We have all watched history unfolding in 2008: a level of wealth destruction on a scale none of us has ever seen. Many banks, which once used to make good money advising their clients how to run their businesses, have shown that they were totally incapable of running their own; various bubbles have well and truly burst, including property markets, commodities, the carry trade and the notion that hedge funds had discovered the modern version of the secret of alchemy and were capable of turning crap into gold.
Enough of the doom and gloom though. Readers might have noticed that the tone of this column has changed slightly in recent weeks. We all know there have been a swathe of redundancies in FX as well and this doesn’t really require further reporting. The reality is that even though times are tough, FX is probably one of the better places to be in. There is no doubt that 2009 is going to be difficult, but it could be worse.