Be Cool: Liberation Day Fallout, Part III
In our theatre... relief is a false promise.
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Read Part II:
Across the AXIA trading desks.
Wednesday 9 April 2025.
London, England, and Limassol, Cyprus.
Within a cathedral of fragments, a theatre of cruelty. Renewal is Monarch; bitter tears blossom thrice.
11:58—Midday, yeah?————
Then:
What’s out? Something’s out! Spoo—look at it!
Everything on-screen teleports; price ladders flush and ping around. The shrieks and cries on the floor smash against an ensemble of TV speakers, robot and squawk voices blare out headlines, and all the alarms are BleepBleep!’g off.
12:00—CHI—MI—AD—BleepBleep!—IFFS OF EI—S GO—DingDing!
Oh my fu—“China… To impose additional tariffs of 84% on US goods!” reads out one of the traders.
But the floor is already in—smashing whatever bids, lifting anything they could get—trying to swim in this riptide, figure it out… “What is Yen doing? Why’s Yen not moved!”—FUCK!—“Look at it!—and Gilts; melting! Look at Oil!” Correlations, man, do you speak it? “This flow! Fuck! Just blips back!” “The VIX Climbs For The Fifth Straight Day,” interjects a voice from the ceiling.
Every squeeze crescendos into FuckFUCK! What’s it DOING? Urgghhh of frustrated cries; sputtering. Death CHOP! Guttural groans and grunts.
“Nothing’s working. So, so, so, bad!” yells another. “Tit for fucking taaat bro…” “Just one blip and only chop! How’s that possible!” “Get out! Just get out!” yells another. “What’s going on here? WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?” “Ughhhh… this Oil’s getting killed.” “But what’s this Spoo DOING? What is this?!” shrieks another. “So broken man!” Yeah, one replies. “Insane!” Actually is. “What are you waiting for? THE FED?” “This is the most aggressive option! It should be melting—this is nonsense!” “So far away from a deal! And the market’s hanging on! Do they expect a cut? Mates! You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”
*
By now, it’s three minutes past midday, or somewhere around there, but hours are seemingly coursing through.
You ramp up the intensity on these traders, and the interior monologue of one melts away into some collective stream of consciousness, each trader in turn shouting out new lows or different flows… shouting everything: observations, agony, ideas; trying to make sense of it all… no privacy. Everything is on the table—total immersion. Just listen to the floor, and there’s your real-time.
They reinforce each other, shout in unison: No! No! This is big! It has to be! It’s going to go! The staying power is exponential. If you prod, test, prod, test—paying up little by little—when it finally breaks, you must press. When you’re long volatility and finally hit the geyser, there is no alternative. Seize the initiative. Press it. Press it again.
But so far, this is all a chorus—looped, as it gradually winds down over the next hour. Note: these are scenes of frustration, not the death throes of some career-ending day, or whatever an onlooker might imagine. This is standard. Sleep has been precious since Sunday. These spasmodic flows feel more like Tuesday; what once would’ve moved markets is now at a stalemate.
Down the tunnel we continue. Some made a little, some lost a little, and others didn’t trade. It’s relatively insignificant, yet you still catch mud spraying through the air as the wheels ground deeper into the marsh.
But the illiquidity is stark now, and the markets are unravelling further—S&P futures worst of all. Some of the usual correlations—risk-on, risk-off—are fragmenting. The thinnest markets are likely moving not on information, but on fast-acting traders knocking each other over to get in and out. Meaningful participation ended Monday. What remains is a market in name only.
But you never know…
Some twenty minutes later, a few traders stand up, looking over their monitors and performing an impromptu verbal debrief of the latest reaction and what it might imply going forward. What’s the market thinking? What’s it pricing? A deal from here? Still expecting that? What were the markets expecting China to do in the first place? Are we pricing Trump backing down—or are we just not believing him anymore? And so on.
A trader reminds the floor that Bessent is about to go on live TV at the bottom of the hour. “Ohmygod—just let me take a quick piss for fuck’s sake!” shouts another trader as he runs out, surely sprinting down the stairs. He returns just in time for Bessent’s usual rattle: “They raised Tariffs. But so what?”
