The Money Makers Read online

  Once there, he showered properly and dressed again with care. He was a good-looking chap, Matthew, and fussy as a showgirl over his appearance. He got himself some coffee, a pad of paper and a pen. Across the top of the page he wrote in block capitals: ‘Plan: One million pounds in three years.’ He underlined it.

  Then he paused. He wasn’t going to list all the things he was missing, he believed in a positive approach. Underneath his heading he wrote, ‘Assets: temporary job on Madison trading floor.’ Then he was stuck. He had no money, no qualifications, and his job was already half-lost. He thought for a long time.

  At school he had always been Zack’s younger brother.

  Zack had seldom appeared to work, but ended up with a string of A grades and a scholarship to Oxford. Matthew had worked hard, his exam results were peppered with B grades and worse, and his teachers thought him lucky to have won his place at Cambridge. Never once had Zack made things easier by showing humility or understanding. Matthew had a point to prove, and prove it he would.

  His coffee went cold. He got himself another and thought some more. Eventually, he picked up his pen again and wrote: ‘Plan A: Get a permanent job at Madison. Become the best trader ever to hit the trading floor. Get a million pounds in bonuses - after tax!! Comment: very hard to achieve but worth a try.’

  Then shaking his head, he continued: ‘Plan B: Get a permanent job at Madison. Become a very skilful trader. Get some big bonuses. Then-’ But he broke off. He knew what he had in mind but it would be foolish to put it into writing. It was going to be a challenging three years.

  2

  Just as Matthew was throwing away his sheet of paper, his elder brother Zack was at the office getting one out. He’d been happy enough to fling down a challenge to his brothers yesterday, but this morning it didn’t seem so smart. A week earlier Zack had told his senior audit partner to shove his head somewhere it would neither reach nor fit, there to entertain himself by auditing his kidneys. Predictably, the partner had stormed off, put in a request for Zack’s dismissal, and the firm’s disciplinary machinery ground into action. The final review meeting was tomorrow and it was a near certainty that Zack would get the sack

  Accountants don’t become millionaires. They may, of course, if they work hard, do well, and save prudently, but not in three years. Not aged twenty-six. On the other hand, ex-philosophy students with no job, no references, and no capital aren’t exactly in the millionaire bracket themselves. Zack needed a job - a proper job - but to do that he needed not to be fired. Scowling and gritting his teeth, he wrote out a grovelling letter of apology. Zack blamed ‘my extreme grief following the death of my father’ and begged ‘to be given a second chance to show my deep commitment to the firm’.

  Zack tucked the letter into an envelope, addressed it, then pretended to spit on it. Along with tact, modesty, patience, kindness and a few other virtues, the art of apology was one Zack had yet to master. He dumped the envelope into the internal mail system and snapped at a secretary to check it was collected and delivered. That was that. No more to be done on that front.

  Meantime, there was a larger problem to be solved. How was Zack to make his million? Right now he couldn’t say, but there was only one place to try: the City of London, one of the world’s great financial centres, and home to more banks than any other city in the world. But how to gain entry? His accountancy firm would give him a terrible reference, and he had nothing else to show except a failed doctorate and a useless philosophy degree. Good banks don’t hire losers.

  Zack scowled again, adding to the natural intensity of his narrow face. Matthew was the best looking of the three brothers, but many women found Zack’s darkly brooding looks irresistible. Matthew was always baffled that Zack didn’t appear to notice, let alone take proper advantage, his only serious romance to date being a long and stormy one with a girl at college. Zack picked up the phone and dialled an Oxford number.

  ‘Ichabod Bell speaking.’

  ‘Ichabod, it’s Zack. Zack Gradley.’

  ‘Zack, my boy, nice to hear from you.’ Zack’s old philosophy tutor was genuinely enthusiastic. ‘What can I do for you? Are you coming back to finish your doctorate? I can’t believe you’re going to be a godforsaken accountant all your life.’

  ‘No, actually, I wanted to ask a favour.’ And Zack explained what was on his mind.

