Trader comes from the English word “trade” which can be translated as “commerce”. The trader is therefore a natural person who drives a market and trades. There are two possibilities for this professional: to work as an employee or as a self-employed person. If the films present traders as billionaires or bandits in prison, the reality is quite different. This facet represents exceptions and not the general rule.

The trade of a trader consists in buying and selling bonds while constantly following the fluctuation of their price. The trader works on behalf of a bank or a brokerage firm called “Broker” and their clients who have committed large sums. Its primary objective is to make these investments profitable within short periods of time. This activity requires an ultimate level of concentration, a spirit of decision, a taste for risk and an unfailing coolness.

Do you want to work in the banking world? Discover the recruitment process for the biggest players in the sector!

What does the job of trader actually consist of?

The stock market trader buys and sells financial assets (stocks, bonds, currencies, options, etc.). It continuously monitors stock price fluctuations in real time with the aim of generating profits.

The trader, whether self-employed or salaried, may have a specialization in certain assets or in certain stock markets. He can therefore become a binary option trader, high frequency trader, energy trader or even Forex trader. The latter invests in the currency market (foreign exchange market).

The trader’s missions

In his daily life, a trader manages trading operations and decision-making in the markets. He has only one goal: to generate profits for his clients and, at the same time, for himself. In order to achieve this, the professional must complete several missions:

Find out about the state of the market and take into account current developments (exchange rates, new laws, new market players, etc.). To do this, a trader is required to maintain a good network and cultivate useful relationships over the long term.
Buy and sell securities that may increase in value in order to make a profit. Market participants resell securities when they believe the securities have reached their highest price and that their value is unlikely to decline. Generally, the professional follows the instructions of his clients to the letter, he is still required to give his expert opinion.
Advise and support its customers in the purchases and sales to be made. The trader must give informed and useful investment advice.
Make profits and put in place short and long term strategies to achieve maximum profits for his clients and for himself, at the same time. In financial market jargon, this is called: “taking positions”.
More generally, the trader works in the trading room where he makes quotes, deals with clients and manages their portfolio. In his daily life, he is armed with several telephones and microcomputers that send him real-time information on the development of stock market fluctuations and international markets. Thanks to his expertise, he assesses risks, sets product prices and negotiates transactions.

The differences between independent trader and salaried trader

It is important to distinguish between the profession of independent trader and that of salaried trader. The first works for his own account and invests his own savings. The internet has given rise to many independent home traders. Online trading has thus become within reach, thanks in particular to the various free training courses. In recent years, we have also seen the emergence of many crypto-traders or crypto traders, that is to say traders who specialize in topics related to crypto-currencies and more particularly bitcoins.

As for the salaried trader, he is more of a trader on behalf of a client and invests his money. The institutions that employ it are generally banks, investment funds or private companies.

What is crypto trading? Focus on the crypto trading

The cryptocurrency markets are decentralized. Indeed, virtual currencies are not issued by a central authority, but rather pass through a network of computers. They are not regulated. Cryptocurrencies can be bought and sold on exchange platforms and held in dedicated wallets (or wallets). Unlike traditional currencies, cryptocurrencies have digital proof of ownership stored on a blockchain. This means that when a user wishes to sell units of their virtual currency to another user, they must send them to the latter’s virtual wallet.

Crypto trading involves trading the movements of a cryptocurrency through a CFD trading account or buying and selling that currency through an exchange.

A report released by the Cambridge Center for Alternative Finance pointed out that there are more crypto traders than there ever were. They number 35 million users out of the existing 139 million.

To become a crypto trader, you have to go through a cryptocurrency trading platform. When choosing a suitable platform, you will be able to buy cryptocurrencies. You can then trade digital currencies or keep your tokens in your cryptocurrency wallet until you decide to resell them. One of the best and most trusted trading platforms today is eToro.

What training to become a trader?

To become an independent trader, no diploma is required. Many training courses are available online to train for this profession and succeed in generating profits. You can thus become a trader on the internet directly after the baccalaureate. All you need to do is choose a serious stock broker and a reliable trading platform, like MetaTrader 4. However, it is recommended that you practice on a demo account to limit the risks and become familiar with the various tools.