Later, the ECB’s Holzmann drops a few comments over the newswires, sounding his usual hawkish self. The news flow never abates. So many eyeballs, so many minds required to watch over so much, to catch that one headline. The one that cracks everything else. And sometimes, it comes down to one eye looking at the right place at the right time.
It helps to take advantage of the lull in the day, because you never know when the next one comes. By one o’clock, the floor volume is quiet. Sighs cut through the stillness. More talk about what just happened and what might come next. It’s so relatively peaceful that you’d never guess the explosion occurred just an hour ago.
Relatively: “How’s the Five-Year the weak one now? I don’t fucking get it!” roars one of the traders, again—all pleading, huffing, groaning. Then the room quiets once more. But some take the usual opportunity. “It’s Main Street’s turn now, not Wall Street,” Bessent says. “I mean… this voter base…” a trader replies. “They’re happy the market’s going down. Those rich Wall Street arseholes are finally getting ironed out.”
“Be Cool!—”
So Truths Trump a few minutes into the U.S. cash equity open. Buy America… there is some more trading around this time, but no real commitment, just waiting… and waiting… and waiting.
A veil falls over the room by four o’clock, a sort of trance; perhaps a daze, a fugue to shed earlier events and go again. Some started to nod off, and others discussed how they were up until two in the morning, then slept and woke up to be ready by five. If we haven’t hit peak fatigue—market and traders, one of the same—it must come soon.
But you notice something else. All these traders snap out of their hibernation as some headline alert dings and nod off quickly again. Novices don’t know how to undulate—they burn at both ends, weighing the important and trivial as equal. But the pack here rests, a hallmark of their experience. When the trading session is not segmented by day but has been unending since Sunday night, take the lull.
*
These traders don’t look back to look forward, as others assume or attempt; they are simply the party of asking: what’s next?
This overwhelming anticipation grounds you in the present. Perhaps that’s the real attraction—the shock is so total, so absolute, there is no space left but the now. A kind of ego obliteration. Bliss, for those condemned to be forever re-cast as Hamlet.
Further implicit, like water to a fish, is how open these traders are to persistent uncertainty. To say I don’t know most of the time, and to figure it out as the trade constructs itself. To navigate markets rather than attempting to solve them.
*
The floor itself is a web of stories; a stage, and all the world thus reflected. Yet these traders also live off-stage, in that grey space seldom considered when strategy is concerned. But you no more live your strategy than you eat it.
Consider a senior trader faced with a decision far more difficult than anything he encounters day-to-day: to keep postponing a long-planned family holiday with his kids, or to risk missing the big headline. The final plot twist. After all this waiting around, trading around, enduring the long hours and the persistent anxious state—should he pay down the costs and reap none of the rewards?
Yesterday, you walked the night of this Unreal City with him, to help deliberate. But even then, you understood: in his heart, he had already decided. He is going. He knows what’s right. Damn the Fates.
Is there a right decision? Beware the mirror hidden in the question. Yet as you part ways near Euston station, you can only think: his decision makes him the richest of us all.
*
I can’t do this anymore—I quit. I quit. So went last night for another senior trader. It’s not worth it anymore… Words inconceivable not so long ago.
*
18:18—The S&P, EuroStoxx, equities get hit and hit and hit—the traders dive into multiple positions, whatever they can get: short risk, long safe-haven————What’s out?!———
“TRUMP: RAISING CHINA TARIFFS TO 125%”
shoots across the speakers—Escalation!
—Hit it again! Again!————
But!—The markets squeeze hard, brutal: instant death lash. The next moments are a catastrophic flood———Somethings wrong! Your guts are screaming. The yells and cries plaster the walls; TV blaring; voices blurt from the speakers; you make out …. Pause…. ——What pause?!
