Amplify Trading can expect a deluge of job applications today. The proprietary trading firm featured heavily in last night’s BBC 2 programme, ‘Traders: Millions by the Minute.’ As an advertisement for the lavish rewards of a trading career, the program was a great success – Virginia McGathey, a grain futures trader in Chicago, made $1.7k before she even arrived at work, another trader made $2.4k in minutes, ‘Ben’, a convicted fraudster managed to get a (non-FCA) regulated job, and the program ended with the upbeat message that it’s, ‘unbelievably easy to make money in the markets.’
So, what does it take to get a job at Amplify Trading? Fortunately, founder and managing director Will de Lucy shared his thoughts with us on that subject back in 2011. Clue: it’s mostly about personality. “The key is to find the Holy Grail,” said de Lucy. “- Someone with the self confidence not to go to pieces when things go wrong, an understanding of financial markets, and the control and discipline to get out of a strategy in an ordered manner when things aren’t going to plan.”
Notably, while the 20-somethings in the BBC’s program were all busting to join trader training courses such as the one run by Amplify, the older traders were all trying to get out and do something else. Bob Lassandrello, a cattle futures trader in Chicago, was investing $2.5m in a micro brewery in an effort to reinvent himself. The thing with trading is that it helps you to take big financial risks, disclosed Lassandrello. “I hope that this is busy enough and successful enough that I won’t have time to trade,” he added, sounding like an addict trying to turn a new leaf.
Separately, a financial adviser at UBS in the US stands accused of harassing an intern to whom he is said to have made a number of welcome advances in exchange for Christian Louboutin shoes and designer handbags. The 24 year-old intern is suing him personally for $5m in a sexual harassment suit.
Meanwhile:
53 year-old John Paul Smith, a bearish Deutsche Bank strategist, is setting up Eclectic Strategy, a new research firm. (Bloomberg)
SocGen still has a prop trading unit and it’s carving that out on its own to match new French Volcker Rule-type legislation. (Financial News)
UBS is still building in M&A. It just hired Ian Carnegie Brown from Credit Suisse as head of its EMEA consumer and retail team. (Financial News)
Lazard is hiring energy bankers and has opened a Houston office. (Bloomberg)
Traders who were sacked for FX fixing are now informing against their colleagues. (WSJ)
Schroders is changing its sales force so that it becomes more considered and less pushy (“We are changing the sales force to be one of advisers to clients….rather than product salesmen. They are much more likely to be qualified actuaries rather than smooth-talking, slick, oil salesmen. The way you sell is different.”) (Financial News)
Deal of the moment: Anheuser-Busch InBev NV is talking to banks about financing what could be a roughly £75 billion ($122 billion) deal to buy global beer rival SAB Miller. (WSJ)
Big private equity funds have decided the big returns are in the middle market. (PIOnline)
Don’t forget to have babies, says Nicola Horlick. (Independent)
Questions that will reveal whether you need to quit your job: Am I still learning?” “Am I still challenged?” “Am I still making a difference?” “Am I adding value that no one else there is adding?” (WSJ)
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