However, to become a salaried financial trader in a bank or investment fund, it is necessary to have a long education. In France, you can take one of the following training courses to apply for the position of trader:

Business or management school diploma (finance specialty)
IEP diploma (finance specialty)
Engineering school diploma, supplemented by training in finance
Professional Masters: banking, finance, management, mathematics, statistics, law, economics
You can also turn to a bac + 6 training:

Specialized master in finance
Specialized master’s degree in market finance
Specialized masters in finance and risk management
Specialized master’s degree in finance, risk, control
The profession of trader is strongly internationally oriented. A mastery of the English language is therefore essential. During your years of training you will have to do internships. We therefore recommend that you turn to positions as an assistant trader. You will thus be able to discover this profession and ensure yourself a good entry point into the world of finance.

Trader’s skills and the qualities required to exercise this profession
To practice the profession of trader, you must have a very good knowledge of the workings of the economy, statistics and IT. A good trader is also able to withstand pressure and keep his cool. He works in the trading rooms which are always in turmoil.

To sum up his skills, a trader must:

• Keep calm to survive in a very noisy environment.
• Follow your intuition and make the right decisions at the right time.
• Be comfortable with the numbers. The trader is required to handle the figures on a daily basis and to draw analyzes from them in record time.
• Have a very good relationship with all market players (salesman, client, back office, etc.).

It is thanks to his network that he will be able to gain insightful information, which will help him in his decision-making.
Keep in mind a certain personal ethic. Clients invest huge sums and risk losing everything if the trader mismanages their money.

Take on the fun side of the activity and keep in mind that sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. The trader can afford to take risks, but he still needs to be in control and be someone responsible so as not to jeopardize the professional lives of others.

The trader’s salary

It is impossible to specify the income generated by independent traders in view of the disparities between them. However, the salary of salaried traders consists of a variable part (bonus) and a fixed part.

What is the average salary of traders in 2021? The average salary of traders in a bank is estimated to be 70,000 euros per year excluding premiums. It mainly depends on the banks and the seniority of the traders. Juniors earn an average of 4,000 to 6,000 euros per month. Bonuses are capped but can reach up to 8 times the base salary.

In the United States, traders’ earnings are much higher, with uncapped premiums reaching millions of dollars per year. Unsurprisingly, therefore, New York City is where most billionaire traders are found.

Through these options, the investor bets on the high or low of a stock, for example, after minutes, hours, days or even weeks. Some of these options rely on price variations that happen seconds after application.

Binary options receive this name because there are only two directions in which the application is made: “yes” to bet on the increase in the asset’s value, or “no” to the contrary.

Binary options are also known as digital options or fixed return options, for fixed return options (FRO) in the North American market.

How Binary Options Work

In Binary Options, the asset and the date on which it will change are determined. The application can be done only in two directions: to increase or decrease its value.

In case of adjustment in the direction of variation, the investor gains a fixed return, therefore, recognition as a fixed return option.

To apply in the sense that you believe the price of the asset involved will vary, the operations are known as:

Call option: when the investment is made in the direction of an increase in the price of the asset;
Put option: when the investment is made in the direction of a decrease in the price of the asset.

A binary option for the stock of a publicly traded company involves betting whether it will appreciate or lose value after a while. The option is applied according to the terms agreed with the broker, for the direction of the bet, the term and the profitability.

In addition to stocks, brokers can trade binary options involving commodities, indices or currency pairs in the foreign exchange market.

Example of binary option:

For example, for March 1, 2019, at 1:00 pm, there is an option for the value of a particular share to be below or above 2:00 pm on that day. Profitability of 70% is considered to be correct.

A trader considers that at that time the share will be at a higher value and decides to invest US $ 100 in the option for the price increase (Call Option).

If it is correct, you can win $ 70 with your bet, in addition to leaving with the amount you applied. If you are wrong and the stock loses value on the stock market, you lose the $ 100 you applied.

How to invest in Binary Option

Binary options are available from specialized and authorized brokers. These brokers offer binary options for investment in their platforms.

The application in binary options must be made on one of these platforms with the money already deposited in the broker’s account.

