HK Trip – Day 7 (Tuesday 1 Mar)

It was a cold cold Tuesday morning… According to the news, it was only 13 degree Celsius… I was starting to wear more layers of clothing now… Couldn’t afford to fall sick at the moment… The coldness was already miserable enough… Couldn’t imagine if I was sick…

The weather is expected to drop to below 10 degree Celsius this Saturday. Everyone seems to be asking if we are prepared for the weather changes. So nice of them... The only warmth we are feeling now, besides my blanket in the hotel.

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Another long day of interviews with the departments… So far, none of the staff here remembered our interviews or came to meet us on time… We’d have to call them to remind them time and again… So busy meh?

Jacky from IT came late (what’s new?)… Apparently his department had operations manual and some other policies that were not submitted to Compliance!! Shock for the day! Told him we couldn’t proceed with the interview without going through the manuals and policies first. Re-scheduled to meet him on Thursday.

Next came Credit. Thomson was new and brought his assistant whose name was Dick along. Imagine he saying over the phone that he will bring his Dick along?! Hahahaha… Anyway, Shock number 2 was when at the end of the interview, Thomson told us that our manuals were outdated. His copies were the latest! Duh sia!!

Next came Asset Management. Only Ernest came cos Rachel was not free. Had an idea of what the department does. They have 6 fund managers (who are individuals of the company) who manage the portfolios of the clients. Will be meeting the dealing director this Thursday. Hope to get more information out of him.

Then came Liquidity Provider (LP), a totally new term to all of us. What LP does is to “stimulate” the warrant market by buying and selling on behalf of the issuer. Interestingly new concept but quite difficult to understand, especially when I know nuts about warrants.

The next meeting for the day was with Alton and his gang who are handling the in-house developed trading system. Fun-loving bunch. No pressure at all interviewing them. The few of them are doing everything from marketing to dealing to back office processing. No choice lor… Not enough people lor… Very typical structure in this HK office. Worrying too.

The final meeting for the day was with Derivatives although the focus was only on Stock Options.

Suggested to Alton that we would like to invite him to dinner at the Peak this Thursday. He said he would have to check his wife’s schedule first.

Alton told me that he completed the half marathon (21km) in 2 hours 20 minutes… Quite similar to my timing when I did the Army Half Marathon in Singapore last September... The difference would be the conditions… SG is so hot while HK is so cold…

We stayed back in the office to complete some stuff before leaving for dinner.