Too much time on my hands

by John on December 30th, 2006 // Filed Under » General

To be honest, as a trader I always hated weekends. Well, let me restate that. When I’m in a really good trading flow, I hate the weekends. The markets, after all, are closed. Of course, during those spells when my trading isn’t quite as fun, the weekends can’t come quickly enough, or last long enough.

So on which side of things are you this weekend? With the holiday we already have a three day weekend in place for basically all markets that matter. Now you add in the decision by the NYSE, NASDAQ, and others to be closed (or open only for a limited time) for the national day of mourning in the U.S. on Tuesday, we are looking at a fourth day off as well, basically.

Actually, the fixed income traders, analysts, and support staff have my sympathies. I was among them once. Because of the Treasury auction taking place on Tuesday, they can’t take the day off completely. They only get a half day off.

I was also a forex analyst, and they have the worst of it. The forex market, because of its 24-hour global nature has very few actual days off. It’s not like the market stops trading just because there’s a U.S. holiday. I can remember working on many a holiday, at least for the time the European markets were open. Of course it’s fairly thin action, but even still, someone has to be there to keep on top of things.

These days I’m enjoying my trading, but I don’t have a problem with the weekend. Not feeling antsy, waiting for Asian trading to kick off again. I’ve got lots of other stuff occupying my time these days. You’ll be hearing about some of it soon enough. Keep and eye out, but for now, just try to relax and enjoy the long weekend.