THE TRADING GAME

A book review, by Carlo and Hanif Kureishi

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(Picture: Gary Stevenson in Canary Wharf, with the Citibank headquarters behind him)

The first time I came across Gary Stevenson was on a politics podcast two years ago.  This cockney-voiced, artful dodger-like, ex-city trader’s scalding analysis of the present economic situation was bracing.  

Thirty-six-year-old Stevenson is a from a white, working-class background in Essex. A math prodigy, he became one of Citibank’s most profitable traders, betting against economic recovery after the financial crisis in 2008. What set Stevenson apart - and allowed him to become fabulously successful, earning the bank and himself millions of pounds - was his upbringing: he could see the material effect of what he and his colleagues were doing to the ordinary people he grew up with.  

Raised in the shadow of Canary Wharf, looking up at those glass towers as they were being built, his entry into the trading world was unusual. Stevenson secured an internship after winning a trading-themed  card game at the LSE - where he was a student - designed to recruit new traders from various universities.

When you join a bank at this level, there is no guidance, you are assigned no discernible job, you have to wing it; pull up a chair next to a more experienced trader and examine them, sparking up conversation, which they may, or may not, reciprocate. In the first few weeks, arriving at the offices at 6am, Stevenson used a filing cabinet as a desk, trying to work out where he fitted in, soliciting favour by fetching lunch for everyone on the trading floor. 

The other characters that populate the office are an eccentric bunch of competitive posh boys, drunks, cokeheads and misfits with dead souls. What is striking about all these vividly drawn personalities is how little culture and self-consciousness they have, turning themselves into ciphers in order to earn vast amounts of money for the bank and themselves, which they will be unable to spend either productively or wisely. 

Stevenson was taken out to interminable lavish lunches in dark city restaurants with vulgar older men. They would drink, and speak in acronyms, an entirely new language to the too-slowly maturing Stevenson. But he was a kid who learned quickly, with an impressive sharpness about him, while other parts were undeveloped; his inability to orientate himself in this world would eventually lead to collapse.

Stevenson acquires what is called his own ‘book’, a currency he oversees. His trading strategy involved counterintuitive bets, such as during the Greek government-debt crisis, where he predicted that the recovery would falter due to wealth inequality affecting consumer demand. Stevenson says that to be a successful trader, it isn’t enough to be right, you have to be right while everyone is else is wrong.

One of the seminal moments in the book is when the young Stevenson receives his first considerable bonus, £395k. It is unbelievable and inexplicable. He is embarrassed and ashamed for his father, who would work long hours and get up at the crack of dawn for a negligible wage as a train driver. Reluctantly, Stevenson tells his friends and girlfriend about the money, and feels an intense alienation; he has been plucked from his old life and plunged into a monitory whirlpool he can’t understand. Where does he belong? Who is he? Is this what he wanted?

These traders make money largely from exploiting discrepancies in the value of currencies. Hundreds of millions, billions in fact, are drawn to the bank not by companies providing services to the public - brick and mortar businesses creating value - but by financial institutions playing private games with one another; betting, hedging, shorting and longing in a repetitive and endless competition. Gary masters these games quickly, but can’t deal with the reality of the world he was so keen to enter.

What is striking and moving about him is that when he does finally earn money, he doesn’t know what to buy, he doesn’t know how to live, his family background hasn’t prepared him for the shopping opportunities his income now affords him. Who wouldn’t, with his money, be down Harrods with their mates?

He buys himself a sprawling river-facing apartment, blacks out the windows, and sleeps on a battered old sofa, the only piece of furniture he owns. He lacks taste and class and knows it; where does refinement come from? You can’t buy that.

After six years working in the London offices, Gary becomes disillusioned, emaciated, depressed and difficult to work with, sitting at his desk with his headphones on and hood up. He wanted to leave, but he had become fixated on receiving a deferred bonus of millions, which was dependant on him remaining at the bank for three more years.

To remove Stevenson from the firing line, Citibank relocate him to Tokyo. He is installed in a plush high-rise apartment overlooking the Imperial Palace, in Marunouchi. The Tokyo office, compared to the London office, is conservative and not bullish. He is watched over by an older Japanese trader, while having little work to do, passing the days at his desk learning Japanese. Naturally, he becomes even more estranged and bewildered.  

This is a gripping and beautiful part of the narrative, as he becomes more disaffected at work, he finds himself falling in love with the city, its food, views and people. Sometimes he cycles and runs all night, eating ramen and sashimi in far away, all-night restaurants.

Both Stevenson’s parents were Mormons, and this is a Christian tale of sin, abandonment and redemption. Greed and merciless ambition give way to a terrible emptiness, and then a defiance, against Citibank, and then later on, the global monetary system, which is devoted to creating and expanding existing inequality.

Since leaving Citibank, Stevenson has created a popular Youtube channel, where he has exposed the truth about the quantitative easing (money printing) introduced during the pandemic. Money was created by central banks across the world – in this country, around £17k of new money per person – and handed over mostly to the rich, pushing up house prices and allowing them to acquire even more assets, which they can pass on to their future generations.

When I first heard Stevenson’s voice and his story, I wondered when he would write his book, and when the film will be made of it: I imagined a young Gary Oldman or Tim Roth playing the part. And so, at last, Stevenson has written his book, and it sounds as if he did write it himself, since it is made of his idiosyncrasies, bluntness and caustic turns of phrase. The Trading Game is proof that with a good story (and an adept editor) almost anyone can write book.

This is a very British tale, lacking the glamour of Wall Street and the Wolf of Wallstreet. Stevenson is more like a character in a Mike Leigh film than Leonardo DiCaprio.

Stevenson has forgiven himself. He is rich but generous with his knowledge and his desire to expose what he has witnessed and profited from.