Old City Trader

Thirty years across London brokers, bank desks and hedge funds.

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

In 1993 I walked into a City voice broker in a cheap suit and answered a phone I had been specifically told not to touch.

By lunchtime I had confused a dealer, promised to fix something I did not understand and been demoted to making tea.

By Friday I was back on the phones.

I stayed in finance for roughly thirty years: broking first, then a bank FX desk, then hedge funds when gambling acquired better tailoring and a legal department.

I worked with men who could price an option in their heads but could not read an electricity bill. I watched fortunes appear by accident, losses hidden with surprising creativity and entire lunches put through expenses that would now trigger an internal investigation.

There was Big Terry, who treated shouting as a management style. Denise from Settlements, who could detect a concealed loss from the sudden arrival of an unsolicited coffee. Jules, immaculate and brilliant, with the practical judgement of a Labrador near an open fridge. And Danny, the best natural trader of the lot, until his appetite for risk followed him out of the market.

Most of that City has gone. The jackets became quarter-zips, the shouting moved into group chats and lunch stopped being a contact sport. Greed, fear, boredom and ego survived every new screen.

I am writing down the trades, characters and mistakes nobody put in the annual report, along with the bits modern traders might recognise in themselves.

No signals or market calls. I had enough trouble with my own.

These are composite stories. Characters are merged, names are changed and details are moved around.

The stupidity is authentic.

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

@AIPortfolios186 hard turnover cap for me. quickest way to find out whether the system has an edge or just enjoys being busy

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

@adamfiskebt ‘taking liquidity hostage’ is doing a lot of work there. plenty just stop quoting when they reckon somebody else knows more

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

@RexhaRexhaRexha merchanting teaches you to watch what people will pay when they want something now. fair bit of trading in that

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

@DaveTradesOpts forcing the rules into code exposes every place where ‘judgement’ was doing suspicious amounts of work

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

@viprabuddhi the speed ages people. A few years making decisions in microseconds can be quite enough, tbh

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

@SmarterTrad1ng a red day you can explain without rewriting the rules is decent evidence, tbh

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

@tradematicX rent money changes the feel of every tick. hard to think clearly when the position already has another job

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

@jonycsarker vertical moves look lovely until you're obliged to keep making a price. inventory gets awkward quickly

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

@theoilgod morning me set sensible limits. by mid-afternoon I could find ten reasons why today was different

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

@ShyamShahwal being wrong often was survivable. staying wrong because I'd already said it loudly caused more trouble

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

@tefan2rich @SolanaFloor @WhiteWhaleLabs @solace_fm @Thomasbahamas never turned emotion off. I just got a bit quicker at noticing when it was making the decisions

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

@TokyoDeepValue a letter asking companies to please be worth more is wonderfully polite. imagine the committee that drafted it

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

@samuraipips358 preparation helps. still found out what I believed only after the position was live

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

@bluechipdaily volatility going up while size stayed put was an expensive habit. took me longer than it should have to notice

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

“How many were at dinner?”

“Six.”

“You’ve claimed for eleven.”

“People came and went.”

The expenses clerk looked at the bill again. “Only the oysters, apparently.”

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

The City called it hospitality because “getting pissed with people who might give us business” took too long to write in the diary.

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

We had a sweep on which senior man would be first to fall asleep after lunch. I won twice in one week, then discovered the desk had started taking bets on me.

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

At about three, the waiter wheeled over a dessert trolley and we ordered another bottle instead. The lunch had started at twelve with one client and a fairly dull bit of business. By then there were seven of us, two having appeared from another table, and I had decided returning to the bank would spoil everybody’s mood.

A young salesman rang from the floor. I’d left him covering my phones and a client was asking where I was.

“Meeting,” I said.

“Still?”

“Going well.”

It was going well for me. I liked the restaurant, liked being greeted by the manager and liked that the client laughed whenever I spoke. Christ, I probably laughed first.

We left around five and went to a bar with no sign outside. I could have gone back then. I even stood on the pavement facing the right direction for a few seconds. Someone put a hand on my shoulder and I went downstairs with the rest of them.

At eight I rang the same salesman and asked him to bring my address book. He arrived half an hour later, still wearing his office pass, and found us trying to open champagne with a teaspoon because the waiter had taken the proper thing away. I made him stay for a drink. Then another. He didn’t want either. I knew that and kept filling his glass because I didn’t want the sober face at the table.

Near midnight he put me in a cab and paid the driver after I discovered I’d spent all my cash. The next morning he was already at his desk, answering my line and typing up notes from a lunch he hadn’t attended. I was forty minutes late and smelled of the manager’s cigars.

He left for another bank that autumn. Might have been unrelated. I never asked.

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

“You missed your own leaving drinks.”

“I was busy.”

“You were in the building.”

Our departing dealer looked through the glass at the empty pub across the road.

“Did anyone say anything nice?”

“Not until you failed to turn up.”

[Old City Trader @OldCityTrader]

You could spot the man carrying too much before the market moved. He stopped laughing, stopped going to the loo and began treating every phone call as an interruption. By then the position was running him.