I desperately wanted to love this book from Gary Stevenson, someone whose online work I've followed for a couple of years now for its insightful and informed perspective on wealth inequality following the financial crash. While it does initially read as a great page-turner, painting a vivid portrait of the high-pressure-high-reward life as a trader from an unpromising background and the highs and lows that come with it, it ultimately ended as a disappointment - both the way Stevenson's career came crashing down but also the way the book continued. Where it had previously been gritty and uncompromising, it started to feel overdone and the profanities will not go down well with a number of readers. I felt confused about Gary's ultimate didactic message - I perhaps naively thought that given his scathing attack on the way that the top 1% make huge profits on the lowest income families and individuals, that he would have stopped betting on inequality to increase his own personal wealth and instead support something resembling a more socialist wealth redistribution

I did attend (paid by myself for ticket + book) a book event at Chorleywood Book Shop where I hoped that my cynical conclusion could be redeemed, only to find Stevenson coming across as quite unlikable and lacking some self-awareness when interviewed, which I think is what I didn't get on with in the book. It did make sense that Stevenson spoke about not liking the subtitle of 'a confession' - which was initially my gripe as I thought the book lacked any sort of reflection as implied by this.

Ultimately, it was interesting to read about a world of which I have no experience, but the fact that the author spoke about how they still make (presumably, huge) profits by betting on inequality in their personal life, along with a general lack of reflection and pragmatic solutions beyond just 'taxation', ultimately left me feeling disappointed. A real shame, I wanted to like this so badly. I would advise readers interested in wealth inequality and its solutions to pick up a copy of Grace Blakely's 'Vulture Capitalism' instead.

I couldn’t personally get into this book. I found it quite hard to understand and found the writer quite unlikable. All me me me and I struggled with his moral dilemmas. Full disclosure I did not finish the book. However there was parts the book was okay but mostly I found myself bored and skimmed reading.. it was drawn out. Overall I wasn’t a fan but that’s not to say someone else especially those interested in this kind of thing would not like it.

The author writes incredibly well with a witty turn of phrase. I enjoyed learning about his journey from a working-class kid to a millionaire. He sets out enough colour of the financial services scene - frequently described by many as not much better than a glorified Ponzi scheme - that it draws you in without wanting to be a part of it. The only curious thing I noted was the author's dedication to the cold and hungry kids. I rather suspect such kids don't feel the author 'did it for himself and therefore did it for them'; I'm sure they'd rather become millionaires themselves!

oh wow, this was a book that I was not expecting to enjoy!

Gary wrote this wonderuflly and I highly recommend it to everyone

A creatively written, intense, and vivid exegesis on the financial services industry, The Trading Game by Gary Stevenson also acts as a superb primer for those keen to learn about foreign exchange trading and what happens behind the scenes in the investment banking sector. It's The Wolf of Wall Street, transposed to the City of London, with a sense of ethics thrown in, highlighting the decadence and excesses of the entitled classes in a milieu that appears to be almost baseless in terms of productivity. A great read.

This book was infuriating and yet I couldn’t put it down!

Looking into the world of trading through Gary’s eyes was nothing short of terrifying and yet not completely unsurprising.

I was left wondering of the type of person Gary was at times he seemed to be genuine and yet others I was questioning his moral compass. I’m still undecided on him. I’m not sure if this was intentional but I wished he provided more answers and clarity around his thoughts and actions.

Whilst I appreciate this was a memoir I lacked interest in his recount of his time in Tokyo whilst that was needed for the climax (although Gary you have seriously disappointed me at the crescendo… are you kidding me???) it was dragging and I struggled to retain some of my earlier enthusiasm for reading this book.

I've followed Gary's Economics' instagram page for some time, so I was thrilled to see he'd written a book detailing his time as Citibank's most profitable trader. From what I already knew about Gary's work, I was looking forward to learning more about why he dedicates his time to de-mystifying economics. I find it quite a difficult and inaccessible subject to grapple with, so I was also hoping for a few explainers. The book is subtitled "a confession'', which I think is perfect, as this isn't a straight-forward explainer of the economy and the secrets of the trading floor. Gary is honest about his motivations, successes, and mistakes. I found the insights interesting and the myth-busting of the trading process revealing, but I still felt this was a very reserved account. Gary's writing style isn't raw or emotive, it's very blunt and doesn't dwell too long on the detail. I felt there were things being held back, maybe for a second book? Overall, it's a good read and a fairly accessible way to get your head around what goes on in the City.

