The Hindu Business Line : Storming a male bastion

THE excitement and the flow of adrenalin are palpable as you step into the branch of one of Mumbai's leading brokerage in Bandra. The numbers flashing on the monitors are being watched with a hawk's eye by the operators and, every now and then, a figure is punched in to register a deal, which might be closed in seconds by fingers flying on the keyboard, literally at the speed of thought. The operator or the trader has a price in mind when he taps in a `buy' order and, as he might be playing for just 50 paise or a rupee, he can execute the `sell' order in the flash of an eye as the screen shows him the target price.

Of the two-dozen or so traders and jobbers in the room, there are just a few women. Priya Andrades is one of them. The 25-year-old, who completed her MBA from a Mumbai institute three years ago, looks cool, comfortable, and, above all, confident. She has been working as an arbitrager at this brokerage, where her father is a partner, for the last 18 months.

On finishing her MBA she joined a securities firm in Mumbai dealing with government securities. "I worked there for a year but soon realised that I would have to move on to something else because G-Secs, treasury bills, and so on, are also getting screen-based now, and our business was on the telephone, which meant that the debt brokers would get wiped out sooner than later."

She also wanted to train as an arbitrager. An arbitrager is one who tries to capture the price difference between two exchanges — in this case, the NSE and the BSE — or two segments of the equity market, such as the cash market and futures and options. Her endeavour is to reduce the gap in the price to her advantage.

Initially, she was reluctant to work in a firm where her father was a partner "because everybody would say that she is her father's daughter and so yaha aa gayi. But the problem was that no other brokerage firm was willing to take me because my father is a broker. I think it has to do with client information that I could leak out to my father's firm. That is bound to happen in this business because you tend to discuss your work with your family members. So that's the reason I ended up here."

Priya has had no occasion to regret that decision and the "last 18 months have been a very enriching and interesting experience compared to a desk job," she says.

Explaining her work, she says an arbitrager has to be alert as he or she deals in two markets — the cash market and the F&O segment. "There are about 40 of us here and we operate in the derivatives and cash segments, and book profits when we can make 30 paise or more."

But it is not a question of just making 30 paise, as she points out. Thanks to the securities transaction tax introduced in the last Budget, "on every trade I have to get at least a rupee, so that I get something, give the company something and give the Finance Minister something in terms of transaction tax! So that is the reason I have to sometimes look for at least a couple of rupees profit and that involves much more risk than a jobber. It sometimes takes all of a month to get my price," she says, adding that when she buys an option at a premium, various calculations have to be made on the pricing.

Volatility in the market plays a key role in the decision to buy and sell, as also the trend; whether the market is going up or down and where the support and resistance levels are located. She generally deals in call options and prefers to go short rather than long.

But Priya, who talks with so much confidence today and shows hardly any trace of tension, had to go through the rigours of training and the worries of fitting in. She went through two months of training from a senior colleague at the brokerage, and "it took me two to three months to get the guts to actually do the trades. Once you find the guts, the rest is okay. But this profession requires a lot of guts; that's why you don't see many women out here. Normally a woman has savings on her mind ... and paisa jaye, yeh woh bardasht nahi kar sakti (she can't bear to see money going)."

But a veteran now, Priya has already trained four women for the job of arbitrage. As for herself, she has no complaints about the returns from the profession she has chosen and makes about Rs 1 lakh a month. "At least that's my monthly target and I'm able to achieve it most of the time. But then there are tough months too "when I can't manage to hit this target. For example, last month."

What about losses? She flashes a huge smile in response. "Thank God I haven't made a loss till now, but last month was terrible, and my expenditure was so high because of the securities tax; whatever I made, I gave away as tax."

The main culprit for that was the settlement between the Ambani brothers, which came on a Sunday. "When the Reliance settlement news came out it was a big hit for all arbitragers. What is good for us is the market moving in front of us; but if it moves with a gap suddenly — as it opened with a gap that Monday — it becomes very difficult."

She feels that announcements like the Reliance settlement "should be made when the market is trading. They should not be made during the weekends, because it hits people like us very badly. I lost around Rs 50,000-60,000 only on Reliance, but eventually it was okay."

So, do such bad days bother her after market hours and does she take that distress home?

"Oh yes, it does bother me; it gives me grey hair", says the 25-year-old, pointing to the streaks with which she has camouflaged the odd grey hair!

To deal with the tension resulting from a `bad day', Priya reads a lot of books; fiction is her preferred choice, and writers like Dan Brown and Sidney Sheldon her favourites. She also does a lot of walking, and relaxes by cooking.

To one's startled look, she responds thus: "I'm just learning to cook and that's the reason I'm enjoying it. I don't know what it'll be like later."

Six months ago she got married and her husband too works for the same brokerage, though at another branch, and he deals with clients. In the evenings, Priya spends some time watching business channels and she makes it a point to "read thoroughly all the business newspapers. I have to know what's happening because you should not get a nasty surprise the next morning if you've missed a corporate development."

Her future plans include specialisation in the same field, "so I can do arbitrage for some clients or mutual funds. There is big scope in that area."

(Response may be sent to rasheeda@thehindu.co.in)

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