Before investing in these options, find out if the broker is authorized and what is the level of reliability among the traders who invest for it. Examples include Binary and IQ Option. You can too open a free binary options demo account to try binary option for free and learn about this market

What are the risks of investing in binary options?

In binary options you can see that when you invest in the wrong direction, money is lost. This happens due to the volatility in the price of the asset that the option relates to, both its value can go up or down.

In addition, it is necessary to take into account the brokerage firm where you are investing. Some may not work properly, causing great damage to the application. For this case, good research about the brokerage firm where you want to invest is still worthwhile.

In order to reduce risks, the best strategy is to diversify investments, never betting everything on the same asset. So, although it seems like a simple market, the best tip is to study and get to know in depth how to apply.

Difference between traditional options

An Option, when acquired by an investor, confers a right to acquire or sell an asset that the contract involves. At the end of a period, it is possible to analyze whether or not you want to buy or sell such an asset.

If the option is made to purchase a share, for example, the investor may or may not acquire the asset in the period that has been agreed.

In binary options it is different, since the investor does not directly acquire or get involved with the option’s asset. In this case, only the price of the underlying asset is monitored and the profit is attributed to those who bet correctly.

Learn more about what Options are and how they work.

One more bullish sign for Bitcoin?

Well known for his fierce hatred of the cryptosphere, Nouriel Roubini even went so far as to compare cryptos to a stablecoin based on toilet paper and called Bitcoin the “mother of all scams and bubbles” before the US Senate (in 2018). .

However, in a recent interview with Yahoo Finance, the economist specializing in economic catastrophism had to end up admitting, half-word, a quality to Bitcoin. Who would’ve believed that ?

However, Dr. Doom hasn’t turned into a crypto enthusiast. Far from there ! The positive quality he recognizes in Bitcoin has indeed slipped between criticisms, such as:

“It is not a currency”, supposedly because it would not serve as a unit of account;
Its number of transactions per second cannot increase: “it has no scalability”.
His slight compliment to Bitcoin comes from its role as a safe haven:

Bitcoin may be a partial store of value, because unlike thousands of other cryptos that I call shitcoins, it cannot be easily devalued, since it has an algorithm that decides where it is. amount of bitcoins that is issued increases over time…. You can also trade and make a lot of money by riding the volatility of the bitcoin market.

Not so fast: Roubini considers that, anyway, everything will be crushed by the MNBCs

Didn’t you think Dr. Doom was going to end his interview on something positive anyway? As usual, he ends with a nightmarish economic vision, where central bank digital currencies (MNBC) have destroyed all other forms of money:

“Not only will you no longer need crypto, but you will no longer need Venmo (PayPal’s mobile payment service). You won’t even need a bank account anymore. You won’t even need a check (…). The big revolution that we are going to see in the next 3 years will be the digital currencies of central banks. They will crowd out all other digital payment systems. “

It is an economy entirely governed by the goodwill of the central banks, made all-powerful. Even though Halloween is over, Nouriel Roubini still knows how to give us visions of horror.

Obviously, anyone in the cryptosphere knows that Bitcoin was created from the ashes of the 2008 financial crisis, precisely to escape the banking cartel. Crypto-enthusiasts are therefore unlikely to return to this dependence with MNBCs. But what do you want? You don’t turn an apocalypse preacher into a Bitcoin apostle overnight.
 

Ethereum is in a bullish phase. On November 4th, the Ethereum Foundation confirmed the launch of the Ethereum 2.0 Deposit Contract. It also set December 1 as the tentative date for the Beacon Chain to start. The founder of Ethereum, Vitalik Buterin, supported the first stage of phase 0 to Ethereum 2.0.

Since the deposit contract was launched, investors can participate by paying 32 Ether (ETH) and sending the funds to the address of the deposit contract. A total of at least 16,384 deposits or 524,288 ETH are required, almost USD 200 million, before the beacon chain can be used.

Buterin has been one of the most important donors so far. The founder of Ethereum has proven his confidence in the project by making a down payment of 3200 ETH for over 1.4 million USD, divided into 100 transactions of 32 ETH each. Buterin still keeps about $ 2.5 million in the address he sent the funds from and $ 1 million in other assets based on Ethereum.

