The Floor: Original Day Trader By Bunny Lane Reviewed

What is The Floor (Original Day Trader) about?

…you’ll spend the rest of your life telling other people that you used to work here for a living, because I have a feeling this is as good as it gets.

That pretty much sums this book up. I’ve used this analogy before, when I interviewed Thomas Peterffy, and I’m going to use it again. But before I do, you must read it out loud using the voice of Uncle Albert from Only Fools and Horses: “During The Floor”.

To his eye rolling nephews, good old Uncle Albert, had an endless supply of stories that happened, “During The War”. And you’ll find the same traits from anyone who has or used to work on The Floor, there is no shortage of stories.

When I was a broker, if ever one of the older gents, started a story about the floor, the youngersters would eye roll. But, that’s ok, they are too young and naive to care about nostalgia.

But, that’s what this book is, whilst it’s clearly stated as a work of fiction (I assume for legal reasons), it’s a collection of stories of yore from the floor, which is not a bore, I’d like more.

The thing is, the people that always talk about things, do so because, these things are worth talking about. Especially when it comes to something as unique as an open outcry trading floor. It’s an environment that you will struggle to appreciate if you’ve never worked there. Rogue Trader & Trading Places, were two excellent films that captured them well, but they really were the most incredible places that existed in their own microcosm.

The stories, the people, the atmosphere, the fear, the adrenaline, the uniqueness. This book brings it all back. It is exquisitely written from an “insiders” point of view…

Now, whenever I visit a broker’s “trading floor”, everyone just sits there in silence, tapping away on Bloomberg Messenger. There are no partridges hung over the back of anyone’s chairs, no deodorant cans replaced with shaving foam, no-one throwing a keyboard at a dealer in anger, getting it wedged in a drawer, resulting in buying up all the available copper futures that result in a multi-million-dollar error.

It all looks so boring now.

Is it worth buying The Trading Floor?

Well, I’ve actually bought three copies of this book. I read the first few chapters on the train into Waterloo on my way to meet a mate who used to be a local on the LIFFE floor (who still has his red locals jacket and badge hung up next to his desk). So I wanted to buy him a copy too, but Foyles doesn’t stock it because it’s independently published. Which it shouldn’t be. Harriman House should hang its head in shame. I think The Original Day Trader is going to be a classic.

I ended up giving my mate my copy, and ordered another from Amazon, as I think giving books is pretty much the only acceptable gift one bloke can give to another.

The third time I bought it, was to get the Kindle version, because I wanted to double-check the c word count.

I was a bit surprised to discover that there were only 49 see you next Tuesdays, as it felt like a lot more. For a book of 344 pages, that is only one per seven pages. Which is not quite the 1.1 f$cks per page as The Trading Game. But, I suppose technically, C is worse than F, so if I was working a VWAP (Vulgar Weighted Average Profanity), they are probably about even.

I think everything about this book is hilarious, and it doesn’t stop there either, because whoever the author Bunny Lane is, he clearly has an excellent sense of humour.

When you’ve finished The Original Day Trader, and you’re looking for The Floor origin stories (no need to waste a good franchise by not having a universe spin-off) check out the author’s Linkedin profile. I think he’s left someone off, though.  A little birdie told me that before he became a local on the LIFFE, he cut his teeth in the Barrings back office as a trade reconciliation and settlements clerk on SIMEX in early 1995…