Free To Trade

Начало книги

I had lost half a million dollars in slightly less than half an hour and the coffee machine didn't work. This was turning into a bad day. Half a million dollars is a lot of money. And I needed a cup of coffee badly.

The day had started off well enough. A quiet Tuesday in July, at the investment management firm of De Jong & Co. Hamilton McKenzie, my boss, was out. I yawned as I reread the Financial Times's tedious descriptions of yesterday's non-events. The dealing desks around me were more than half empty; people were away either on business or on holiday. Phones and papers lay scattered across abandoned desktops. Chaos at rest. The office felt like a library, not a trading room.

I looked out of the window. The tall grey buildings of the City of London pointed silently upwards out of the listless heat of the streets below. I noticed a kestrel gliding around the upper reaches of the Mercantile Union Insurance building a hundred yards to the west. The great financial centre slumbered on. It was difficult to believe anything was happening out there.

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