Are you a trader looking for a new gig? Do you have certain requirements of the job that’ve made finding the perfect employer slightly difficult? Do they include:
* Wearing flip-flops, polos and shorts to work?
* Taking leisurely lunches
* Enjoying yourself a good rom-com and paying matinee prices?
* Playing 18 holes before the close?
* Catching a few winks on the company roof deck?
* Having bosses that understand there’s not much of a point to working more than a few hours a day?
Then shoot a resume over to Briargate Trading. These are the guys for you.
On the day the “flash crash” bludgeoned the stock market and chaos swept over the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, the founders of Briargate Trading were at the movies. Rick Oscher and Steven Rubinstein weren’t playing hooky. Briargate, a proprietary-trading firm that the two former NYSE floor “specialist” traders started in 2008, is mostly active at the stock market’s open and close. In between, when market activity typically drops, the Wall Street veterans play tennis in Central Park, take leisurely lunches, visit their children’s schools and work out at the gym. Dress shoes have been replaced with flip-flops, slacks with cargo shorts. Once during market hours, they walked about five miles and crossed the Brooklyn Bridge to try Grimaldi’s pizza. “We actually planned on working a full day,” says Mr. Oscher, wearing a white polo shirt and blue-plaid shorts. “But from 11 to 2, the markets are pretty quiet—what’s the point? As a specialist, you have to stand in your spot all day and we did that for 20 years.”
In 2008, the men joined forces with a programmer from Van Der Moolen and started Briargate. The five employees that now comprise Briargate work out of an apartment in a luxury-hotel and condominium complex on Wall Street. Briargate trades mostly stocks, using computer algorithms that still require human decision-making. Sometimes the firm’s programmer is left in charge when the rest of the staff leaves the office. Focusing trading on those times could limit gains, but Messrs. Oscher and Rubinstein are at peace with that. “Would you rather play tennis or make an extra $80? It’s a lifestyle question,” says Mr. Rubinstein, who sometimes works remotely from Florida. “I can go play 18 holes of golf and then come back and trade and that’s a workday.”
“If someone offered us three times what we make to do a real job, we wouldn’t do it,” Mr. Oscher says. “Money isn’t everything. Plus, we’d make terrible employees.”
Sweet isn’t it?
A. Dupree
This kind of thing happens all the time at Rebeillion. It’s no big deal.
I don’t know what we would do if STAR wasn’t self-aware.
-Rebellion analyst
Ashley call me, I’m free between 11-2.
Human decision making would never happen at Rebellion
So I love Peter Cetera?
Lemme guess, guy on the left is the techie.
If they keep doing Bar Triage from 11-2, they might have an Errata Big with their Arbitrage algorithm.
-Not the the Anagrammer, but a naf of his work
No probs – I’m having some guy called OptionsTrader between 13.05 and 13.07 – other than that i’m available.
A. Dupree
You can play 18 holes or a round before the close, but playing 18 rounds may be tough, regardless of how easy the job is.
touché
Working 2-3 hours is the new killing it
Briargate Trader
um, does anyone think Wall Street may be heading towards another bonus season PR problem?
I smell varmint poontang!
If these guys had a real pair of balls they wouldnt trade at all during market hours….for like 20 years.
-B. Madoff
So, wait, some people work more than three hours before plating golf?
30 seconds per hole would be like an eternity for some people. Just sayin’.
“the Wall Street veterans play tennis… and work out at the gym.” — not too often from the looks of the photo
Yez but zou wurk tree whores za day, five dayz za week in America.
In France, I wurk tree whores a day, one weak za year.
- French VP
If you get it into the hole but is not working properly, does it still count as doing the hole?
Isn’t bonus season after the elections? If so I doubt anyone will care anymore as the dems won’t be chasing votes.
-guy from Canada who doesn’t recall when US bonus season is
That pretty much describes a typical day for someone who is unemployed. Except, replace Golf with Pocket Pool.
Please – I know these guys. They made a ton stealing in the 90s, then another ton when they sold their specialist firm to Van der Moolen. They’re living off that. They’re no more actual traders than the E-Trade baby.
But the ten minutes delay in quotes is killing me now.
These gay fuckers left a coked up whore to watch the place.
The ladies love Cetera
I seem to remember Canary Capital only trading an hour or two on close and they had money winning strategy as well.
JP Morgan : JT Marlin as Van der Moolen : Vunder Moolah. Make it happen.
Who Wants To Work 2-3 Hours, Play Some Golf And Call It A Day?
Apparently, Bess.
You’ve been hanging out with that milkaholic haven’t you
Just don’t call her Lindsay
ingrate
Life can be good!
HA – we only work three hours a WEEK!
~ SEC
Much better to be putting in 100 hours of “face time” in a week making pitchbooks and then JO&C when you realize the MCD manager makes more per hour
WHIRRR, WHIRRR
**~*~* WORKING 2 HRS/D vs 6.5 HRS/D = $10 LOWER CON ED BILL/D
WHIRR, BEEP
***>**~** AVG PROFIT/HR = $1.874512
BEEP,BOOP,WHIRRRR
**~*~* COMMENCE SHUT DOWN
Damn it fuckin’ Lindsay!!!!
pikers
“Mr. Oscher says their compensation is “in line” with what they formerly made as specialists. Successful specialists could make upward of $500,000 at the industry’s peak, while partners could bring home more than $1 million.”
In Soviet Russia, playing close only opens trader!
Touche asshole.
Agreed. Is it me or do they look like an AT&T Reception Bar ad?
Agreed. Is it me or do they look like an AT&T Reception Bar ad?
Agreed. Is it me or do they look like an AT&T Reception Bar ad?
That alcoholic bimbus!
@guesto: I think I love you as much as I love CoveredLong. Q for you:
The thought occurred to me that maybe OptyTrady is really freaking funny and lobs balls for us to smash. Or is he the doof he appears to be?
golf is fucking gay. the game is for guys that are too fat/old to play tennis – or they are too poor to live by the beach. i dont understand how anyone can enjoy that shit, especially adrenaline-junkie traders. just saying…
if you want to play a sport, play a real one. if you want to drink beer and smoke cigars, you don’t need to use golf as an excuse. or do you? pussies.
its not gay until the other guy cums
guestosaurus has increasingly become one of my favorite commenters as well.
So they hired the quant to manage whatever money they scraped together and they brag about it in the journal.
Pikers.
It’s only gay if the ball goes in your hole, not the other guy’s.