And so Mr Van Dam’s experiment drew to a conclusion tonight.
As a social experiment it was certainly interesting, as a piece of theatre it had its moments, but as a trading experiment did it offer much at all?
After procrastinating for the last two episodes, Lex and Anton (sounds like a couple of celebrity chefs) finally got rid of the blo*dy annoying Cleo.
“Do you think she’ll cry when we fire her?” asked Lex
“For sure” replied Anton.
And she did not let us down! The floodgates opened and as she frantically wafted her hands around her face, it all became too much for her.
The response from the trading room was pure theatre, with Emile deciding to show solidarity he proclaimed “you can’t treat people like that!” he picked up his bag and headeded for the exit. Amit and ‘Social trader Dude’ took this a signal to head for the door too – no doubt relieved to have an excuse to leave.
As the proverbial dust settled, it was interesting that the 3 remaining traders Oki, Mike and Caroline would have placed in the top 4 traders of the group (Emile being the other). Lex’s $1million was swiftly carved up amongst the remaining 3 and Anton issued his now customary order “Lets go make money”. With two weeks to go in the experiment and only 5 minutes to run on the episode, it was clear that not much happened in these last two weeks. Sure enough we cut to the last day and as the traders closed out their positions and cashed up, I did not get the feeling that much money had been made.
Perhaps surprisingly, Oki was the star performer with a 1% return, with Caroline delivering a 0.5% return and Mike posting a small loss of 0.5%. Not at all bad considering the market turmoil. It made them all feel better when Lex revealed he had lost 0.7% during the same period.
So, here are a couple of takeaway items from Million Dollar Traders
1. Having a point of view backed up with a clear rationale is key to success (Plan your Trade, Trade your Plan)
2. Build your portfolio – invest all your cash (Please note: This doesn’t mean risk all your cash). I’d add to this – It’s ok to have a cash element in your portfolio (or put another way, a low risk investment vehicle, like a bond or gilt)
3. If you don’t have a plan, don’t trade
4. It’s harder to make money in a falling market
5. It’s even harder with increased volatility
6. Emotional intelligence aids success (Eliminate Fear and Greed and try not to cry too much:))
7. Their is no substitute for experience
8. Not all city traders are ar*seholes!! (Personally I thought Lex and Anton were reasonable, logical and fair)
9. Trading can be taught, but really successful traders have natural character traits that help them succeed.
I have also been following Million Dollar Traders and was dissapointed with the outcome. I did enjoy the way Lex handed Cleo his sugar coated handgrenade – it was always going to hurt. Didn’t expect Emile to throw a wobbly but I actually respected the guy for walking his talk. The guy has clearly got a set of values that he is not willing to compromise to advance his own agenda – maybe it’s a character trait absent from other traders which might explain the econimic situation we all find ourselves in.
I think the concept of the show is interesting, could we see a variation on the theme; million dollar…painter and decorators, million dollar corner shop proprietor, million dollar teacher.
I dont think the programme was particulrly succesful – a bit of a wet flop actually.I’ve no doubt we’ll see Anton again pursuing his new career as an extra on Eastenders…
The following comment was made by Jeff – an avid follower of the Atticman!
I hadn’t seen the previous two episodes, but thought that the management team pretty much had the situation summed up. There’s no doubt in my mind that the three “walk-outs” were simply looking for an excuse to give up on their own terms. It’s not as though Lex and Anton tore Cleo a new one when they sacked her – indeed, I thought they were pretty kind about it all things considered. The fact that she had a complete meltdown was her own problem – something which she even tried (about a hundred times) to explain to the others.
On the other hand, I empathised enormously with Mike – I saw everything pretty much exactly as he did. He wasn’t completely bereft of morals or ethics, but he understood the culture of the trading room, and understood that you need to shit or get off the pot. Some of the traders – Cleo and Emile in particular – seemed to think that things were up for discussion, when they really weren’t. Lex even said at one point that he wasn’t giving opinions, he was stating facts, and had they all understood that they might have been more successful as a group. Of course, that wouldn’t have made such good television…
And it’s easy for me to say from the comfort of my couch, but what was the problem some of them had with getting invested? I could understand it had it been their own money, perhaps, but when it’s somebody else’s wonga and you’re ultimately not in any way responsible for it – GET TRADING!
Anyway, generally speaking it was a moderately interesting programme but I was disappointed with the lack of depth in which it covered the actual trading. Ultimately, it wasn’t much more than a glorified “Big Brother”.