I've been a vocal opponent of ALL forms of regulation for some years now as readers of this blog know too well. Not only that I am against ALL forms of reconditioning of the workforce. By that I mean this current epidemic of forcing people to go back to school to learn futile facts and figures that have questionable bearing on the abilities of free thinking individuals and wont improve their chances in the work environment.
In my own household my partner (who is half Armenian and half Russian) and I have both experienced this absurdity recently. She is a regulated (ahhhhhh!!!) translator and interpreter with the UK Justice System and registered in Russian/English and presumably English/Russian too although she speaks 5 languages in total. The insistence by her trade body (?) that she take more exams to learn/re-learn/regurgitate her Russian/English is puzzling to say the least especially as she keeps being offered to do work by the UK Courts/Police/others in English/Armenian. One would assume quite innocently perhaps that the people running the trade bodies/agencies might actually read their computer screens. In her case she's taken countless exams already and passed them all with distinction.
I'm not so lucky though. I'm one of those (few) people who fit into the "educated but **** at exams slot" that society today doesn't cater for. I think I have one A-level at a well known English Public School. Interestingly my son, now studying for a degree in History at a top 20 University (one that wasn't once a Poly), got countless O levels mostly A*'s, got 3 A levels two of which were A*'s, took an S level or whatever the modern equivalent is (another great Pass), often says to me..."how do you know these things Dad?" as if he's challenging an OxBridge Professor. He went to the same PS for his O's and crossed the road to the Grammar for his his A's. How is it that he's so good at exams along with millions of other brainy kids who all seem to have similar achievements? I'm sorry but I'm part of that small brigade who really do believe that society is less professional, less knowledgable despite these qualifications and access to easy information c/o the internet.
My partner came back from Moscow the other day with a copy of "The Moscow Times", an english newspaper. Are there any Russian papers in London other than The Standard (note my brother use to go out yonks ago with the current editor I recollect, lucky chap)? I doubt it. Anyway I was struck by a headline "Medvedev Wants Less Red Tape". As you can imagine this was music to my ears so I read it.
Here are the core bits and pieces;-
Medvedev said "..that federal regional government agencies shouldn't demand any more paperwork from investors than existing rules call for". At this point I fell off my chair. I like this fellow Medvedev. I'm now going to refer to him as Dmitry from now on as I feel I may be on first name terms with him very soon.
Dmitry goes on to say. " It is necessary to state the principle that they can't require documents that haven't been directly stipulated." This is weird! . I said this to a lawyer, stockbroker and incorporation agency here in the Wild West just the other day. I was told in no uncertain terms to 'shut it' and fill in more forms. Referring to travel requirements this is what Dmitry then said. "There are a number of states inside the EU that block free travel" I had NO idea that this is happening. FREE TRADE was extinguished in EU long ago but now apparently it's FREE TRAVEL that is prohibited. Dmitry commented. "I think it's unfair and short-sighted". Give Dmitry a Knighthood! If Bob Geldof can get one for Live Aid, the EU can receive a Nobel Peace Prize for organizing riots in Athens and Madrid then surely Dmitry can have a Knighthood for COMMON SENSE. Unfortunately he ruined his chance by then saying. "Progress had been made in visa relations with the United States (of America) but it wasn't obvious as we would like it to be". Yup, even Dmitry knows that the USA is the new Soviet Union. Unfortunately the UK is just a muppet state to Washington and HM was informed some time ago not to put his name forward alongside Mr Angry from Enterprise Britain.
My ex-friend DaveCam was seen pontificating at the recent Tory Conference. He said nothing of any note but did suggest that UK was suffering from "suffocating bureaucracy". Well DaveCam I've got news for you. The plastic bag was placed over my head some years ago and I suffocated in June this year due to fascist principles supplied by the UK regulator.
Now everyone should get ready for school! Don't forget your pencils children.
Sunday 21 October 2012
Friday 19 October 2012
Black Monday -25th Anniversary
Where were you on BLACK MONDAY?
I've been asked this a few times over the years and since CNBC is doing a bulletin on it today here is my recollection.
Actually the problems started in the weeks prior to 19th October 1987. Many people had borrowed money on rolled over trading positions since the hectic summer where £millions were made (& lost). Many market strategists including the high profile strategist at Dean Witter Reynolds (now Morgan Stanley), John Mendelsohn had warned of the effects of 'programme trading' many times on US tv, etc. No-one listened.
Friday 16th October, however, provided a different slant on capital markets activity.
My father and I were with a small London brokerage at the time, Dunkley Marshall. There were around 40 brokers and dealers and another 30 support staff. On Friday morning the Great Storm hit the south eastern parts of England. I had left my house at around 7am for the 1 hour journey. The station was deserted like many. I scampered back to my house zig-zagging fallen trees and rang the office. A friend of mine, Richard Coles, a young dynamic broker (now living happily in Oz) surprisingly answered the phone. There were around half a dozen personnel in the office including my father who had walked from the Barbican. Coles told me it was like working in hell. It was impossible to answer the telephones around the dealing room with virtually no-one about so he had taken responsibility by operating the dealing room from the confines of the reception desk where normally young girls had transferred calls into the open plan area. By delegating price and dealing tasks to the floor and eslewhere he was just about handling the 'incoming' as the marines would say.
