Tradeoff
Even if I wasn’t a market professional with four hanging screens and a smartphone, tablet, and smartwatch, I took my trading seriously, I had to
Green. Green. Startling, iridescent, wonderful green.
Sometimes you don’t realize you’ve inhaled until you’ve released so much breath, you wonder where your lungs kept all that air since the markets closed on Friday at 4:00 PM.
Yossi crawled over and yanked at my skirt. I threw a few toys on the floor to distract him. Then I sank into my swivel chair, rubbed my palms over the armrests and mechanically ignored the ringing phone.
Green.
Green up arrows. On my newest watchlist, the one including the AMD positions that had automatically become mine when my trades got executed on Friday — and then drastically dropped a moment before closing.
That’s how it had stayed — frozen red — all through Monday morning at 9:30. My brain had continued working frenetically — even if the market closes, strategizing never ends, off-market trading keeps the pulse thumping — but still, as long as the market was closed, I’d held my breath, not even daring to breathe a word about it to Shmuli over the entire nerve-rackingly long weekend.
I’d thought Monday would never come, but now it had, and my fears proved unfounded. I could’ve relaxed over Shabbos. I could’ve felt secure; I could’ve trusted my instinct.
9:33 – green – ↑7.78%
But at 9:37, as the phone rang again, two Greens on my watchlist suddenly turned Red.
QQQ.
And AMD.
I was more aware of my lungs sucking in air this time, even as my sister Nechama’s voice crackled on my answering machine. “Malks? You home? Where d’ya go so early in the morning? I wanted to—”
I reached for the handset on my desk. “Hi, good morning, what’s up?”
“Nothing, I have a two-hour pile of ironing here, I need company.”
“Oh, hmm. So sorry, I’d love to schmooze but I have some work here.”
“Ugh. You’re always working. What are you working on? Anything interesting?”
I couldn’t exactly describe what I was working on. Day trading? Nechama would never get it. Even if I wasn’t a market professional with four hanging screens and a smartphone, tablet, and smartwatch, I took my trading seriously, I had to.
Excerpted from Mishpacha Magazine. To view full version, SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE or LOG IN.
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