What do you do when one day you wake up and realize everything you’ve been told about our financial system is in reality a far cry from what actually goes on behind the scenes?
After graduating college with a finance degree, my first job was at bond rating agency Moody’s.
Yes.
The same folks who rated all of the sub-prime bonds with their highest Aaa rating. And amazingly still rate U.S. debt similarly.
To say the least it was an eye-opener.
But after 2 years I left to attend Wharton, which also included a summer internship with Merrill Lynch. Which again has been fascinating in hindsight.
Sitting on a trading desk in 2004, and seeing the bank sell any combination of mortgage products you could imagine. Only to have it all take on a drastically different perspective years later.
However following Wharton I joined a small equity options trading firm called Susquehanna International Group (SIG). Which in hindsight turned out to be an incredibly fortunate break.
Unlike what I experienced in my brief time in banking culture, SIG had a unique training program that focused on decision making. We were even required to log 100 hours of monitored poker playing, as SIG was a big proponent of poker being an excellent training tool for trading.
It was a critical part of my development, and years later when the housing bubble collapsed, and understanding the markets on a larger level became the focus of my research, I was fortunate to have an incredible foundation.
Since then I’ve re-fallen in love with studying the financial markets and incorporating world events into successful trading. I’ve also felt a responsibility to pass along what I’ve discovered, so that as many people as possible can let the coming world events work to their advantage.
I appreciate you visiting this site and taking an interest in my research. Should you have any questions or comments I always look forward to hearing from you here.
Sincerely,
Chris Marcus
Founder of Arcadia Economics