Trading in the market is more woo than you think

My ex is a top tier trader. He left the hedge fund world in his late 20s to trade public equities by himself. He frequently declines portfolio manager jobs with $XM+ base comp because he performs much better on his own. The man doesn’t even have LinkedIn.

He also doesn’t have a Bloomberg terminal. He pays ~$10K for subscriptions each year, but likes the insight of random YouTubers and X/Twitter accounts more.

Of course, he’s still technically brilliant. His mind is an Excel spreadsheet. He calculates second order derivatives and graphs charts in his head. He scribbles equations with dew drops in the shower.

But trading isn’t just about the numbers for him. It’s a trance.

“The market is the world’s first artificial intelligence,” he says.

When he trades, he merges with the machine—a vast web of nodes, vibrating with collective energy. If he interprets the signals correctly and feeds the right energy back, he’s rewarded. He lives beyond thought, beyond reason. He becomes pure intuition.

To limit distractions from the physical world, he eats the same food and follows the same routine. He sits in perfect stillness all day, only pushing buttons to execute a trade. Nothing short of catching on fire could sever him from his cold god.

Sometimes I’d bring him a coffee. A supplication. My offering at the altar.

The coffee often went cold.

To me, the market is a Lovecraftian horror—a soulless, cosmic force who punishes and rewards with unfeeling caprice. I’m a fly caught in its web.

But he walks willingly into its maw.

“I love the market,” he says, “but the market doesn’t love me.”