One of the traders catches it midair: 90 Day Pause on Tariffs———
“Oh shit!” We’re caught! All positions are puked; cut then hard reversed—some did it the moment that trader read-out the pause headline, such is the trust between them, such is the market reaction confirming some positive sounding headline————Long S&Ps, Long EuroStoxx! Short Bonds! Short STIRs!——— ZN, ZF, ZT, ZB, ES, GC, 6E, CL, BRN, SR3, 6J, FESX, FGBL: gun them all down! ClickClickClickClickClick
Some traders cast a wide net, some focused on equities only, some hit late, and some puked and never got back in. The floor became absolute bedlam.
It’s not clean, it’s a mess, but:
This is it! It’s the headline————
The Twist! — 18:19
“He’s done a pause!” Jesus… “Shit! T-Notes!” What’da fuck is going on! “Right! What’s going on? Look at the bonds! Spoo!” “What’s happening with the Spoo?!” “Has he paused this, or WHAT?” I don’t know… “Shit!” It says… lowered reciprocal tariffs— “—on everyone else.” “On everyone else?” “Lowered on everyone else.” “And… and increased on China?” “It’s a pause, man!” “Shit!” It’s a pause, it’s a pause… “Pause on everyone else?” “—Yes!” “What are the fuckin’ Treasuries doing then?” “What about China?” Huh? “It doesn’t matter about China!” Fuckin’ hell man “The ninety-day pause is more important” “Spoo!” “T-Notes—you’re wrong mate… you’re wrong! Look at the short end!” Fuuuck… “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! What’s it doing?” “What’s going on?! Why’s it coming all the way back?” “Gold should sell man, Gold!—fuck off!” “Yen!” “What are the bonds DOING?” What are the bonds doing… Why are the bonds going bid? We’re lowering! “Is it me or did EuroStoxx …” “It’s closed.” Its closed mate its vol-stopped. “Gold… G-gold should shank, man!” “ZB is fucking rallying ’cause of the basis.” “Yeah… that basis trade is spiking hard.” “Gold should get killed, right?” “Yeah!” “Look at this Yen…” “EuroStoxx?” “EuroStoxx is closed; white-boxed. It’s finished” Urgh! “Gold!”
18:25 (-ish)—
“These bonds! They should not be going fuckin’ bid!”
“Why’s this—Gold!”
... SUBSTANTIALLY LOWER RECIPROCAL TARIFFS.
“Substantially lower! Mate! Give it up bonds…man! Fucks sake!”
“Mate—”
“Oh man—”
“No! No! NO! Fuck!”
“Mate, the T-Bonds are coming back. Come on! So choppy. What’s it doing? This fucking chop!”
“….Still, but still. It’s a big turn, man! A big turn!”
“SR3 went fucking down…”
“Yeah, yeah… we’re only five basis away from—”
“—FUCK!”
“But how many are we doing overall, though?”
“—We’re doing like a twenty-five basis in July.”
“Fuck! What’s it doing?!”
“Which market?”
“Bonds!”
“Yeah man, bonds were the worst on this.”*
Well, DJT did tell us to buy. The hour closes out, and the one after that, and after that too. But the traders remain… just in case. In the aftermath, this floor alone put up some seven figures and change.
But what a disaster! Quite a few traders were contenders for grabbing that milestone individually, and many have come close already. It’s why they push so hard, every ounce, and put in so many hours. But it was not to be. Yet, also consider that getting caught off-side on the first headline, then easily flashing negative tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in the red… then aggressively cut and reversing, sticking to their guns, and then ramp up size aggressively to then hit even more markets. It means they not only recovered a down-day but ended on a big high.
The U.S. Treasuries indeed were the trickiest: long-end trading as a risk product and not a haven; these kind of flows—duration risk—not seen since the economic implications of COVID-19 lockdown in 2020. And the endless reasons continue. Nevertheless, these multi-product traders navigated these complications no matter the chatter, no matter the disbelief on the floor: forever a lucid control of their risk, to manage and think dynamically, or as it was for some: simply hold the damn thing if you got great prices.
