The Prop Trader's Chronicles: Short-Term Proprietary Trading Strategies for Both Bull and Bear Markets

CHAPTER 1

Eat a Percentage of What You Kill

With a solid thundering crunch, Jack's foot landed against the wall of a Swift Trade Securities branch's trading floor, as he systematically progressed through his extensive arsenal of every known curse word in the English language in stark contrast to the soft-spoken business speak on the CNBC and ROB TV commentary originating from the mounted television sets.

Even on a trading floor, where profanity is as common in everyday life as public arguments are on the New York City subway system, Jack's command of his R-rated vocabulary showed a mastery in its own right. One might even imagine that it could be formalized into a new regional dialect for use by a very primal tribe of hunters and gatherers who live to accumulate a stockpile of resources eclipsing those of the average tribe in its environment.

Despite all the forms of information bending from semi-denial to blatant spin in its various forms throughout Wall Street and Bay Street, this is a business with a culture that, by its very nature, revolves around the accumulation and excesses of money. Even if the ends that justify that means for each individual may vary from personal ego stroking to fantasies of a philanthropic empire, the nature of the beast is fairly consistent and predictable across the board. Beyond all the talk of controlled psychology and discipline for professional traders, this is a business that ultimately revolves around profit and loss.

And when Jack lost, he ...