Open Day at OSTC

SIMSREE Student Delegates –

·         Ankita Narnaware

·         Abhishek Sinha

·         Divya Nadar

·         Girish Pai

·         Jeet Juneja

·         Mansoor Shaikh

·         Pathik Shah

·         Rohin Jacob

·         Rohit Kaul

·         Shruti Birari

·         Vundavilli Gautham

Onscreen Trading and Trading Connections i.e. OSTC had invited the students of SIMSREE to its premises on the 13th of January to interact with them and provide them with insights on how the world of trading moves as a juggernaut and also provided a hands-on-experience on the intricacies of trading at live terminals.

The visit commenced with a short presentation by Mr. Chintan Thakkar, wherein he started by describing in brief about the founders of the company and the course through which the company progresses, from a small office in the UK started by 4 friends to a multinational corporation. He also described their exponential growth and their projections for expansion in the near future. He went on to mention different markets that the organization carries out trading activities in as well as the volume of trades carried out within a day and its growth since the company’s inception. The students were very fascinated by the world of proprietary trading and had several doubts regarding the same as a career option. Mr. Thakkar clarified these by explaining the functioning of the organization and the duties and responsibilities of a trader.

Some students from the delegation, having prior experience in trading, shared some of their own experiences in the field. Subsequently, Mr. Thakkar explained the career growth that the vocation of trading offers and what would the career trajectory look like for a fairly successful trader. He emphasized on the importance of discipline in trading; OSTC lays greater emphasis on sound strategies in trading rather than one-off gains. The students felt encouraged after learning about the efforts that OSTC takes in order to train its employees and ensure that they have adequate time to learn and master the nuances of the trading profession.

This was followed by an explanation of the trading terminals used at the OSTC office and the different types of trades carried out. After a short introduction about the bid and ask rates of various asset classes and the rules that are to be followed by traders, the students were allowed to try make trades on the terminal. This was perhaps the most exciting part of the open day experience for the students since most of them had never operated a trading terminal before, most certainly not on the scale that professional traders at OSTC were used to. This also provided an insight into the movement of prices on the international markets and the impact that macroeconomic updates had on them. It enabled the students to connect concepts that they had learnt in theory to real life market scenarios.

OSTC organized an hour long trading competition among the student delegates to trade four different products out of the 100 plus products that OSTC traders work with, in a way that would maximize gains by hedging risks efficiently. Students were requested to limit their lot sizes to less than five on each product while simultaneously limiting losses to a thousand pounds or less at any given point in the competition. To assist the students, OSTC allowed them to interact with two of their most successful traders who helped the students gauge how they could minimize their losses. The students were also provided refreshments at their trading desks to ensure that their energy levels did not deplete during the competition. The announcements about key macroeconomic indicators kept beaming across the PA system and kept the students on their toes. At the end of the trading hour, the students were very enthused and the team with the highest gains was awarded a surprise present from OSTC.

The open day ended with the students being allowed to recce the OSTC office and interact with traders to further understand how trades were carried out. This concluded a very engaging and informative open day and SIMSREE students were thankful to Mr. Sanket Joshi and Mr. Chintan Thakkar for making it happen.