  Ichabod Bell thought for a moment in silence, then said, ‘Come to dinner in two weeks. College High Table. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Jolly good. Saturday, in two weeks, then. Seven thirty for eight. Look forward to it.’

  ‘Who am I meeting?’

  ‘Oh, you’ll love him. Give you a chance to catch up on all your rowing gossip. Glittering mornings on the water, the thrill of the race, all that stuff.’

  ‘Ichabod, you know perfectly well I’ve never sat in a rowing boat in my life.’

  ‘Nonsense, Zack, you’ve been a lifelong fan of the sport. Nobody quite like you for memorising race statistics and all that rubbish. Just come to dinner.’

  And he rang off . Zack had no idea what Bell was planning. All he knew was that he had two weeks to become expert in the noble sport of rowing.

  3

  George was woken shortly before midday by a loud thumping. He tried ignoring it but the noise wouldn’t go away. He pulled on a dressing gown and went to the door.

  A group of beautiful young people stood in the hall outside. Beautifully dressed, beautifully tanned, slim, athletic and many-accented, they were among the wealthiest, laziest, most easily bored young people in Europe, George’s friends of the last eleven years. A petite, bird-like French girl headed the deputation.

  ‘Georges!’ she exclaimed, using the French pronunciation of his name. ‘You aren’t even up and we’re already late. You need to be ready this moment or we’ll miss the races. Papa’s horse is running at two-thirty, remember.’

  ‘Oh God, Kiki. Is it Deauville today? I’d completely forgotten.’

  In his previous life four centuries ago - or was it only four days?- George had suggested chartering a plane to take them to the races at the French casino town of Deauville. The plane had been due to leave at midday, so they were already holding it up and incurring extra charges.

  ‘But Georges, of course it is Deauville today. And we are due at the casino this evening. You can’t have forgotten because, look, I have remembered, and I have even got up early, and I never get up early and I never remember anything, so you must have remembered, except you haven’t.’

  Kiki’s illogical proof tumbled out in a single breathless flurry. Her dark brown hair fell down her slim neck in artful wisps, positively inviting male touch. She wasn’t beautiful, Kiki, but she was pretty.

  And she spoke the truth. It was a minor miracle that she had remembered an appointment and been ready on time, something George had never known before. Damn! He fancied Kiki desperately and had arranged the trip mostly to be with her. If she had got herself ready, did that mean she returned his affection? Possibly, possibly not. But if he jumped on the plane to Deauville he could hardly get out of paying his share, and the last thing he needed was an evening of champagne and roulette at five hundred francs a chip.

  ‘Kiki, I’m so sorry. I’ve been terribly ill. Stomach upset. I don’t think I’m up to flying. You go on anyway. I’ll come another time.’

  ‘Oh, poor Georges! You don’t look well at all. Very pale and your hair is all stuck down one way and sticking up the other way. You should be in bed.’

  ‘I was in bed.’

  George didn’t look ill, or at least no iller than normal. Of the four kids, he’d drawn the short straw in the genetic sweepstakes and ended up every inch his father’s son. He had Bernard Gradley’s pale English skin, his piggy little eyes, his stockiness, his uncontrollable ginger hair. The sick-as-a-dog look came naturally.

  ‘Well you must go straight back and eat a lot of chicken broth.’

&nb
sp; ‘OK, Kiki. Have a good time.’

  Kiki left in a swirl of the young and beautiful. A handsome young man, playboy son of an Italian billionaire, positioned himself next to her as they left. George crawled back into bed, pulled the covers over his head and groaned.

  4

  And as George lay in bed groaning, Josephine was making grunting sounds of her own. She had rummaged round in the attic of her mother’s Kilburn house and found something she’d remembered playing with as a child. She grunted as she lugged the heavy typewriter downstairs into the kitchen. It weighed a ton and the attic had covered her in dust.

