Axe /æks/ (n.) 1. Rock ’n’ roll: An electric guitar. Ideally, a transition ’59 Strat with a slab board and single ply pick guard.
2. Financial trading: The position a trader wants to be in, but isn’t. Where she aspires to go. A longing. A need. A desire. If she is long huge slabs of structured mezzanine credit and it is March 2007, she is dramatically axed to sell it. Fast. A trading axe does not — well, not necessarily — imply proprietary trading. Even delta-one swap providers may be axed by just the desire to flatten one’s book and optimise one’s financing, as we discuss (by footnote) in this essay.
