[ M E E T T H E D E S K | F I D E L I T Y I N T E R N A T I O N A L ]
substance, so to speak.
“[…] As an individual, you can either be an all-rounder or a specialist and I don ' t think that one is better than the other. At the end of the day, the one quality you can ' t do without is hard work. If you don ' t approach trading with hard work, you ' re going to be found out,” affirms Mulholland.
Healy agrees that the focus should be on going that step further, highlighting that one of the most important lessons he’ s learnt when it comes to trading is the importance of speaking up and questioning things if required.
Something which, of course, requires the right environment to allow traders the confidence to do so.
" If something doesn ' t feel right, we always want our traders to flag it first. When managing risk, it’ s important to push back sometimes and not take everything at face value. Despite the advancements of technology over the years, two and four eyes checks are still valuable. When trading voice, ask for better if you think it’ s reasonable [...] if you don ' t ask, you don ' t get.”
Mulholland further echoes this:“ I ' ve found that the best approach is not to have a team full of the same personalities. It’ s not good to have a team of only good cops or bad cops if you will, but to have a mixture of personality types. The same applies to skills. You don ' t want a team solely focused on technology while neglecting
soft skills. The best teams I ' ve ever worked for, and certainly the one I ' m currently working for, have a mix of personalities and skills.”
On the other hand, when it comes to those hard skills it’ s a truth universally acknowledged that those on the buy-side who don’ t take technology’ s rapid incline seriously, will fall behind.
“ I always encourage a team to have a good understanding of the end-to-end process and
“ You can either be an all-rounder or a specialist and I don ' t think that one is better than the other. At the end of the day, the one quality you can ' t do without is hard work.”
MARK MULHOLLAND, FX TRADER
40 // TheTRADE // Q1 2025