Meet Lorraine, William and Aastha sharing their experiences as interns at our trading floor in Copenhagen

As always, it’s a great pleasure to welcome talented students to our Markets summer internship programme, and this year we’re happy to have six talented interns joining us at our trading floor in Copenhagen. In this first blog in a series, you get to meet Lorraine, William and Aastha who come from different backgrounds with diverse skills and interests – and are enjoying their time as Markets interns; being challenged, surprised and learning something new every day, professionally and socially. 

Lorraine Zhang

Bachelors at CBS, Masters in data science and finance in Paris. My academic focus was on machine learning applications in high-frequency trading and market microstructure. 

Fast paced team

During my internship in Markets, I'm working in the Systematic Market Making & Automation team, focusing primarily on FX spot trading. My role involves helping the team analyse trading patterns of EURNOK and EURSEK, optimise pricing and risk management models, and potentially develop visualisation tools for trading activities. I'm using Python to analyse dataset, and also incorporate various macro factors to analyse the patterns. It's been exciting to work with large amount of tick data and a series of external data for this project.

In my first weeks, I've also been introduced to various teams across the Markets trading floor. I've met with teams trading different FX products, the developers and business analyst teams. We have also had sessions with Compliance to understand regulatory frameworks governing our activities.

I've also been shadowing traders during market hours, observing how they make split-second decisions and manage their risk exposures throughout the day. The pace here is much faster than I expected.

Friendly, supportive and happy to share knowledge

The biggest eye-opener, so far, has been seeing how much human judgment still matters in algorithmic trading. Despite all the sophisticated models and automation, experienced traders constantly adjust parameters based on market sentiment and news flow that isn't easily quantifiable. 

It is also amazing to be part of the fast paced team and experiencing that everyone are very friendly and supportive, and happy to share their knowledge. The exposure to the business and my learning curve has been very satisfying and I’m very motivated to start each day with something new to learn :-).

Furthermore, us interns have had a various catch-ups with social events organised by Markets colleageus over the last weeks. We have a series of events scheduled for the coming weeks, as well – and I’m looking forward to that. 

William Gormsen

I am currently pursuing a master’s degree in economics at the University of Copenhagen, with focus on finance and econometrics. 

Super interesting

During my Markets internship, I rotate between different desks at the trading floor, spending approx. two weeks at each desk; starting out in Research & Risk Solutions then on to the FX/Derivative Sales & Research team, then FX Sales and Emerging Markets Solutions & Derivatives.

In my first two weeks in the Research & Risk Solutions team, I assisted in modelling risk exposures for corporate clients. I’ve also explored the macroeconomic effects of recent trade policy developments and how they may influence global financial markets. It’s been a nice mix of analytical work and big-picture thinking. As I enjoy solving problems that require structured thinking and analytical reasoning, it’s been a great experience.

The same goes for my rotation to the FX/Derivative Sales & Research team where I’m currently working. In short, the FX/Derivatives team helps large corporates and institutions manage their currency and interest rate risks. It’s been super interesting to see how theory from university is actually applied in client discussions and risk strategies.

Confidence boost

The first weeks of the internship have exceeded my expectations. From day one, I felt welcomed and actually felt included in the team. Just a few hours into day one, I got my first task. The next day, my manager used parts of my work in a client presentation, which gave me a nice confidence boost. It felt good to know that what I’m doing actually matters.

I’ve had the chance to speak with various people from different desks at the trading floor. Everyone’s been open, and I’ve learned a lot just from informal chats. We also have intro breakfasts coming up with the other intern teams, which I’m looking forward to.

One of the coolest parts has been getting my hands on some of the tools the professionals here use every day. So far, I’ve been working with tools like Bloomberg, Macrobond, and Nordea’s internal analytics platform—each of which has given me a deeper appreciation for how professional teams access, interpret, and act on financial data. These tools have also strengthened my ability to conduct real-time market analysis and risk evaluation.

Excited and eager to share

I was genuinely surprised by how passionate and knowledgeable people are here. It’s one thing to read about financial markets in a textbook—it’s another to sit next to someone who’s been working in the space for many years and still gets excited about it and is eager to share knowledge. Also, I’ll admit the trading floor felt a bit intimidating at first (it’s huge with a lot of screens at each desk), but the atmosphere is very calm and focused. 

Aastha Singh

I am from India, and I recently moved to Copenhagen to pursue my MSc in Sustainable Energy Technologies at Technical University of Denmark (DTU).  Since my bachelor, I have worked across financial services and academia, e.g. I worked almost three years in Market Risk Analysis and Controls in Deutsche Bank in Mumbai.

Enjoying challenging learning curve

During my internship, I am working in the Market Risk Access Channels team within Market Risk Business Technology. In the first two weeks, I have met different stakeholders like risk managers, controllers, traders and data architects that has significantly helped me build a holistic understanding of the financial markets beyond textbook knowledge. 

Coming with a background in market risk, the most unexpected thing for me when starting here has been to deconstruct a lot of frameworks from my prior experience, to then be able to develop new ideas at Nordea to execute the same concepts of risk. I have been enjoying this learning curve as it challenges my default way of thinking. Keeping up with the market risk regulatory requirements and having a new set of tools has made work more exploratory in nature. 

As my team works with different tech solutions, I have a lot of flexibility in designing and experimenting with these tools that might help in creating a more user-friendly and intuitive user interface for the stakeholders.

Welcoming and warm 

My team consists of people from Hungary, Bulgaria, Poland, China, Egypt and Denmark.  During our lunch, each day I learn something new about food and culture from across the world. The atmosphere here on the trading floor is very nice and not at all as noisy as I imagined - also, I was happy to see more women here than I expected. The people in general at Nordea are really welcoming and warm. 

Coming up is a blog with our three other summer interns in Markets Denmark; Vivian, Emil and Mark. Meanwhile, have a look at some of the other blogs by interns, graduates and other Nordea people at Meet our talents blog.