The Easy Story
“Now he’s just put the Cyprus office on the map,” said AXIA’s Haywood. “What a bloodsport… the other day this trader walked in and told me how he wants to quit, how it’s not worth it anymore,” he continued. And that very same trader just put up a 1.5 million dollar day, less than twenty-four hours between both events. After a nearly twenty-year career, this trader just smashed his all-time best, last broken in 2022. Long S&P and EuroStoxx and held it all the way. That was all. How simply difficult.
But what if he did quit the day before? What if he did go on a break? To take a rest? I’m tired. I’m in pain. I’m emotional. Those guys on the other floor are making a killing—and I’m not! I’m so unlucky…
Yet, also recall that a senior trader in London committed on Tuesday night to finally go through with his family holiday. He did not trade on Wednesday. Yet, both traders made the right decision at the most critical time. Why? Because of where they have come from and where they are about to go: a position of weakness and a position of strength.
The senior in Cyprus was injured; he was on a low, and it’s at these testy moments that the trader needs to prove they can trust themselves. To make the hard decision. Instead, break that self-trust and it all unravels. It is essential to know one can Be Cool in the face of overwhelming volatility and whipsaws and to fold on a big loss, no matter how bitter they might be, as it is also important to trust one’s reaction to future adversity. This was one of those moments: to improve Stamina, push the pain envelope, and grind Sitzfleisch. And at the hardest moment: to reject relief. Who do you want to be?
But if you accept relief, what would prevent that trader from doing it again and again? To reflexively meet each new challenge in the future with a break, a holiday, or some time off because their bank account size permits it. Junior traders cannot permit this—this is an advantage—they have to pay rent and will endure so much more to see it through. Fragility through success is insidious, and the true victory for this senior in Cyprus—P&L notwithstanding—was pushing through at this ruinous moment. To reject the easy choice. A death-resurrection; catharsis. He is now fully equipped to purge the past and move on from this low period. Life can now bloom among the ruins once more.
The senior in London is in a position of strength in his career, account, personal growth, routine maturation and skill development. The glacier of process he spent years tugging is now propelling him in his favour. Any conceivable P&L that Wednesday would have offered remains tentative. Instead, it will likely emerge from the rest of the year either way. And then some more. Would a marginal gain have made a cumulative difference?
He proved family is the most important; the hangover of guilt of staying, perhaps, would have been more detrimental than the transient feeling of missing out.” To stay would have been the easy choice. Instead, he rejected relief of staying and is all the stronger and better for it. To prove he can make the hard choice, to refuse temptation. When he returns to the markets, he will be fresh, his psyche rejuvenated, and his position of strength will be reinforced further. Likewise, if he gave in now, what would stop him from giving in again, and again? Staying at the desks each time, to not miss out, for smaller and smaller opportunities. What’s it all for, anyway? Who do you want to be?
*
As noted in Traders of Our Time, many of those market navigators made the right career decisions at the right time. And those are the questions and decisions that dominate far more than others downstream. Where you are in your career often determines the right choice in moments like these.
Yet, for younger, junior traders, remember you are in a far different place in your career than the two senior traders above. This is critical. Rarely are the experiences of senior traders captured for the benefit of other senior traders, because there are so few. But we write this with them in mind. Nevertheless, never forget the importance of participating. So many young careers are resurrected on the rare, outsized event. No matter how bungled, the opportunity is often so immense that making something out of it is enough. But these are so rare that only a single one would occur in a young trader’s career before it’s all over. So the choice for the novice is singular and simply difficult: stay, stay, stay, stay, stay, stay, stay…
*
“What is fascinating is that there is this young grad, a young guy who was struggling too… as it happened, he called out the right thing on the Trump-pause headline. He had his best day on it—but for [our senior trader in Cyprus], he said he would have made at least half if this grad hadn’t called out the right thing,” recounted Haywood. “Once again, it’s the collective intelligence. The plasticity of edge is much greater when you’re on a floor. And it was the same in London! One senior trader called out the ninety-day pause, and another trader told me this morning that he reversed his position merely having heard fragments of that callout.” Think in teams, not individuals. The sum of the parts is greater than the whole.
*
In our Theatre, relief is a false promise. And that… was Wednesday.
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