Monday morning was a whole new saga though. I had arrived at my desk around 7.45am despite difficult trains following the weekend when I had had to chop a few trees. Clients were phoning in at an alarming rate and the Mainwaring phrase "don't panic" resounded around the office. I remember clearly one partner sitting opposite shouting at a client after receiving an earful of abuse and concern..."well, you think you've got ****ing problems, I've just bought a farm and had to contend with 500 fallen oak trees at the weekend, now stop wasting my time". Or words to that effect! Anyway it wasn't the first phone that got slammed that day.
The stock exchange electronic pricing system wasn't 'real time' and throughout the day the only real picture the majority of us got were regular updates from our dealers. With the gyrations on FTSE100 of huge %'s (I think the day swing was around 40% although top to bottom around -23%) it didn't take me long to work out that on a 20 minute screen delay the blue prices were probably red whilst within minutes the red were probably blue. A few trading clients took my advice at the time so I suggested a few buy trades at blue and did the same later in the morning. I can say with 100% conviction it was the only time that I've ever seen profits made at the high point as dealers were often shovelling trades at sometimes £'s lower. Of course, alot of discretion have to be allowed and not many tried this dangerous strategy. The best advice was to do nothing and mercifully many took that on board. I do remember though that an institutional client's boss panicked at around 11am (my contact was in Bermuda on holiday) and sold millions of Attwoods through me at the wrong price; by the time my contact returned on wednesday Attwoods had rallied like most stocks.
By the time Wall Street had opened most in London had prepared themselves for a rocky afternoon. The lessons of the morning had stood us in good stead though.
Somehow we got through the day.
The next day was "Terrible Tuesday". The firms credit control departments were on prozac and the Finance Partner and Settlements Manager tried to come to terms with the carnage. Stock delivery was a serious problem for every firm across the LSE ( and had been for weeks prior to the crash) but I don't recollect any proper firms getting into too much undue stress.
Most investors had stood their ground and as we all now know October '87 was really just a great correction rather than a descending crash like '29 or what we went through more recently with Lehman's.
I've been asked this a few times over the years and since CNBC is doing a bulletin on it today here is my recollection.
Actually the problems started in the weeks prior to 19th October 1987. Many people had borrowed money on rolled over trading positions since the hectic summer where £millions were made (& lost). Many market strategists including the high profile strategist at Dean Witter Reynolds (now Morgan Stanley), John Mendelsohn had warned of the effects of 'programme trading' many times on US tv, etc. No-one listened.
Friday 16th October, however, provided a different slant on capital markets activity.
My father and I were with a small London brokerage at the time, Dunkley Marshall. There were around 40 brokers and dealers and another 30 support staff. On Friday morning the Great Storm hit the south eastern parts of England. I had left my house at around 7am for the 1 hour journey. The station was deserted like many. I scampered back to my house zig-zagging fallen trees and rang the office. A friend of mine, Richard Coles, a young dynamic broker (now living happily in Oz) surprisingly answered the phone. There were around half a dozen personnel in the office including my father who had walked from the Barbican. Coles told me it was like working in hell. It was impossible to answer the telephones around the dealing room with virtually no-one about so he had taken responsibility by operating the dealing room from the confines of the reception desk where normally young girls had transferred calls into the open plan area. By delegating price and dealing tasks to the floor and eslewhere he was just about handling the 'incoming' as the marines would say.
Monday morning was a whole new saga though. I had arrived at my desk around 7.45am despite difficult trains following the weekend when I had had to chop a few trees. Clients were phoning in at an alarming rate and the Mainwaring phrase "don't panic" resounded around the office. I remember clearly one partner sitting opposite shouting at a client after receiving an earful of abuse and concern..."well, you think you've got ****ing problems, I've just bought a farm and had to contend with 500 fallen oak trees at the weekend, now stop wasting my time". Or words to that effect! Anyway it wasn't the first phone that got slammed that day.
The stock exchange electronic pricing system wasn't 'real time' and throughout the day the only real picture the majority of us got were regular updates from our dealers. With the gyrations on FTSE100 of huge %'s (I think the day swing was around 40% although top to bottom around -23%) it didn't take me long to work out that on a 20 minute screen delay the blue prices were probably red whilst within minutes the red were probably blue. A few trading clients took my advice at the time so I suggested a few buy trades at blue and did the same later in the morning. I can say with 100% conviction it was the only time that I've ever seen profits made at the high point as dealers were often shovelling trades at sometimes £'s lower. Of course, alot of discretion have to be allowed and not many tried this dangerous strategy. The best advice was to do nothing and mercifully many took that on board. I do remember though that an institutional client's boss panicked at around 11am (my contact was in Bermuda on holiday) and sold millions of Attwoods through me at the wrong price; by the time my contact returned on wednesday Attwoods had rallied like most stocks.
By the time Wall Street had opened most in London had prepared themselves for a rocky afternoon. The lessons of the morning had stood us in good stead though.
Somehow we got through the day.
The next day was "Terrible Tuesday". The firms credit control departments were on prozac and the Finance Partner and Settlements Manager tried to come to terms with the carnage. Stock delivery was a serious problem for every firm across the LSE ( and had been for weeks prior to the crash) but I don't recollect any proper firms getting into too much undue stress.
Most investors had stood their ground and as we all now know October '87 was really just a great correction rather than a descending crash like '29 or what we went through more recently with Lehman's.
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