XCEL STUDENT OF THE YEAR AWARDS 2008
Name: Grace Atuwaogu
Area: Foreign Exchange (FX) Sales
Position: Analyst
Degree: Psychology
University: Warwick
Barclays Capital
A day in the life of….
Summary
My role is extremely varied however my main duties are
pricing FX products for clients and providing intraday
market coverage to institutional clients e.g. Pension Funds,
Proprietary Traders and private banks. FX here is arranged
according to region; I cover Scandinavia and Holland.
Key Skills Required: Attention to detail, strong verbal communication, comfort with numbers, multi-tasking, honesty, proactive. So here is a typical day for me…..
05:00: Wake up (reluctantly…it’s unnatural to be up that early!)
06:45: Arrive at my desk, log in to all my client forums
06:45-07:00: read the overnight news from my colleagues in Asia (FX is a 24hr market, and the main centres are London, New York and Singapore)
07:05-07:25: Attend the daily morning meeting with Sales, Trading and Research. This is important as we hear< the main views of research, and get information about significant trading activity overnight or the day before. I occasionally speak in this meeting for my team. During< these meetings I make notes; attention to detail is key especially when noting more technical information<
07:25-07.35: I run and grab breakfast, if I don’t go before 8 chances are I will not be able to eat until lunch…mornings are notoriously busy in FX markets
07:35-08.00: I write up a short summary (whilst eating my breakfast-like I said, multi-tasking is key!) of what was discussed in the morning meetings and distribute this to all my clients via email, Bloomberg, Reuters or phone. I usually have this done before 8am otherwise its old news.
08:00-08.30: I call some clients to talk about the markets and their businesses. Sales involves relationship management, therefore building rapport with clients is key. I alternate daily the clients I actually call, but I send them market colour all day every day.
08:30-12:00: Anything can happen, markets are so unpredictable. I never know when my clients will call me to ask for a price, or information on a particular currency. Some days are slow, whilst others are hectic and I don’t even realise the time! What’s important to bear in mind is hat as a Sales person, we are there to offer the full suite of our company’s financial products. So, I always try to think of trade ideas to pitch to clients. It is also important to be proactive and listen out for what colleagues are selling, as you can suggest the same ideas/products to your own clients. So it’s a two-way thing, we don’t sit there and wait for the phone to ring in order to get business.
11:30-13:00: I grab lunch. Due to the nature of our business, Sales and Trading cannot be away from their desks for too long, so we eat lunch at our desks. Which was weird at first, but now I’m most definitely used to it!
13:00-17:00: US equities open at midday so there is a bit of a buzz in FX markets again. Also, there are usually important economic data releases from the US that could potentially move the market so I keep an eye on those.
17:00-18.00: The trading book gets sent over to our colleagues in New York and my clients start to leave. The rest of my day is spent going over all the trades I have done, ensuring the details are correct, catching up with colleagues about the day’s events etc.
18:00-18.30: Home time, after a fast-paced day I go to the gym to let off some steam!
