Friday Randomness

DeliFrance breakfast
We probably accumulated a lot of deals the past week. ICAP sent us breakfast of pastries from DeliFrance... and it was enough to share with everyone in the dealing room. Mind you, 1/3 of our dealers are in Boracay attending the MART convention, so that means less mouths to feed. Gave 2 to Menchie who was the only one left to man BOTH the Domestic Trading Desk and the Peso Liquidity Desk (oooh.... baptism of fire!). When I was in that group, I had experienced manning the Trading desk alone ... not the Liquidity desk, and definitely not both. Hats off to her! Figuratively speaking.

Peso hits another high vs. USD
We thought 43.00 would hold, as there was some support at the 43.05 level. Wrong! The low of 42.67 was hit before trade was closed for lunch break. The rate closed higher at 42.81 in the afternoon session ... although the last mapped was technically 42.795. Late mappers' fault!

Technical glitches
I don't know if it's because about half the traders in the market are in the MART convention, but things were out of control today... and I'm not talking of the fast appreciation of the Peso.

First there was the delay in the BSP published rates (official reason I got when I called BSP: some problem with the "insertlink" tool in Reuters).

Then the New York Holiday of November 12 was obviously not loaded in the PDEX trading system as majority of the transactions ended up having November 12 instead of November 13 as settlement date. When our backroom thought of sending back dealslips valuedated 12-Nov but inputted as value 13-Nov in the OPICS system, they got a taste of an irate Rey. He he he! It was almost lunchtime when Deutschebank, the officer of the week, sent a message to everyone detailing how we shall address the problem.

ICAP dinner set
ICAP called earlier in the week to set up a dinner with the group. The schedule was finalized today: Dinner will be at the Highlands Steak House at the SM Mall of Asia next Tuesday. All the guys are looking forward to that dinner... it's a steakhouse. I'll bet Boss Dan will order the combination that has both lobster and steak ... his favorite.

KFC lunch
Nothing good to eat at the canteen today. You'll easily recognize the food as leftovers... I guess the cooks weren't inspired today as they expected few would eat in the canteen anyway - people like eating out on payday. Around 7 of us in the dealing room decided to order lunch from KFC. Heard Teddy speaking to his girlfriend Judy as I was walking towards Lanie's desk ... can't help but say out loud "KFC!". After he said goodbye to Judy, he called on my attempt to bust him ... he doesn't want his girlfriend to know he's eating fastfood (she wants him eating healthy), and he sure as hell doesn't want her to know that KFC would be his second lunch! Ha ha ha! I'll bet he didn't tell her his (first) lunch was Pork adobo.

KFC isn't the fastest when it comes to delivery. We were starving by the time their guy arrived.

Mean Streak
No one in the Dollar Liquidity Desk was taking notice of the Closing Swap Run sent by Prebon via Reuters so Rey took the call. He didn't end the conversation immediately, which set up the joke he played on Grace. He closed the monitor (not the machine) and motioned me to watch. As is customary, Grace went to the Liquidity desk's Dealing Screen to look for the closing rates. She couldn't access it. Then, she walked over to the third currency desk but the rates weren't there either. She looked at our screen but saw it was closed. I called her over to receive a deal slip and sign on our logbook. She had resigned herself to returning later to check on the rates and headed out of the dealing room. I began laughing so hard it's a wonder she didn't suspect a prank was being played on her. Rey had to call her back.

It was Grace's fault he thought of doing it anyway. She called at 4:15PM to ask if there are no more deals. We think the backroom assumed that since a lot of traders are in Boracay that we'll finish early as well. She usually makes that call around 4:45PM. The answer is ofcourse : NOT ... simply because London almost always calls 10 minutes before 5PM ever since the month started.

Heavy Traffic
I left the house earlier (compared to previous days) this morning, but traffic was heavier than usual so I was still freaking late (grumble). It was no better this afternoon. The line waiting for the bus was already long when I got to the station. At the same time yesterday, I would be able to get on a bus that is only 3/4 full. That's how heavy traffic was. Christmas season is approaching ... there will be more days like this.