Bigger picture

I've been working in finance for nearly five years. It all began with systematic forex trading at one of the world's largest investment banks, where I was responsible for overseeing the infrastructure needed for a single team of quantitative traders. It was a great experience that allowed me to see firsthand the amount of complexity required to make money in modern financial markets.

After that, I moved to one of the biggest hedge funds. Again, a huge scale of operations, but this time I focused on models used in portfolio management. This exposed me to even broader markets from a completely different perspective.

The biggest twist so far came when I started working on algorithmic trading in power markets. Due to physical constraints, commodity trading is more concerned with real-world infrastructure and geopolitics, and energy trading is the most complex of all these markets. This experience gave me greater appreciation of the global context of trading and the interrelationships between various assets.

Then 2025 happened, with the full madness of rising geopolitical tensions between the USA and the rest of the world. Just as global trade is declining due to new tariffs announced every week, we can enjoy a sharp increase in prophecies of the greatest market crash of our times that is yet to come.

I'm confused.

On one hand, I know how to price forex options, calculate margin requirements of equity portfolios, and automatically trade commodity contracts. On the other hand, this all feels like pieces of disconnected knowledge. I want to change that. I want to see the bigger picture of macroeconomic policy and market interconnections.

Since I don't have a formal education in finance, I'm starting my finance library. One book that has been recommended to me many times is The Complete Guide to Capital Markets for Quantitative Professionals. I'm going to start with that, and over time, I want to grow a collection of resources that will help me and others navigate modern markets.