  Never mind. There are worse things in life than dust. She sat down at the ancient keyboard and opened a battered textbook. ‘ASDF are the home keys for the left hand.’ She spread her fingertips over the dusty keys, thumbs resting lightly on the space bar. It was a new feeling, but one she’d need to get used to. She could forget about A Levels. She could forget about Oxbridge.

  It is Wednesday 15 July 1998. There are three years less one day to go until Bernard Gradley’s deadline.

  1095 days.

  5

  Thursday morning. The red lights of digital clocks display the times around the world’s financial centres. News messages roll incessantly across a dot matrix wall panel while the glow from banks of computer screens fights back the dark. Every now and then a phone rings briefly in the silence. But apart from a few early-morning cleaners there is no one here to check the screens or answer the phones. No one except Matthew. It is five fifteen am.

  Matthew was attached to a group of four traders dealing in the smaller European currencies: the Swiss franc, the lira, the Dutch guilder, the Swedish krona, the peseta, a few others. Between them his four traders mustered six passports, thirteen languages, and a shared passion for dealing.

  Matthew’s job was to support the group in any way it wanted. He was meant to forage for information, calculate spreadsheets, run errands, and get the coffees. So far the only job he’d done at all was getting the coffees. He couldn’t stand the trashy coffees from the vending machines, so four times a day he went to the Blue Mountain Coffee Company’s boutique to get the world’s most heavenly cappuccinos at £1.80 a cup. If it weren’t for this unaccustomed service, the traders would have had Matthew fired weeks before. As it was, they rated his survival chances at just about zero. As Luigi Cuneberti, the Swiss-Italian who traded Swiss francs and lire, put it: ‘Matteo, we give you a job when Italy has paid its national debt and the lira is worth more than the dollar.’

  That needed to change.

  All banks have the same information from Reuters, Bloomberg, Telerate. A million computer screens can be accessed with a few key strokes. Data is updated every second, news reported as it happens. It’s not information that makes the difference but judgement. And judgement requires the right facts in the right format at the right time.

  Matthew set to work. He scrolled through the over­ night news stories on Reuters, printed off the full list of headlines plus the handful of stories he thought important. Next, he called the bank’s main Far Eastern offices: Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney. Some markets were quiet, others not. After every call, he made detailed notes.

  Then, he went out on to the street to an international paper stand, where he bought eight European news­ papers plus the European edition of the Wall Street Journal. He wasn’t fluent in any language other than English, but he had spent enough time skiing in Courcheval and Zermatt, enough time in the bars of Tuscany and the beaches of Mallorca, and enough time with girls in all these places to get the gist of what he read. He made clippings of the articles he thought important, and added them to his growing stack.

  He looked at his watch. Six forty-five am. He had more to do, but was out of time. He collected up his work and ran it through the copier five times: once for each of his traders, once for himself.

  As the pages copied, Matthew realised three things. First, he had absorbed a surprising amount since being at the bank, despite his weeks of indolence. Second, there was an almost infinite amount of research he could do. Today’s effort was only a start. And third, he had eight weeks of his summer job remaining. At the end of those weeks, he had to convince Madison not just to hire him, but to hire him right away without waiting for him to complete his degree. That was unheard of. But if Madison turned him down and forced him to return to Cambridge in October, he’d have failed to meet his father’s goal before he’d even started.

  6

  Through the glass doors at the end of the room, Luigi came in. He exchanged insults with the Italians working in fixed income and blew a kiss at a secretary he was trying to seduce. Then he arrived at his desk, banged down a coffee and bagel, and stared at Matthew.

  ‘Santa Maria!’ said Luigi. ‘You have the time wrong, my friend, no? Or a brain disease? It is serious, I hope? Hey, what is this?’ Luigi held the neatly stacked papers on his desk at arms’ length. ‘It looks like work. It smells like work,’ he said, sniffing, ‘but, there is nobody here except Matteo.’ Luigi’s face grew sombre. He swept some clutter off his desk and knelt on it. He raised his eyes to heaven and added, ‘Grazie a Dio! A miracle has happened and I am unworthy.’ He got back to his feet, scanning the package more seriously now.