It is speculated that Buterin’s transactions are part of a strategy to build investor confidence and encourage them to participate in ETH to the extent required. As part of deploying the Beacon Chain, investors must keep the funds under lock and key for two years. Some users have raised concerns about why Buterin is sending out a message of trust. At the same time, the founder of Ethereum published a study in which he examined the advantages of the consensus protocol of Ethereum 2.0, Proof-of-Stake, compared to the consensus protocol of Bitcoin, Proof-of-Work.

Benefits mentioned by Buterin include energy savings and the elimination of special equipment in order to be rewarded for staking. Because of this, it is expected that more users will join the network. However, one user pointed out that with phase 0 of ETH2, users must maintain 100% uptime on their funds for the entire 2 years. Buterin said:

Nobody is expected to be able to maintain 100% uptime. You can be profitable with just 60% uptime. In case you’re afraid to speculate because you fear your computer may go offline for a day, the rules of reward and punishment are designed to be fairly lenient.

A quick post re-stating the case for proof of stake:https://t.co/viW2EYAXf3

— vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) November 6, 2020

18 million for the Ethereum 2.0 deposit contract

At the time of writing, the deposit contract is estimated at 40,165 ETH in the amount of 18,656,250 USD, around 10% of the amount required to deploy the Beacon Chain in December. The question remains whether the goal will be achieved by the provisional date.

Experts like Adam Cochran have stated that the launch of Eth 2.0 will cause a supply shock in the market. Therefore, this will have a positive effect on the price of ETH. But it is also necessary that around 13% of the circulating supply of ETH be staked out in order to achieve the current level of security that Ethereum has with the PoW protocol.

In the community, a possible increase in the centralization of the network is also a concern of the users. Coupled with the uncertainty due to the volatility of the ETH price and the risk of losing a large amount of money. As a result, the developers of the Ethereum Core have reiterated several times that investors need to make sure they are sending the funds to the right address.

While it has long looked like Donald Trump would win the election, at the last moment the tide may have turned in Joe Biden’s favor. The participation of voters through the mail could be crucial. There is currently a record turnout in the election, but there is still no clear winner.

Bankman-Fried is part of the Political Action Committee (PAC) or Super PAC, which has no legal restrictions on the amount of money it can spend. However, the funds raised by the Super PACs can only be invested at the state level. However, the law forbids making donations at the federal level.

Therefore, the money raised was sent to contribute to the campaign in 3 key states: Florida, Ohio and Texas. The amount donated by Bankman-Fried is only exceeded by Michael Bloomberg. The magnate made a contribution of $ 56 million.

In total, Biden received $ 79.5 million from key donors. In contrast, the incumbent president received $ 75 million. Given how tight the choice is, the FTX CEO’s input could be critical to the bottom line. In total, the Center for Responsive Politics estimates that both candidates’ campaigns received nearly $ 2.2 billion in donations. Bankman-Fried’s $ 5.2 million is on top of donations from Alphabet Inc (Google), Simon Property Group, Euclidean Capital, and others.

Bitcoin reaches Washington
Bankman-Fried’s donation could have a noticeable impact if a Joe Biden win is consolidated – especially in implementing a new regulatory policy when there is a new government. At least the crypto community has responded positively to the donation from the CEO of FTX. One user stated that “Crypto needs to increase its presence in DC (District Capital, Washington).” Others expect positive effects from Bankman-Fried’s donation:

It is surreal to see a crypto CEO donate such a relatively (and absolutely) high contribution to the election. Let’s hope that Bankman-Fried actually did lobbying for cryptocurrencies with the Biden team before donating.

Notably, FTX is a Hong Kong-based exchange. Under US law, US citizens are not allowed to participate in trading their derivatives. Therefore, the donation could be aimed at easing regulations so that the exchange can eventually enter the US market. Analyst Adam Cochran said:

It was a donation to a super PAC that is going down in broad votes. This is political lobbying and is a great way to get regulation changes.

Keepy gives applications faster read times and the ability to validate data integrity against the IOTA Tangle.

