The Devil's Deal

Welcome to the jungle52

Traders sat on long benches. Each had an individual desk covered

with computers, cables, jotters and phones. The hierarchy became

obvious. Senior traders were given a Bloomberg terminal each to

follow news stories. A single click on a share’s name revealed

who was interested in buying and selling a nancial instrument

and at what price. I noticed that the senior traders were not the

thinnest or most athletic group of men ever assembled. By 10

in the morning their desks were covered with wrappers from

McDonald’s, KFC and Arcoboleno, an Italian deli that was to

become my favourite.

Spreadsheet monkeys

More junior traders clustered around a shared Bloomberg. Deals

were fed into a separate monitor running a Reuters trading

platform. Their poor clerks had to live with a single computer

each. One of the clerks had the slogan spreadsheet monkey embla-

zoned on the back of his chair.

A senior trader was berating a junior who looked so young he

might have been on a day release scheme from a local secondary

school.

‘There are a million things you need to know about these IBM

shares before you buy them. Can you list me ten fundamentals?’

The junior started off cockily. ‘Share price, earnings per share,

dividend per share, P/E ratio, dividend yield.’

The senior interrupted him. ‘Rubbish.

Everyone in the market knows all of those

factors. What secret do you know that the

market doesn’t?’

The junior scratched his head. He pondered

for ve seconds, which seemed an eternity in the infernal

hubbub of the trading oor. At last he spoke. ‘Nothing’ was all

that he said.

‘Then don’t do the trade. Got it?’

‘‘

What secret do

you know that the

market doesn’t?

’’