Chapter 8 - Diary of a trader

Last week I travelled into the City and visited the dealing room. Which turns out to be rather less exciting than it sounds.

While I confess I had my hopes pinned on a frenzy of Masters of the Universe yelling, "SELL! SELL!" the atmosphere is altogether more genteel. In fact, I have to say I've seen more action in the stockroom of an advertising agency where I used to work, but that's another story.

The Finspreads dealing room is up on the 12 th floor. It literally looks down on the City, and boasts a view of Tower Bridge if you happen to be that Welsh bloke, who is clearly a lot more important than I thought, as he has his own office, complete with windows.

If, however, you are a dealer, you don't get a view of anything presumably because if you're admiring Tower Bridge you won't be squinting at your trading screen.

Actually they have three screens (one going up one going downand another going nowhere just for show?) Finspreads seems to have 20something 20something traders. Their leader is David Morris.

"So tell me David," I begin, "Exactly what happens when I place a trade."

"Oh, we look and say here comes Sally, see what you go for, and then bet the other way," he deadpans.

Now this is an uncanny echo of a message from Brian L, who wrote, "Sally, I think you have been very brave to tell the world about your trades; I won't even tell the wife about mine!  I hate tell you this, but a well known way to make money is to follow the trades of a novice, but do the opposite buy when they sell, sell when they buy."

In which case, Brian, you should know that I am currently long on Gold, £/Yen and Brent Crude. Please come back when you've finished placing your trades and my favourite flowers are tiger lilies.

Anyway. What actually happens is as follows. Every trade we place with Finspreads and between us, we place many thousands of trades every day goes into a position monitor and gets entered into the house book.

Then the traders take a view. "Right now everyone's buying the FTSE on recent lows," David explains. "We think that's smart, so we hedge the position in the futures market. That's how we make the money to pay out the winning trades and there will be lots of them today, because the index has climbed 30 points so far."

This is the ideal scenario, David continues. "Winning clients are happy clients, and provided we've hedged the trades, we're happy too."

And when Finspreads traders disagree with our selections? It's simple enough. They don't bother to hedge and if they're right and we've got it wrong they pocket our cash.

Most of us, apparently, are day traders. And we particularly like trading FTSE, the Dow, the DAX, blue chip UK stocks and currencies.

And some of you, are much, much, better traders than I am. David promptly anticipates my next questions names, emails, colour of eyes and marital status and hands me over to his colleague Angus Campbell, who's working the phones and inviting certain clients to Troon, for the golf. Clearly, these are the people I want to know more about.

So who are they?

Angus smiles his enigmatic smile. "You'll have to kill me before I tell you anything like that. But what I can do is this"

He fiddles with his computer keyboard, but annoyingly turns the screen so that I can't see anything unless I sit on his lap and since we've only just been introduced, that would be a little inappropriate.

"I've got a client here whose made a trading profit of £750,000, and he's currently up £30,000. He trades across all markets. It's his hobby. While this gentleman," Angus nods towards the out-of-sight screen, "we've paid him well over a million since 2001. He's amazing at picking peaks and troughs and I've known him run a loss of £20,000 in the hope it will come back. Or how about this one from Scotland - won over £250,000, trades on a daily basis, follows charts and always uses stops."

It strikes me that Angus is as I imagine an old-fashioned bank manager must once have been. He knows his customers by name but, alas, wouldn't reveal their identities either by seduction or torture he talks of them fondly, almost as if they are relatives, and is genuinely pleased when they are doing well.

Angus divides us into two categories: winners and losers. Annoyingly, I am currently in the wrong category.

Finally on my visit, I'm introduced to the Customer Services Department. These are the people we talk to when we want to cash in our winnings surely a joyful moment that I have yet to experience. Have you ever spoken to Maria? If so, I can reveal the reason she's always so cheerful is because her screensaver features George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

"Are they clients, too?" I ask, ever-optimistic.

"No comment."

In the taxi going home, reflecting that I am one of Angus's losers, I remind myself that I am still only taking baby steps into this new world of spread betting. And I vow to switch categories sooner or later.

What I need now is a mentor. I am ready and willing to become the Sorcerer's Apprentice. Any takers?

Sally Nicoll is a writer and a Finspreads customer whose career to date has embraced journalism, broadcasting, and advertising copywriting She lives in London and is currently writing her second novel. Feel free to contact her at veryluckymoney@hotmail.com.
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