This is my life:

Welcome to TT Trader, an interactive platform that links me (the aspiring newbie trader) to the market (the money eating machine).

Basically what it is, is a ladder of price depth. All the bid against the offer prices, and the volume traded at each price.


The office pros, which include my boss and the partners, dont even use a friggin chart to trade, because technical analysis takes time, and by the time you analyse something, the opportunity is gone. Apparently this is sufficient to trade, and they make shitloads, like up to 20k a day sort of thing.

Well outside when people ask what i do i talk it up as if its easy money, but here i'll let you in on the inside scoop, its not.

Its a tough life if you're new, it really is.

My current training stint is 6 months, first 3 months of pure trading and simluation trading (basically this simulator follows the markets exactly). During this period, you have to decide what you want to trade. (Indices like dow, nikkei, sgx; or commodities like oil, gold, water; or currencies/bonds)

After the initial 3 months, if you think you are ready, they pop you on the live market. We are initially allowed a $500 loss on a daily basis. Basically once you've hit the loss limit, you're out for the day, and have to explain your trades to the big boss. $500 is super easy to hit, its the equivalent of the ASX moving just 20 ticks in the opposite direction. (e.g. if it was trading at 3020, and went down to 3000, YOU'RE OUT BITCH) Basically unless you know how to cut your losses fast and manage your emotions and positions, you're fucked.

If you were down $20k last month, you basically have to make it back before you can make any money this month. thats fucked up. on top of that, there are equipment costs, see below.

Whatever profits you make in the next 3 months is the company's if you dont get a contract offer, if you do, you get a 50% split.

If you're successful on the life market, you get a contract. As mentioned, initial split is at 50%, if your account balance has >$50k, the split goes up to 55%, and 60% if it has more than $100k. And so on, highest split is 70%.

Every month we need to pay the company $2500 for equipment charges, news feeds, program charges, internet charges. Yes, we pay the company money, not get paid. Its basically me renting an office space from them, running my own company from that space.

So lets say this month i make $10,000. I take away $2500 for equipment, leaving $7,500. Take away 50% split for myself, thas $3,750. Take away the 30% company tax, thats $2500++. Thats 1/2 of what i was paid as an engineer.

Basically we have to register a trust/company in our name and trade under it. So i need to actually invoice the company to tell them that i need to get paid, and the amount requested will be deducted from the balance.

There are people who make easily 20-30k a month after the first 6 months, but also those who are struggling to survive due to the super duper high costs.

We'll know after 6 months if this is something that i'm good at, and if i can make a living out of it, else it was fun.

A man walks past our office this afternoon, and goes "Are you guys professional gamers?"
The people in the office were playing Counter-Strike after work.

Twilight @ Byron bay







My first day at work:

Wasn't allowed to take pictures of the office, but i found a similar layout on the Internet:


Everyone pretty much has their own desk, with a couple of monitors in front of them showing charts, spreads, live news feeds, its the ultimate nerd fantasy i guess.

Dress code was slack, people were more relaxed than usual today because it was a good trading day, one of the people on the floor made 20k today just like that, remembering that it is a good day.

Mostly under 30s, hardly saw any senior people on the floor, most people came to work for an hour or two, did their trades, then left, whilst others were working hard at their desks scalping the markets scraping off some profits.

Today i was fortunate enough to see the lighter part of the trading day, they recently installed CounterStrike on the network, after work everyone turned off their trading stuff and starting playing on the network! like full on 20 on 20!

It was quite tiring trying to give a 110% listening to every word spoken and getting tips from the gurus, tianli can attest to that, i was day dreaming at dinner.

On arrival we were given notes and readings to do, given some praise for making the selection, 500 applicants creamed to 20 people for the intake. A couple of investment bankers, commodity traders, superannuation consultants, brokers. Only 3 engineers! Mostly of them were from Macquaire Bank previously, they decided to quit their back office jobs for something for something more adventurous.

We were put back in our places, often reminded that we still have to earn our contracts with the company, proving that we can make money on a consistent basis, all the stories of getting rich in a day are true, but the day after the markets will give you a big kick up the arse and take all the riches back.

The greatest challenge for a trader is to get the opportunity to trade, now with this opportunity its time to shine. Loving every minute of it

To the people graduating this year:
www.brightminds.com..sg <- better start applying for work

i have a love hate relationship with this dog.

