Film1983
Trading Places
1983RecommendedFilmStart hereAn evening
A corner works because someone must deliver what they have sold.
A comedy that ends in a corner on orange juice futures, and it gets the mechanics right. The closing trade is a genuinely sound explanation of margin, delivery and what a squeeze feels like from the wrong side.
Where it shows up in a roomWhere it shows up in a room
It is the least painful way to arrive understanding futures delivery, which commodities and markets desks do ask about.
BookSchwager
Market Wizards
Jack D. SchwagerRecommendedBookIntermediate
Traders who agree on nothing else all agree about risk control.
Interviews with traders who made money in incompatible ways, which is the point of it. Read across the volumes and the only factor left in common is risk control.
Where it shows up in a roomWhere it shows up in a room
It stops you claiming there is one right way to trade, which is the answer a markets interviewer is hoping you will not give.
BookLynch
One Up on Wall Street
Peter LynchEssentialBookStart here
An edge usually starts as something you already understand better than the market.
The case for buying what you already understand, and the ancestor of every "tell me about a stock you like" answer that actually works.
Where it shows up in a roomWhere it shows up in a room
It is the model for the stock you bring to the room: a business you can explain without notes and a reason the market is wrong.
Series2022
Eat the Rich: The GameStop Saga
2022RecommendedSeriesIntermediateA few evenings
Settlement takes days, and the collateral call lands before it clears.
Three episodes on the squeeze, the broker that halted buying and the reason it did. The clearing and settlement question it raises is the one most candidates cannot answer.
Where it shows up in a roomWhere it shows up in a room
Why a broker halted buying is a favourite markets question, and almost nobody gets past the conspiracy answer to the collateral one.
Film2023
Dumb Money
2023RecommendedFilmStart hereAn evening
A short squeeze is a funding problem before it is a price problem.
The GameStop squeeze from the retail side of it. Watch it alongside Eat the Rich and you have both ends of a short squeeze, which is live ground in any long/short conversation.
Where it shows up in a roomWhere it shows up in a room
Long/short interviews ask how you size a short. The honest answer starts with what happens when you cannot hold it.
Doc2009
Floored
2009RecommendedDocumentaryIntermediateAn evening
A skill is only worth what the market structure around it allows.
Chicago pit traders as electronic markets take their living away. The best film on what happens to a skill when the market structure that made it valuable disappears, which is not a historical question.
Where it shows up in a roomWhere it shows up in a room
It is the most honest thing to have watched before answering what you think automation does to the seat you are applying for.
BookFarchy
The World for Sale
Javier Blas and Jack FarchyEssentialBookIntermediate
Physical traders make money on logistics and access, not on a price view.
Commodity traders as the least visible and most consequential firms on earth. Read it before any physical commodities or trading house interview.
Where it shows up in a roomWhere it shows up in a room
Commodity houses ask what they actually do. Arbitraging place and time, not direction, is the answer they are waiting for.
BookZuckerman
The Man Who Solved the Market
Gregory ZuckermanRecommendedBookIntermediate
A signal that works is small, short-lived and expensive to find.
How Renaissance built a systematic fund and what it cost the people who built it. The best account of quant investing available to someone who is not a quant.
Where it shows up in a roomWhere it shows up in a room
It gives you a realistic picture of what a research pipeline looks like, which is what a quant interviewer is testing when they ask about overfitting.