The Night Without a Twist: Inside a Prop Trading Firm's U.S. Election Play
Sometimes, the real surprise is no surprise at all.
At the AXIA trading desks.
Tuesday 5th & Wednesday 6th November 2024,
London, England.
“It can’t be this good! Just wait…” so says Mario Kyriacou. He’s dressed in all black sweats, trainers—and right where the crown lies heavy fits the trader’s most favoured headgear: Make America Great Again in classic red.
The demands of a forward-looking prop firm place Kyriacou in many roles, but tonight he plays the traditional risk manager. An entire wall of monitors—and more—lines his room: The Risk Room. Grids display trader positions, other information, P&Ls, and pending orders. Other windows show monitoring, trading, tracking, failsafes, and price ladders—all forming the central nexus of a 150-trader firm spanning London, Limassol, Wrocław and beyond. And his instincts are sharp—“Amedeo—check the risk, see if anyone’s tryin’ to fade that crap,” he interjects into the long night as some flow and headlines blip the price ladders. After managing so many traders, each with their attitudes, behaviours, styles and risk profiles—he knows the response mechanisms, that Pavlovian desire for that one more mouse tap; one more small fade that surely will turn out well…
But now he stands before these monitors, chest out, hands behind his back, looking further—beyond—like a ship's Captain fitted with their Navy command ball cap on Deck. Because just over the beyond is always trouble.
Yet since midnight it’s been clean—too clean. The traders firm wide are doing well, building P&L slowly, squirrelling it away, and waiting for something. Shorts in Treasury futures, the Euro; longs in the S&P and CME’s Bitcoin futures. It’s all paying out.
But where is the twist? The drama! The markets just keep… going. No sharp reversals, no counterintuitive stuff going on. If you wanted the Trump Trade, you could just get on, and the market doesn’t want to even give you a real challenge getting it. The traders keep building and building, some crossed six-figures P&L on the night long ago, others are about to cross that threshold too. But there is always that moment, Kyriacou says, where it all goes to hell; that clincher moment—the twist!—the fight!—and then the traders resurface, pull through and go home. He calls all of this a “wobble,” but he isn’t one for dramatics either.
There must be a surprise somewhere. Harris will start winning some more, and the markets pricing in a Trump victory will start to unwind. You’ll see! It’s early—CNN says so! The traders will get pressured, but they’ll follow the flow—cut and reverse and figure it out. Let’s see…
But by 1 a.m. the market moves keep extending. The odds on betting sites keep shifting in Trump’s favour. More than any other time it feels they have a reflexive relationship with the financial markets—but that’s another story. “He’s going to win, I’m telling you!” says Kyriacou, peering over the monitors to watch CNN, having repeated this affirmation in a semi-mantra state for hours. And the Trump Trade keeps going.
Trump Wins Oklahoma, Trump Wins Florida, Trump Wins South Carolina.
“Yeah, easy mate—coffee and cigarettes,”
is this trader’s answer to how he’s prepared to pace himself through the morning. It’s 01:36 a.m., and he takes another cigarette draw, while gliding and pacing around the terrace. The kitchen lights behind me illuminate him, as if perpetually caught in the flash of some paparazzi photo; silhouetted against the night sky. Red eyes, fatigue, smoke cloud. Here stands your classic flow trader, navigating both the news and order flow, now twinned at the hip on the U.S. Election Day—night for us. Seventeen years in, he has whittled down the craft to just this: themes and flow. Copious nicotine intakes notwithstanding.
Others, like The Grads, prepped their hearts out with military-grade bags stocked full of supplies—a monochrome Stars and Stripes slapped on for good measure. With yoga mats in tow and food stashed away, they brought out their beef stews. Over-prepared is better than underprepared—am I right? The desk is your home now.
Such has been a recurring scene—like Clemenza’s “going to the mattresses” in The Godfather. Recently, a young trader brought the inflatable version to AXIA’s Cyprus office as soon as the first Iran-Israel escalation headlines started to drop some weeks back in October. And this time, everyone has prepared in their ways: ready to sleep under the desk, snag a corner in the Yoga Room, or don’t sleep—caffeine and nicotine. And more prep!
