Product Description

What is it like to make millions before you turn 20? What drives City traders to excess in their quest for extreme wealth? And what happens when they lose it all overnight? This is the first account of life in today's Square Mile, laying bare the tricks, lifestyles and minds of the men who gamble with millions and influence all our lives. It's a thrilling insider story, full of anecdotes and personalities in the style of Liar’s Poker and Kitchen Confidential.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20701 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
'A surefire bet' The Observer 'The Hot Topic -- Penguin has snapped up ex-stockbroker Seth Freedman's expose of the Square Mile' thelondonpaper

About the Author
At 19, Seth Freedman ditched his university place to take a job at a City stockbrokers. It was 1999, the height of the dotcom boom, and within months he was handling millions of pounds of client orders. He dealt for Swiss banks, traded bonds in Geneva, then left to take his client base to a London brokerage. He got out before the 2008 crash and wrote a series of articles for the Guardian, which generated a massive reaction from readers.

Customer Reviews

A binge that won't satisfy
According to the hype, Seth Freedman has written a shocking account of his life as a City insider - the drugs, the cash, the corruption and so on. Unfortunately, there are two things wrong with that claim: Mr Freedman was not a City insider. And he can't write.

I'll explain. Michael Lewis (Liars' Poker) was a Wall Street insider. He was a relatively senior associate at Salomon Brothers during its glory days. Frank Partnoy (F.I.A.S.C.O) was a Wall Street insider too, which is why his book caused such a furore. Philip Augur, is a City insider, having headed the research functions at several investment banks. I think even `City Boy' qualifies as a City insider. That's what allowed them all to blow the lid on sharp practices and high living, or offer thoughtful analyses of the structural problems, depending on their whim. Seth Freedman was a private client broker - he traded equities for rich people. It's clear from the book that he and several of the people he interviews (more on this later) are happy if they end the day £50,000 up. Real insiders are working for leading investment banks and taking positions worth many millions. Plus he only did it for six years before he saw the light and emigrated to Israel. As the credit crunch unfolded, he wasn't even in the country. The proof is in the book - Lewis or Partnoy spin out their own experiences over 300 pages. Freedman's experience barely fills a chapter, after which he's forced to rely on other peoples' accounts.

As for his writing, Freedman, isn't a proper writer. He went to work for the IDF (the Israeli Army) and was sent on a tour of duty to the West Bank. Unsurprisingly, the Guardian was happy to take a few articles on his experiences there. But his style is practically unreadable. He has a serious case of adjectivitis, favours long-winded, passive sentences, and never allows a line to go buy without slipping in at least one cliché. Unlike a real journalist, he hasn't the confidence to clear up or paraphrase interviews, so these read like accounts of verbatim speech - which are often gloriously repetitive and incoherent. All in all it's a mess. Throw in Freedman's cod psychology and the result is like reading an extended sociology essay by a not-overly-promising undergraduate.

Sadly, he fails in his own terms too. He claims that his book was intended to do two things - to explain to the person in the street how the City works and to demonstrate something of the psychology of the people working in it, showing that they're not all monsters. However, anyone going to the book for explanations of the sort of financial instruments that brought down Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers will be disappointed. Freedman wasn't responsible for putting together CDOs, CLOs, SIVs, RAVs etc and says little or nothing about them. He doesn't even offer explanations of most of the terms he does use, so someone coming to this book with no knowledge of the City will leave none the wiser. As for his aim to show us something of the inner workings of the trader's mind, the things that stick out from his account are that (a) traders take a lot of drugs (b) they earn a lot of money (c) there's a lot of bullying (d) they're often very arrogant but in a depressed, screwed up way, and (e) if they have ethical concerns they're usually happy to sweep them under the carpet. In comparison, Freedman's quibbles and explanations just aren't memorable, so his book will probably add to the demonisation of City workers, not improve understanding.

Despite the above, I don't want to damn him too much. He's a young man, so his writing has plenty of time to improve. He clearly did a number of interviews, and some of what some of them have to say is quite interesting - the chapter on Simon Cawkwell, for example. And he clearly has the wisdom to get out before he got sucked in, and the honesty to own up to some of what he got up to while he was there. But the bottom line is, this is a bad book and would never have been published at any other time. The sorry truth is, somewhere a commisioning editor has seen the words `City memoir' and pound signs have sprung into his or her eyes. Some things never change.

Uncovers the dirty dealings of the financial world- A "must have" for anyone questioning how this recession has come about.
Binge Trading gives an excellent portrayal of a world that I would never otherwise have any insights into as the City is so murky and closed to outsiders. Freedman has a great style and writes in an easily accessible manner, which makes the book a thoroughly enjoyabe read. An excellent buy for anyone wanting to understand how the financial world reached the rock bottom that it has recently hit.

Shockingly eye-opening...
The City is, it appears, as avaricious and amoral as the book's byline suggests, and the riotous anecdotes and full-speed pace of the writing brings the Square Mile to life in a dazzling fashion - well worth reading, especially if the City's always been an unknown and impenetrable entity in your eyes as it was mine.