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Houston TX
Legendary Market Wizard
Experience: Advanced
Platform: TT and Stellar
Broker: Advantage Futures
Trading: Primarily Energy but also a little Equities, Fixed Income, Metals and Crypto.
Frequency: Many times daily
Duration: Never
Posts: 5,048 since Dec 2013
Thanks Given: 4,384
Thanks Received: 10,206
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This will vary considerably based upon what they are trading. For example commodity trading houses (especially physical ones) will be very different than financial trading houses. Futures traders will be very different than Stock traders.
As somebody with a lot of experience in large energy trading organizations I will say- Short Term Phyiscal Traders (and schedulers) are very busy in the mornings (pre-scheduling deadlines) but far less busy in the afternoon. (I suspect these people are not your target interview).
- Financial Traders are busiest during what is called 'Regular Trading Hours' which generally mirror the old 'Pit Trading Hours'. In the broadest of terms this is 9am-3pm Eastern.
- The combination of the above generally mean late afternoons are the slow times where there is more a concentration on risk activities than trading activities.
- The exception to the above is when there is a 'pricing window' which sets an 'index price' that is outside of those hours. Many Platt's Oil Index's would be a good example.
- A lot of trading is done on Eastern Time Zones, even when the traded product has a very regional Pacific focus. (West Coast Power Traders get up very early!)
- Product expiration calendars are far more important than month or quarter end. For example Natural Gas futures expire on the 3rd to last business day of the month, and 'Bid Week' is the last 5 business days of the month. Hence for Natural Gas traders the busiest part of the month is the 5th to 2nd last business days of the month.
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