The Money Makers Read Online Free PDF Page B

away without waiting for him to complete his degree. That was unheard of. But if Madison turned him down and forced him to return to Cambridge in October, he’d have failed to meet his father’s goal before he’d even started.
     
     
    6
    Through the glass doors at the end of the room, Luigi came in. He exchanged insults with the Italians working in fixed income and blew a kiss at a secretary he was trying to seduce. Then he arrived at his desk, banged down a coffee and bagel, and stared at Matthew.
    ‘Santa Maria!’ said Luigi. ‘You have the time wrong, my friend, no? Or a brain disease? It is serious, I hope? Hey, what is this?’ Luigi held the neatly stacked papers on his desk at arms’ length. ‘It looks like work. It smells like work,’ he said, sniffing, ‘but, there is nobody here except Matteo.’ Luigi’s face grew sombre. He swept some clutter off his desk and knelt on it. He raised his eyes to heaven and added, ‘Grazie a Dio ! A miracle has happened and I am unworthy.’ He got back to his feet, scanning the package more seriously now.
    ‘You’ve spoken with Tokyo about the trade surplus overshoot?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Matthew. ‘The figures look enormous and are well above the consensus, but the Tokyo market seems to have shrugged it off. Our economist out there tells me that if you dig into the data, it’s mostly one-off items. There’s a reasonable summary in the Wall Street Journal actually.’
    Luigi stared at Matthew, then flipped through his package to the article which was highlighted. His eyes scanned it briefly.
    ‘Hmm. So no issue then.’
    Matthew hesitated a moment. ‘I’m not sure that’s right,’ he said. ‘If I made out the headlines properly, I think the Italian press is a bit more excitable.’
    Luigi followed his train of thought. It wasn’t the data itself which mattered, it was other people’s interpretation of it. If Italian investors got the wrong end of the stick because of bad reporting, then they might misjudge their trading strategy until they wised up. Luigi turned to the articles from the Italian press. Again, he scanned the articles in a few seconds.
    ‘Interesting. I know the Banca di Roma needs to close out a short yen position at the moment. Be interesting to see how they react.’ Luigi meant that the Banca di Roma needed to buy some yen. If it thought the price of yen was going to soar, they’d want to buy quickly before the price had moved.
    Luigi was a good trader. He scanned the rest of the documents and picked up his phone. He wouldn’t put it down for more than a few minutes until the end of the day. Right now, he was checking facts, sensing attitudes, exchanging banter with traders and investors, trying to sense the mood of the market. One idea always leads to a dozen others, and when Luigi picked up an interesting lead, he pursued it. He said not another word to Matthew.
    The market was in full swing by eight thirty by which time the other traders - Anders, Cristina, and Jean­François - were in and busy. Each of them reacted the way Luigi had to the new-look Matthew. But they were restrained in their praise, waiting to see how long his new work ethic would last.
    Luigi called the Banca di Roma, letting the conversation play from his speakerphone. The two men bantered briefly before switching to business.
    ‘Hey, you better be getting out of that giant short position you’ve got on the yen. Did you see the trade numbers? You’re going to get toasted today unless some kindly person takes you out of it.’
    ‘Bullshit, Luigi,’ said the Banca di Roma guy. ‘We couldn’t care less about the yen. We don’t have a short position and anyway a month’s data is neither here nor there. The Tokyo market didn’t move much.’
    This already told Luigi a lot. If Banca di Roma really didn’t care what happened to the yen, their trader wouldn’t have prompted Luigi to keep the discussion going. Luigi now had a choice. He hesitated so briefly that