"have you tried selling bombs" 🤔

well now that you mention it...

Friday is fun day.

Least, today is.

Markets are slow, trader’s bogged down with end of year admin, deliveries, contracts.

Etcetera.

Spent the day talking to people who, in a corporate setting, I’d be scolded for even thinking about talking to.

After all, a corporate company is only as strong as its clear division between teams and responsibilities.

Fucking booooooring.

Fuck corporates.

Fuck corpos.

Corpses in suits.

comments that tickle my skull muscle

As a matter of fact LEE WINTER, I had a very close encounter with the industrial defence side of business not too long ago.

A couple weeks back, back in early October, I found myself seated in a bar I would never go to, with people I don’t usually hang out with (almost never).

These were a bunch of kiddies from the investment group that I’ve since retired from. Officially this time.

As per usual, all these kids could get off to was back and forths about the novelty of working in the world of finance. Trading this, valuation that, corporate politics this, career progression that.

Blah, blah, fucking, blah.

Googled ‘finance interns’ and this was the first image I copy pasted. Fuckin corpo kids

Found myself talking to some retarded kid, obnoxiously trying to make himself sound smarter than he was, asking me all kinds of questions, that were more statements if anything, about my market.

I was cordial, but let’s just say this kid either needs the universe to whoop his ass, or keep him safe and tucked away at his internship at Goldman Sachs.

Yes, another one of Goldman’s ballsacks got loose in the wild, smelling strong of the usual over compensation cologne.

Anyway, he’s not the one I want to bring this story back to.

Apparently the group recruited some Israeli kid.

And on a quick tangent, the group’s collected investment performance was kinda shit last year, to the point where this Israeli kid’s parents threatened to sue the group.

A group of kids by the way.

Average age of 22-23.

Over a loss of maybe 300. Maybe.

Funny shit, you can’t make this up.

Anyway this kid’s kind of a meek one right? Arms crossed, chest withdrawn, slouching slightly.

I get to chatting to him, and it turns out he’s interning or working part-time for a company based in Israel.

One he can’t tell me about because of legal or political shit.

“Huh,” I think to myself “I’m steering clear of this, smells like deportation”

Fast forward to the end of the night, this kid starts to ask me if I know anyone in the Dutch defence sector.

Dude, the fuck I look like? Yuri Orlev?

No I don’t know anyone in that space.

Fuckin hell for a kid that was supposedly supposed to keep his little hustle a secret, he did a shit job.

I did end up giving him whatever 2 cents I could on how to do business, in a general sense, borrowing from how I’d do it as a broker, because it seemed like his job was mostly outreach anyway.

But fuckin hell it smelled like I was one accidental conversation away from being nabbed by the Mossad straight off my bike in the middle of Rotterdam.

Didn’t like it one bit, mostly because this is just some kid.

He grew up in Singapore by the way.

So I’ve no fuckin clue what his business is asking me about defence contracts or whatever.

And that’s about as close as I ever came to being a broker for weapons LEE WINTER. I might’ve dug a bit more, but this kid’s hot and cold, and lack of confidence, gave me no reason to believe he was either telling the truth or that he could be trusted to do business.

Plus, he was one of those “oh man I wanna make it big, fuck uni” type of kids.

Figured I should let him get that out of his system first.

the lore behind my profile pic

The most random part of my profile pic is the metal baseball bat.

I know, of all things right?

As an aspiring cryptic, the picture includes hints about who I am in real life. There’s plenty of elements in this picture that I might explain one day.

But you can get creative in the meantime.

I definitely see how people might take this picture at face value and go “the fuck is this bullshittery?”

Because that’s all it is. Random bullshit, that together paints an image of me as an individual, my habits, what I do, as well as what my mentality can be like sometimes.

Bomb brokerage? I mean damn.

That’s fucking dope, have to say.

Ethics and morality aside, the mental and logistical challenges of finding the right buyer for a bomb, or any kind of weapon, is insane.

And illegal I’ll bet.

But weapons smuggling exists, and selling weapons directly is a thing.

If there’s a world of weapons brokers out there, I don’t know. I’m curious of course, but I imagine it’s an infinitely risky game.

And honestly it makes me want to watch Lord of War. Might just do that this weekend.

Got fuck all else to do except go visit a fucking fluffy, needy, orange cat.

the ‘who gives a fuck’ mentality

As I see my bank account slowly drain itself of every cent I have.

I’ve evolved past the stage of fear, apathy, and dread.

Now it’s do or die. Time to quit pussy footing around, and hunt harder.

UK market deal probability? Slim

Continental European market deal probability? Better

Biomethane deal probability? 50/50, depends on the day

In all scenarios, it never hurts to speak to more and more traders

As it stands, on days where I’ve had less to work, I’ve simply gone out and tried to find other traders to do deals with.

It started accidentally, with a trader asking me about some German-origin biomethane.

I don’t have the fattest of client books on biomethane, let alone producers or traders that keep an eye on German origin material. So I thought, ‘fuck it’ might be a good opportunity to kick down some doors and immediately go asking a couple new guys for stuff they’re working on.

That eventually turned into around 5 new contacts to talk to and potentially deal with. All because I decided to use this buying interest to chat to people.

one such example of a new dude I speak to now. Also speak to his colleague who covers Germany

And this week I’ve been actively chatting to them.

I wasn’t expecting it to be as easy as it has been. Granted, this could just be a lucky streak and these guys happen to be chattier traders.

Still. That being said, I now speak to a guy who trades biomethane and GOs. Contacted his colleague today who covers France, Spain, and Portugal. A Dutch producer from last week, who to be fair was responding to my outreach from back in the summer, and two Polish dudes who trade GOs.

The Polish market is one I’ve been curious about because it’s its own market.

But I digress.

I started out thinking there was enough money to be made in just the UK market.

Bzzt. Incorrect.

If I’d decided to just cover that one market, man I’d have quit this a long time ago I think.

But I expanded.

Not because there’s not much to do in the UK market. There’s always deals happening, whether it’s through brokers such as myself or whether clients go straight to each other to negotiate.

It’s not like the stock market where there’s trades like every few milliseconds. In these kinds of markets there may be a couple deals a day or none at all.

So I expanded slowly. Now I have way more guys to talk to, a much bigger scope of visibility, and I ain’t stopping.

The biggest threat to me right now is if one day things pick up so much that I’m frenetically switching from one market to another doing multiple deals.

I don’t see that happening soon, but it’s good to have a wide base of product coverage.

And most of all, it’s fucking fun.

Learning about new products, how they trade, what’s driving bids and offers.

Tickles my pickle.

I know a guy that covers carbon allowances. Was trying to call him today but had no luck.

Will try again.

Anyway I have to see a mate about a pint.

This week I worked quite a bit of volume, about 25-50GWh on GOs, 225GWh on REGOs, and 15GWh on biomethane.

NONE traded. Fuck a duck.

That being said 265 to 290 GWh ain’t bad for one week.

Hypothetically if I’d closed all those, I’d have made 8500 to 8750 euros.

FUCKING nuts how much money I could have made in a single week. That’s like one months salary for high ranking executives.

But that’s a pre-tax figure.

Makes me excited for next week hahaha.

Alright piss off, I’m going for a drink.

Arrivederci lads and ladettes.