P.S ah tan as you can see, sticky is alive and kicking. the hat brings out the colour of her eyes. don't you think so? hahah.

Sydney is fucking awesome!
spent the last few days studying in the morning and early afternoon, then hitting town and playing board games with friends. I must introduce you guys to the games, damn fun! December..

Having korean housemates is a definate plus. they cook damn good food, are super duper ultra clean, dont make much noise, and know how to have fun. They even showed me a damn cool way to open your beer bottle! omg damn suah ku la

My housemates have the best jobs in the world.
Interviewing and taking pictures of beautiful people everyday, what a life.

http://www.uniquescott.com/ <--- Scott's website (the photographer)

Welcome to my new home! View from the corridor to the main door:

There are 2 rooms along the corridor, one is mine, and the other belongs to Chloe (Korean student). View from outside my room to the Living room.

This is the living room! damn cool right, Scott is a photographer 1/2 of the week and collects vintage cameras.


Couch and Fridge??? in living room, abit strange, but it seems to blend in i guess



View from the living room back to the corridor

The kitchen seems clean, this must be where all the kimchi is made. i'm hope someone decides to whip up something delicious soon, korean cravings are knocking on the door:





Then theres the bedroom! Well it still looks barren because i only moved in about an hour ago. Looks pretty decent though, feels alittle like home already






There are another 3 rooms upstairs, they;re doing alittle spring cleaning session so i guess i wont be taking any pictures of dirt

Thats it! home away from home away from home.

Its strange to feel out of place once again, in a way its a positive to be kept on my toes.
I found a place at hyde park, a 5 bedroom apartment shared with 7 koreans/japs. Its 2 mins walking distance from my house (the equivalent of my house to tharins house), cant get any better than that. For all the future wee hour shifts that i will be having, it sure is comforting to know that i can sprint home to my bed to rest.

my sunshine~




the view from byron bay, quite a spectacular sight i must say. hope everyone is doing well~

hello people! hope everyone is doing good.
have not heard from anyone in a while.
i am settling in just fine, school has also started and there are tons of work to do!
crazy, though i only have 3 hours seminars twice a week, there are mountains of papers to look through and an assignment due in a month.
pardon me for sounding like an enthusisatic nerd here, but my tourism course has been really fun, and there are alot of interesting field trips planned out for this semester. will be dropping by sydney and canberra. still thinking if i want to go to fiji island in august.

it was a long weekend in melbourne and this was what i busy with. sadly not studying haha.

i went for the moomba festival (water festival) near kelvin's place, and there was a huge carnival going on with all the rides and games, and fireworks going off at 930pm. i am sure they have this in the other aussie states as well. and then we went to see the bird man rally the next afternoon and it was freaking hilarious. basically these people represent different organisation and they got to dress up in whatever costumes they want, and compete to see who can jump or rather fly the furthest. i think you can't use any motors or something like that. some of them basically just fell into water.




yesterday i went to venus bay for pippies picking!talk about fresh seafood. i had to buy a 6 dollars licence and use my hands to dig into the sand for pippies. pippies are basically like shell fish. i think we turned the beach upside down looking for pippies.it was so much fun when i actually found one, and then another. we are limited to 5 kg per person. working hard for your food, this is really physical manual labor, as we could only use our hands. no spades, no nothing. just a bucket to put in the pippies. i brought the pippies home and kelvin tan fried them up, it was superbly good. no kidding. fresh and the sauce fantastic! yummy yummy. round 2 this evening. eh tianli! beat that. this is as fresh as it gets. haahahah.

Hello All,

Its been awhile since i updated you on my status, so here goes, im sure most of you know anyway.

Got retrenched at the end of January, and got a 2 month payout + they paid out my annual leave. Basically meaning that i get february and march off whilst still being paid.

Found a job in Sydney as a derivatives trader, and got to move to sydney. Its a 6 month training stint, and if im any good, will be offered a contract on a permanent basis. Financially, this job is not as stable as my previous as there is no base salary, but there is unlimited upside on the amount i can make a month.

So, take care, study hard, finish your fyp with first class honours for the boys, and i'll see you when i see you if i see you