The I2T crew has launched the application Keepy, which works with IOTA streams. Keepy aims to improve the user experience and is a generic gateway that allows various devices using the I2T standard to easily publish their data on streams. As a small Nodejs application, Keepy receives information from sensors and “returns it on request,” as the I2T team explained:

Keepy is a small Nodejs application that sits in front of the Streams Gateway to receive the data from the sensors and send them back on request. It basically mounts an endpoint that you can POST data to. The data is stored on streams and a local database that creates a link between each record and the streams channel ID that contains it.

With Keepy, users can query information from a range of data sets and retrieve information from a local database such as get the channel identification. This gives applications fast read times and the ability to validate data integrity against the IOTA Tangle.

The application also has a buffer system. This allows users to request information insertion management and send information to Keepy in a period of low frequency. The application also allows users to configure the length of time that the data is stored. As soon as the time has expired, the data is sent to the IOTA Tangle for storage. The I2T team further added:

We believe this is a very simple but valuable application. It helps solve some of the problems that have been observed while caring for participants in the “Integrate Everything with IOTA” hackathon. It is open source and extremely easy for users to customize. We encourage everyone to try it out and play with it!

Limitations with IOTA streams

Keepy was developed by the developers Eduardo Pelitti and Andy Espagnolo, part of the Argentine open source community I2T. The developers found limitations in several functions of IOTA Streams. In addition, they decided to use the Nodejs programming language, as it is easy to use “in view of its easy to implement and modify character”. As both developers wrote, there is one major limitation that Keepy is trying to address:

Streams runs over IOTA transactions. Therefore, every data set sent requires a small proof-of-work, which limits the granularity of the inputs. Sending one record per second would create an overloaded, full node and affect the gateway’s ability to do its job.

On the other hand, with Streams channels it is not possible to receive a subset of messages (i.e. the last 5 published messages). This proved to be a problem when developing IoT applications that needed to maintain the state of objects such as a living room lamp and access them in order to perform actions, the developers discovered.

Bitcoin has thus reached its highest price since January 8, 2018, certain parallels to the Bull Run of 2017 are currently inevitable. The current price movement seems to be driven by a strong FOMO (“fear of missing out”) effect. At least this is what the so-called “Fear and Gread Index” says, which tries to measure the mood in the market.

The index has risen from 72 to 90 yesterday, which means the market is now in an “extreme greed” state, according to the index. The last time the index topped 90 was in June 2019 when BTC hit its yearly high of $ 13,900. However, not all experts are convinced that Bitcoin is actually “overbought”.

The founder of Capriole Investments, Charles Edwards, explained that the situation is fundamentally different than in 2017. Edwards pointed out in a newsletter to investors that there was a massive migration of Bitcoin reserves to crypto exchanges this year. Bitcoin stocks on the exchanges have decreased by 25%.

The shortage of tradable Bitcoin, according to Edwards, is currently “causing a supply shock to potential buyers, which was probably also triggered by the halving dynamic” and increasing the likelihood of positive price movements. Edwards also wrote on Twitter that “19K are more likely at the moment than a drop to 12K”. Edwards also referred to the latest news that Square sold twice as many bitcoins in the third quarter as were mined worldwide.

This, together with the PayPal news and the constantly new records from Grayscale Investments, which bought 77% of all new bitcoins in the third quarter, seem to support the theory of the supply shock from Edwards.

$ 16,000 is the final resistance before a new Bitcoin all-time high
A key level for another Bitcoin rally could be the $ 16,000 mark, as there were two weekly closing prices at $ 16,100 in early January 2018. So if this week’s candle can hold these levels, there could be a surge towards this elusive all-time high. With this in mind, the renowned analyst Michael van de Poppe wrote:

The past few hours have been accelerating as we get closer to the next $ 16,000 weekly level. US stocks are doing their job too, having risen about 7% (Nasdaq) in the past 36 hours. Let’s see where BTC will end up, before or after $ 16,000.

Analyst Credible Crypto pointed out that yesterday’s price movement broke the rising trendline, which could mean the attack on the all-time high at USD 20,000. Still, he also warned that it could be a false outbreak. In this case, the analyst sees the level around 13,500 as the first support:

Our trend line has been broken. Nevertheless, we are now pushing for the HTF [Higher Time Frame] supply, the last major obstacle before the new ATH. It is very possible that this break in the TL [trend line] is just a throw-over (false breakout), and there is simply no way to justify longing for this coverage area.