Mentoring Junior Rate Traders at Futures First
Took on a cohort of junior traders in US interest rate futures, managing their risk exposure and teaching the reasoning behind positions rather than just the conclusions.
Parag Goyal
Market Analyst at Futures First
From their time as
Market Analyst
Futures First • 2025 - 2026
Overview
When Parag moved into a research role at Futures First, he took on a cohort of junior traders in US interest rate futures. He was responsible for managing their portfolio exposure, monitoring their PnL, and ensuring they stayed within risk limits.
The Story
When Parag moved into a research role at Futures First, he took on a cohort of junior traders in US interest rate futures. He was responsible for managing their portfolio exposure, monitoring their PnL, and ensuring they stayed within risk limits.
The harder part was not the risk management. It was getting junior traders to actually understand the positions they were in, rather than simply copying what they saw more experienced traders doing. He made a deliberate choice to walk them through the logic, not just the conclusion. His reasoning was straightforward: a trader who does not understand why they are in a position will not know when the thesis breaks or when to get out. That is dangerous.
Building that understanding took time. Junior traders came in with their own skepticism, and trust had to be earned through consistent reasoning, not authority. Over time, as Parag's logic proved out and his explanations held up under scrutiny, the cohort built genuine conviction in the framework rather than just deference to his calls.
The experience sharpened his instinct that research is only embedded into decision-making when the reasoning is shared, not just the output.