I offer the below listing (which you won’t find in my forthcoming book The Buy Side) mostly for those who don’t make a living on the Street, though those who do will recognize the following types.
 
A sales trader, by definition, provides trading assistance, research and market knowledge to his list of buy side clients. To attract more attention from these clients, brokers sometimes get very creative in the services they offer. In my years on the Street I relied on some excellent sales traders – both men and women. But even the great ones rarely represented as much as 25% of my total coverage. On any given day, I’d talk to 100 to 150 sales people.
 

 
Almost without exception, the sales traders I dealt with fit one of the following profiles:
 
1.) Lax Man – Typically, this trader grew up in Jersey, Long Island or maybe Westchester. He was in his late twenties or early thirties. Lax Man was the first guy to ask me if I wanted to get in the March Madness pool. He’d “crushed it” in Vegas the prior weekend and, the night before, the hostess at Stanton Social was “vibing him.” He referred to everyone as Bro, Pal, Chief, Guy or Boss.
 
2.)   Honorary (Wo)Man – She was cute and could trade locker room stories with the best. She used her sex appeal to create business. Behind her back, the guys on her desk would say, “She blows for flow.” But, in reality, she worked hard — harder than most of the men on her desk.  She had something to prove. She knew the business and did an excellent job. She wasn’t married.
 
3.)   Salty Man – He’d been with his firm for twenty years and secretly — or maybe not so secretly — hated me and the business. He still talked in fractions and resisted using email or instant messenger. He’d been divorced three times and didn’t have two nickels to rub together. Odds were, he was going to die on the desk.
 
4.)   No Man – This guy had no research, no flow and no worries. He liked to meet me after work.
 
5.)   Low Man –If I sneezed he’d say “bless you,” if I was tired and hung over he’d worry he’d done something wrong. He worked extremely hard, but the problem was he didn’t get a lot of respect from his own desk.
 
6.)   The Man – He’d answer the phone “250k up – what do you want to do?” Management loved him—he was the busiest guy on Wall Street. All you had to do was ask him. He’d get business done and wears his firm’s crest on his sleeve. He worked for one of the white-shoe investment banks and had gone to one of the best schools. He wound up as an
equity sales trader because he wasn’t smart enough to do something more difficult, but he always spun it that it was his choice to trade.
 
7.)   Family Man – He’d been passed over for several promotions, and was often caught off the desk calling his wife to discuss the twins’ science project. He’d accepted the ceiling in his career; Family Man was honest, calm and genuinely cared about doing the right thing. He tended to whisper.
 
8.)   Script Man – Every mornin he’d call at the exact time using the exact voice from the day before. Early in his career he’d been confused about the business, so he decided to keep it simple. He never cracked a joke in his entire career.
 
9.)   Five Foot Ten Man – He was just a dude, laid back, did a good job, didn’t love the business, but realized he could make twenty times more doing this than being a teacher or going into the family business. We got along great because we both knew we were frauds.
 
10.)   Dr. Serious Man – He had the most important job in the world. Trading stocks and talking about the market were as important as finding a cure for cancer. He’d yell at his wife for calling at 9:15 a.m.; his kids weren’t welcome to pay a surprise visit to the office; and his clients weren’t always right — he was.
 
Do these types still exist on Wall Street’s trading floors?  Wherever there are orders flowing, they can be found.
 

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