Readers may well think I have a cushy number, but it’s not always easy being a journalist. To be good requires a lot of decent contacts, a bit of knowledge, sometimes tenacity, a supportive framework and a lot of luck. It also requires a degree of cooperation from those you are writing about.
Take this week. As ever, there are loads of rumours flying around and I’m grateful to all of you who sent in the buzz. Many years ago, when the sadly departed Telerate started up, it gained a following in the market by reporting the rumours that were impacting prices. Reuters hit back by claiming a moral high ground, saying it saw its mission as reporting only the facts. It’s a fine line. When I was working as a market reporter, my view was that if a rumour was widespread and moving prices, it should be reported; my job was to check its validity.
One bit of tittle tattle that has been doing the rounds is a story that a certain Euromoney top-10 bank has effectively outsourced its spot business to a hedge fund. Now I have been predicting for some time that the day was fast approaching when some of the tier-2 and 3 banks would outsource their business to newcomers such as Saxo or Oanda, but for a top-10 bank to do it would astound me.
Naturally, I got on the phone and rang around my muckers. Almost all of them had heard the rumour, and the majority believed it was true. So, I tried to tease the information out of the bank concerned. Eventually, I got bored with fishing and just waded in. “I’m picking up whispers that you have outsourced your spot-rate engine to a hedge fund. Is this why your guys have gone all anal?” I asked.
The response was swift: “We don’t comment on rumours and whispers.” But I wasn’t leaving it there.
“To be fair, you don’t actually comment on very much at all,” I quipped. Yep, it’s the easiest job in the world being a press officer for an institution whose standard response to any query is: “No comment”. As that great philosopher Yosser Hughes said in the BBC’s Boys from the blackstuff: “Gissa job. I can do that.”
Of course, it can be argued that the bank’s approach is absolutely correct. Why comment on harmful tittle tattle? In this case though, I think it should have done. The rumour is, as far as I can tell, completely untrue. But the rumour is still doing the rounds and, furthermore, it is doing the rounds of the buy side. In other words, the bank’s own clients are questioning if they are dealing with who they think they are.
Another great story I heard this week concerned a shower pump. Apparently, two employees of a large futures broker – one male, one female – were found in a locked shower cubicle after work by a security guard. I can only speculate on what they were doing because, not surprisingly, the firm declines to comment on “staff matters”. Quite right too. Pity though.
