It takes opinions to make markets. The basic purpose of the weeklyFiX is to express an attitude, and this would be impossible if I didn’t receive feedback from market participants.
This week, an old, experienced and still successful mucker sent me his take on the changing nature of FX. Thanks to this, the weeklyFiX is proud to announce it has managed to solve the fat-cat bankers’ bonus conundrum, at least for those traders who work in the European Union. Says my old mucker:
The markets in general are at the start of what will prove to be structural change in their remuneration policies. As a result of this, it is inevitable that traders’ behaviours will change.
In the 1980’s, when I managed to gain entry to the dealing room of a UK clearing bank, it was nothing more than another salaried position. The salary was admittedly higher than those paid in other departments, but the concept of a bonus did not exist. It was something we’d heard existed in those new-fangled US investment banks, but we could only dream that we would one day be rewarded so well.
We weren’t that bothered about our relative poverty because we were essentially in a good-fun, nine-to-five job that allowed us to spend a couple of hours down the pub every lunchtime.