Elif Hucumenoglu joined Mizuho EMEA in 2023 as an eFX Trader from her previous role at Morgan Stanley where she was in an eFX Quant sales role. She recently spoke to TraderTV about her career journey to date, what her day-to-day role looks like and how Mizuho is enabling her to continue to grow.
As part of her MEng degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering at Imperial College London, Elif undertook a six month internship in Morgan Stanley’s Electronic Trading technology team. This internship would count towards a project grade for her degree and give her an introduction to the world of financial services.
“I was able to apply the technical skills from my degree as I was coding electronic trading algorithms,” she explains. “But at the same time, I got a feel for financial services. I started to understand how macro events shaped the economy and how signal processing, statistics and machine learning techniques could be applied to financial signals. I was highly interested in the studies and applications that we had looked at.”
After continuing her studies, Elif went on to also gain her Master’s degree in Electrical and Electronics engineering from Imperial College London, Elif joined Morgan Stanley and moved into an eFX quant sales role where she began speaking directly to hedge fund and CTA clients about their FX trading strategies. This move would further her understanding of how trading strategies are built, and how risk is managed from both a client and internal point of view.
“I was speaking to clients about their trading strategies, but at the same time I was the internal communication point between the internal teams, i.e. trading, quant desks and clients,” says Elif. “It was a moment of realisation for me – I knew that I wanted to be a trader and to experience risk management and position keeping for myself.”
Around this time, Mizuho’s recruitment team reached out about an eFX trader role and Elif decided to go ahead with the move from Morgan Stanley to Mizuho.
“It was great timing. The team thought I would be a good fit because I was coming from a technical background, but at the same time I had already had that exposure to the markets.”
A day in the life of an eFX trader at Mizuho EMEA
Elif joined Mizuho in 2023 as an eFX trader in the broader Digital Markets team that includes the Fixed Income eSales team and FX eSales & FX eTrading team for EMEA – an area of strategic importance to the development of the EMEA Corporate & Investment Banking Markets business, while also becoming a team member for the Global Electronic FX Team, where she takes over the eFX book from Tokyo and manages the risk from London.
“It’s a global, client-centric approach. Yes, you have your own focus, but if something you are working on can help somebody else deliver for a client, that’s an even better result.”
Elif Hucumenoglu,
eFX Trader
“Electronic markets, especially FX is evolving very fast due to the fragmented nature of eFX markets and high volumes traded. There are an increasing amount of FX venues and liquidity pools where most of the liquidity access is dark and hidden, and every market participant is trying to access this pool of liquidity with their version of the best possible outcome.”
Whilst there is a lot of competition observed in the market, this also means that the growth is never ending for both buy-side and sell-side participants, explains Elif.
“It is fascinating to observe the technology enhancements that shape the market heavily each year. These changes may range from the server and chip level through to latency, algo strategy and data analysis improvements.
“I am currently looking into Generative AI, where we see a major growth especially in LLM and how we may see more involvement in the eFX markets,” she adds.
In her day-to-day role as an algo trader, primarily on the market-make side for the Global eFX book, Elif’s role requires her to study market levels, identify client flows, adjust skew and spread levels, while identifying client toxicity profiles and market impact.
“I’m managing the position and risk built-up while watching the market closely and improving the algo on the market-make side. We use optimisation and signal processing techniques for the spread revenue, price movement and market risk models while effectively skewing to mitigate risk or trade externally to hedge the position and reduce the inventory. The algo framework we use effectively tackles the pricing and hedging while aiming to reduce the market impact and increase the internalisation ratio,” something that Elif states is beneficial for all parties involved.
Outside of her team, Elif explains that she works collaboratively with other departments across the globe to improve the capabilities and ultimately, client outcomes.
“It’s a global, client-centric approach. Yes, you have your own focus, but if something you are working on can help somebody else deliver for a client, that’s an even better result. Each department’s success adds onto another division’s success. It is always a client focused approach.”
The culture at Mizuho
Over one year into her role as an eFX trader at Mizuho, Elif feels that the culture at Mizuho is something that is enabling her to continue to grow.
“It is important for us to bring in and nurture top talent. It is very rewarding to support the new joiners and help them grow in this space as well.”
Elif Hucumenoglu,
eFX Trader
“I always feel empowered and supported with any initiatives or decision I bring to the team. We always get a chance to push ourselves outside of our comfort zones and that is where the real growth happens.”
In terms of support, Elif explains that she is constantly learning through attending conferences, courses and seminars as well as meetings with clients, market participants and third parties to keep up to speed on where the market is at and stay ahead of the curve.
“It’s always fun to be up to speed with everything. I am still growing in this space, and I feel lucky to have the amount of support and encouragement from the management that I do – we are highly encouraged.”
On top of her role, Elif is active in identifying and supporting new talent at Mizuho. “We try to bring awareness to how trading is shifting to electronical channels, where appropriate, and it is important for us to bring in and nurture top talent. It is very rewarding to support the new joiners and help them grow in this space as well.”
Whilst Elif praises the support she has in place, she says that nothing can replace the passion and appetite that comes from within.
“Passion is the most important thing. I love what I do and look forward to coming into the office every day, sharing ideas and making improvements, for Mizuho and its clients.”