the trading desks and all the sales people. The traders spoke first, giving an overview of recent trading activity followed by a pitch on the axes they wanted the sales force to concentrate on. A selection of salespeople spoke about their clients and their client needs. The meeting ended with an economist giving a five minute summary of yesterday’s data and an expectation for today’s data. I had understood what the traders were trying to do and what the economist had to say but I remained utterly confused as to what any of the salespeople had put forward. I hoped no one was going to test me.

The rest of the day was spent with the Italian desk. I had lived in Italy and I had done a lot of business with Italians in my previous career. I spoke Italian and I liked Italians. I had been looking forward to it.

The desk was manned by five Italians. Paolo Buonincontro, Giovanni Tantifiducia, Marco Pocotempo, Fillipo Pescatore and Gianni Buongiorno. They were very friendly, explained they sold everything and anything to their clients with a bias towards structures. Structures it seemed had a lot of margin and these guys were all about margin. Giovanni and Marco both gave me the same look as Sara had yesterday when I asked where the value in the structure was. Oh well.

They spoke only in Italian to me and spent a lot of time telling me about the products they try and sell and the different clients they have. They also showed me how they make use of Bloomberg and Reuters and they took me to lunch.

I had learnt a lot it was a great day.

Later I discovered that Paolo had gone straight to the overall Head of Fixed Income and had complained about me. He had said that I knew absolutely nothing about financial markets, that I showed little aptitude, that I spoke very poor Italian and that I was not to be put in front of any Italian clients under any circumstances. Where did that all come from? Thank you Paolo!

At least Sara Dudley had told me directly that I wasn’t qualified or capable to talk to her clients. I started to like her better.

End of day three. I had learnt it had been a very bad day and I still had no idea what I was doing.