The traders mapped out all the details of each Swing State: the electoral votes, their poll closing times, important counties, the voting pattern in the last two elections, which websites to use, what social media accounts to follow, tracking new articles and headlines and much more. But then the cheat sheet: like our news-trading Cypriot said about the Japanese Elections, you need to distill all of this into a plan of action. Don’t try to be too smart. Action in the Dollar, Bonds, Spoo—whatchugon'do? And throw in some Bitcoin, Peso, Hang Seng and the DAX for good measure, if the latter catch a whiff of a tariff play.
Trump Wins Nebraska, Trump Wins Louisiana, Trump Wins Wyoming.
And from two timezones ahead, I hear about the Cyprus office. Thanks, Peter. It was intense, various traders keeping eyes on different news feeds, calling things out—sensitive to what was coming out. Pennsylvania! And in the interludes, the night allowed for small chats to debrief and game-plan ahead—quick runs to the kitchen to grab pizza slices. But the scenes and communication are similar to London: “eyes out on Arizona.”
Trump Wins Arizona, Trump Wins Ohio, Trump Wins Texas.
“The second I put on the hat we started making money. I will never take it off again!”
Says Kyriacou. It’s now 3 a.m. in London, and on the receiving end of this proclamation is Alex Haywood on a Skype call. The Axia Futures team just pulled off a night-long stream, a great example of the prep that went on. Haywood is riding off the high of the stream, discussing his experiences with previous elections, and now catching-up with Kyriacou about current firm wide performance.
And one thing is starkly apparent: the flow traders have it.
The Trump Trade is the 1+1=2 trade this time round. If you were waiting this whole time for confirmation of the winning candidate, you’d find it priced already—by both financial and betting markets. Or if you were waiting for a surprise—that smash’n’grab mentality—lead to severe underperformance.
Trump Wins Missouri, Trump Wins Montana, Trump Wins Utah.
But short-term flow trading gave you that optionality. Trump might win? Maybe. Is the market right? Who cares! The market is always right, even when it is wrong. It’s trading in the way of a Trump victory—equities up, bond yields up (bond prices down), dollar strength—the risk is small, the night is young, put something on and see. And the kicker is that it had all been executable, no real whipsaws, no calamity. Just… steady—and that is oh, so strange!
Where is the twist?! The traders are still building. Some are just shy of half a million on the night. But if there is a surprise—like a Harris comeback—that would be a million dollar night or more. The market would be caught wrong and that would be an immense opportunity. Similar to our Cypriot trading the Japanese elections.
Trump Wins Kansas, Trump Wins Iowa, Trump Wins Idaho.
Then it was 4 a.am. And now 5 a.m.—finally all States declared their polling results, and that daze hits you. Words are harder to articulate… CNN drones on in the background… The Risk Room melts you down from all the heat produced by the computers. Even the traders on the floor above are quiet! But Kyriacou is still active too, typing away emails. Always looking beyond the horizon.
By 5.30 a.m, Hawaii was done. Euro and Treasury futures are off their lows, Equities are ranging. I clock out. “Did you hear Trump is going to win?” says the Uber driver. “Americans! They’re a special lot.”
“The Clinton-Trump 2016 had that twist,”
Haywood says to me the next morning. “There was a bid in equities on Clinton, as she was doing well at the beginning of the night, and then a reversal as Trump won. But tonight: there was that first nail, where the probabilities shifted to consolidate on Trump, then another—like Nebraska—then another. It was little waves of flow that carried the markets further, pulses of P&L, then another pulse as Trump is looking ever more likely— then even higher P&L blips,” he continued.
And that is what all Junior Traders must debrief! Haywood says. The Plot Twist 2016, and No Twist 2024: a late reversal 2016, against an accumulation 2024, as the probabilities shifted further in Trump’s favour. And that’s the drama of the night—no drama. The markets really did just do a 1+1=2. “It was a perfect risk manager’s night,” Haywood continued. “No heart flutters, just steady P&L building.”
But of course it was. Doesn’t Kyriacou know? I’m the anti-jinx, I just gave him the perfect night. No twist; all flow. When was the last time that happened?
And later, a big bunch of the London traders all finally walked out about 9 a.m.
It ain’t but a thing.
Acknowledgements, Permissions & Disclaimer
Grateful acknowledgment to AXIA for granting access to their London trading floor and to various traders.
Photography: Credits and thanks to The Cypriot's snap of AXIA's London floor.
Disclaimer: Do Not Do Stupid Financial Decisions. This Is Not A Game.