  ‘You’ve spoken with Tokyo about the trade surplus overshoot?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Matthew. ‘The figures look enormous and are well above the consensus, but the Tokyo market seems to have shrugged it off. Our economist out there tells me that if you dig into the data, it’s mostly one-off items. There’s a reasonable summary in the Wall Street Journal actually.’

  Luigi stared at Matthew, then flipped through his package to the article which was highlighted. His eyes scanned it briefly.

  ‘Hmm. So no issue then.’

  Matthew hesitated a moment. ‘I’m not sure that’s right,’ he said. ‘If I made out the headlines properly, I think the Italian press is a bit more excitable.’

  Luigi followed his train of thought. It wasn’t the data itself which mattered, it was other people’s interpretation of it. If Italian investors got the wrong end of the stick because of bad reporting, then they might misjudge their trading strategy until they wised up. Luigi turned to the articles from the Italian press. Again, he scanned the articles in a few seconds.

  ‘Interesting. I know the Banca di Roma needs to close out a short yen position at the moment. Be interesting to see how they react.’ Luigi meant that the Banca di Roma needed to buy some yen. If it thought the price of yen was going to soar, they’d want to buy quickly before the price had moved.

  Luigi was a good trader. He scanned the rest of the documents and picked up his phone. He wouldn’t put it down for more than a few minutes until the end of the day. Right now, he was checking facts, sensing attitudes, exchanging banter with traders and investors, trying to sense the mood of the market. One idea always leads to a dozen others, and when Luigi picked up an interesting lead, he pursued it. He said not another word to Matthew.

  The market was in full swing by eight thirty by which time the other traders - Anders, Cristina, and Jean­François - were in and busy. Each of them reacted the way Luigi had to the new-look Matthew. But they were restrained in their praise, waiting to see how long his new work ethic would last.

  Luigi called the Banca di Roma, letting the conversation play from his speakerphone. The two men bantered briefly before switching to business.

  ‘Hey, you better be getting out of that giant short position you’ve got on the yen. Did you see the trade numbers? You’re going to get toasted today unless some kindly person takes you out of it.’

  ‘Bullshit, Luigi,’ said the Banca di Roma guy. ‘We couldn’t care less about the yen. We don’t have a short position and anyway a month’s data is neither here nor there. The Tokyo market didn’t move much.’

  This already told Luigi a lot. If Banca di Roma really didn’t care what happened to the yen, their trader wouldn’t have prompted Luigi to keep
the discussion going. Luigi now had a choice. He hesitated so briefly that Matthew, who was following the conversation intently, only just noticed.

  ‘Amico mio,’ said Luigi, ‘the market didn’t move because the data was bullshit.’ He quickly summarised the reasons why the yen hadn’t moved. ‘If you try to get out of your position too quickly, my friends in the market here will stiff you. You do need to close out your position because there are more big numbers coming out in Tokyo and Rome next week and God knows where rates will be by Friday. But you need to go slowly and use your head.’

  The Banca di Roma guy almost audibly relaxed. He asked a couple more questions about last night’s number and then a whole lot more about how to exit his position, which was in fact very large. Luigi talked him through it and promised to stay in touch through the day. Then a call came in on another line and Luigi hung up to take it.

  Matthew spent the day doing what he could to sift out the nuggets which mattered from the flood of information which roared through the bank. As he picked them out, he made sure that his increasingly frenzied team of traders got them quickly and clearly. He worked so intently that it had got to eleven thirty without him going out for the coffees. When Luigi noticed, he picked his half-eaten bagel from the dustbin and threw it accurately at Matthew’s head.

  ‘You’re still only here for the coffees.’

  At five thirty that afternoon the market fell quiet. The frenzy which had raged across London for nine hours had moved on to New York New York would pass the baton to Chicago and San Francisco. Then the West Coast would hand the baton on to Tokyo and just a little later to Hong Kong and Singapore. The Asians kept long and lonely watch as the sun rolled over the endless miles until once again European traders woke up to play the everlasting game.