Whatever Jeremy Hunt says, traders know the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. And they’re paid millions to bet on it
In May 2010, I lost $8m in a week. I was 23 years old. Back then, I was an interest rates trader for Citibank in Canary Wharf. I had won that job only three years earlier in a card game while I was a maths student at LSE. At that time, the job was the culmination of a lifetime ambition. It was also an escape route from poverty.
What do you do when you are 23, and you have just lost $8m? And you know that if you let slip a few dollars more, you will also lose your job? I did what anyone else would do. I worked. I started bringing my old economics textbooks on to the trading floor, and studied them into the evenings. I wanted to understand where I’d gone wrong.
Continue reading…Whatever Jeremy Hunt says, traders know the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. And they’re paid millions to bet on itIn May 2010, I lost $8m in a week. I was 23 years old. Back then, I was an interest rates trader for Citibank in Canary Wharf. I had won that job only three years earlier in a card game while I was a maths student at LSE. At that time, the job was the culmination of a lifetime ambition. It was also an escape route from poverty.What do you do when you are 23, and you have just lost $8m? And you know that if you let slip a few dollars more, you will also lose your job? I did what anyone else would do. I worked. I started bringing my old economics textbooks on to the trading floor, and studied them into the evenings. I wanted to understand where I’d gone wrong. Continue reading…