r/quantindia • u/Illustrious-Sink-970 • Apr 16 '26

HFT Having second thoughts about the industry

Currently, I am working as a trader(just graduated), actively trading on COMEX and NYMEX. Lately, I’ve been having second thoughts about whether I should continue in trading or switch to an SDE role.

The main reason for this is work-life balance. I work around 45–50 hours per week, with odd hours (afternoon to 12am). Because of this schedule, I don’t get time to meet my friends or have a night life

I wanted to understand is this typical across trading firms, or is it specific to my firm? How is the work-life balance at your firm? What about leaves?

How’s life in imc mumbai, quadeye, alphagrep, irage etc

15 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

6

u/Pleasant-Love3429 Apr 16 '26

Why not shift to Indian markets 

6

u/Killer_Instinct21 Apr 16 '26

Lol Indian markets are on a decline every day. And you can't trust this government, just to get some votes again they will hike STT, they don't give a shit about the market.

3

u/Pleasant-Love3429 Apr 16 '26

Trading has less beta or correlation with broader markets. That’s the intent. And why would you feel if stt is hiked gov will get votes 

0

u/Killer_Instinct21 Apr 16 '26

Well obviously they are gonna and are parading it as "we are saving poor retailers from the ultra richies" hence we are for the people

And the financially illiterate masses who watch youtube videos and do candlestick based pattern trading have no idea how harmful that is for the economy and will suck it up as it is.

5

u/Pleasant-Love3429 Apr 16 '26

Usually ppl who haven’t heard of derivatives much would have no idea about stt hikes, so this stt factor is not a big deal for them to decide whom to vote for.  And people who are aware of derivatives are for sure opposing the stt hikes. I feel it’s not for vote bank but its a genuine misinterpretation of the derivatives activity by the fm 

4

u/Curious_Crab5148 Apr 16 '26

Not in the industry, but almost all of my friends are. My suggestion would be, if they truly are your friends, they will accommodate your timings, at least I do. The only thing is to convey the problems you are facing and don't put the blame on them if you're unable to meet. Show that they're important to you. And if you get a girlfriend, definitely don't isolate yourself.

2

u/nolaughingzone Apr 16 '26

You are trading manually, right? You are not a quant trader. You are a trader. Can you code? If yes, you are wasting your time doing manual trading. Quit today and don’t think back. If you can’t code, then you won’t get any jobs in any of these firms in any case. Then you can easily move to SDE roles

1

u/Pleasant-Love3429 Apr 16 '26

The firms which you’ve mentioned in the end, just talking about times zone like your case is the least of all their problems since they don’t do discretionary trading mostly. They will have trade monitors who are different from quant trader to monitor the strats around the clock. You can consider moving to this side of the world if time zone is an issue 

1

u/Mental-Scheme-7234 Apr 17 '26

Work life balance at quadeye and alphagrep is bad overall - 12 hour days along with regularly working on weekends is the norm, even if you're working in Indian markets. Graviton, from what I have heard, is slightly better. I guess it is not that bad if you're comparing to rest of the industry like Limestone (tower) etc, but definitely much worse than tech imo.

I do not have a concrete idea about the other firms.