Understand it. Then drill it.
Every lesson covers one interview topic, question type by question type: the intuition, why it works, a worked example with live numbers, diagrams you can move, the same idea run backwards, and a check marked exactly like practice.
Sales & Trading topic lessons
4 of 4 topics readyMarket Making
How a two-way quote makes money and how it loses it: what a fill earns against the mid, why the spread has to cover informed flow, how to lean the quote when inventory builds, and how much inventory the desk may carry at all.
- 1What a fill actually earns
- 2Why the spread has to be as wide as it is
- 3Leaning the quote to get flat
- 4How much you may hold: VaR and position limits
Bond Math
From one idea, a bond is fixed cash flows discounted at the market yield, to the whole rates desk: duration and DV01, the convexity that duration leaves out, the carry and roll-down a position earns for waiting, and the futures that trade off the cheapest bond to deliver.
- 1Price from yield, yield from price
- 2Duration: the average wait, and the rate sensitivity
- 3DV01: dollars per basis point, and hedging with them
- 4Convexity: the bend duration leaves out
- 5Carry and roll-down: the return from standing still
- 6Bond futures: the basis, the implied repo and the cheapest to deliver
FX & Rates
Reading and making prices in the two biggest markets: which side a client deals on, crosses built through the dollar, forwards set by the interest-rate gap, the swap rate that makes floating worth par, and curve trades sized so only the shape matters.
- 1Reading an FX quote
- 2Building a cross through the dollar
- 3Forward points: the rate gap in pips
- 4Swap rates: the fixed rate that makes floating worth par
- 5Curve trades: betting on the shape, not the level
Mental Math
The two drills a trading floor runs in its head: percentages and fractions by recognition rather than calculation, and compounding by counting doublings with the rule of 72, with live numbers to practice on.
- 1Percentages and fractions: recognize, do not compute
- 2The rule of 72: compounding in doublings