With thanks to Penguin Press and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Probably everybody should read this eye-opening book which has so much to say about the modern money-centred world. Given the subject, this had the potential to be dry, but the great writing skills of Gary Stevenson makes it anything but. In fact, it was only about three quarters of the way through I realised it wasn’t a novel - but that realisation just added to the power of this memoir.

Gary Stevenson is a working class guy with a skill in mathematics/arithmetic and a drive to find out about life and money. He works those into a place at LSE. While there he hears about a game that Citibank use to choose who to employ. He learns all he can about the game, as he’s determined to get the job which his background will probably exclude him from.

There are loads of positives in this book and it is well written - although if the swearing were removed the book would be a lot shorter. But they add to the ‘all lads having fun’ metier of the book. Reading the beginning reminded me of Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card, except this is more of a horror story. If this is what the whole capitalist society is based on, then it’s truly terrifying. The traders are juvenile, immature, overly competitive, overly sensitive to slights and criticism, and slightly pathetic. But because they make profits, they’re indulged.

Mr Stevenson has issues and struggles but I don’t really think the book has enough self awareness or reflection on why he struggled. It seems sometimes that he has a conscience but then he behaves as badly as the rest. I’d have liked to know how he changed, what attitudes he felt left him unprepared or not for what he found and why the sums of money discussed don’t cause him pause given where he came from.

The book is a fascinating look at the financial trading floor he worked at but I’ve no idea how universal it is, or how honest. Either way it should be read by politicians and policy makers and anyone who thinks inequality needs to be addressed.

I was given a copy of this book by NetGalley

Quite an interesting memoir in many ways, from an ex-trader whom a lot of people must have seen as an unlikely candidate for such a job (or, at least, I bet a lot of people would expect traders to come from a more specific pool with families closely related to financial matters, for instance).

Gary Stevenson worked at Citi for a few years after university, and managed to find his place there… or did he? For not everything was so peachy, even though he made money and things looked, for all intents and purposes, as if they were going the right way… for him, not necessarily for the rest of the world caught in the 2008 crisis. And reading about that was definitely interesting, because it is no secret that as a lot of people suffered from that very crisis, there were also those who managed to get an upper hand, so to speak, and leave the table rather wealthier. Which is partly the moral dilemma that Gary went through here, finding it more and more difficult to reconcile his success with the realisation that the markets were going crazy, and soon going down in flames.

I had a bit of a harder time, though, with the portrayal of the trading world—entertaining in a way (everybody in there seemed to be a prick of some sort or other), but it’s the kind of portrayal that grows a little… stale after a while? Note: I have no idea how people behave on the trading floor, it may or it may not be that this environment is pretty toxic in general and in nature, and I wouldn’t be surprised if indeed it was. It just grew old after a while. Also I was somewhat annoyed at the last part of the book, because in the end it read more like constant anger cum trying to get as much money as possible from Citi before leaving, but without the deeper introspection I would’ve expected from this?

Conclusion: 3 stars, it is an interesting read, the author just doesn’t come off as very reliable or relatable. (Not sure if he was supposed to be, to be fair.)

A memoir of a former Citibank trader, Stevenson writes of his exploits in making his way from East London working class to becoming one of the bank's most profitable global markets traders at a time of financial turmoil between 2008-2012. A fantastic read

Wow! What an incredible story, I was intrigued once I received an e-arc, and it certainly didn't disappoint. Very eye opening and not what I was expecting. It is thoroughly enjoyable, like your above watching this happening as you read, and you don't want to put it down because you need to see how it goes.

Thank you to the author, publisher and netgalley for an e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

There are times when I look at my list of books to review and think "Did I REALLY ask for that? What was I thinking?"

That's the thought that buzzed through my mind when I realised this was a book about being a foreign exchange trader in the City.

What did I know about such things? Did I even care? Weren't they all a bunch of arrogant BSDs (to use the Bonfire of the Vanities term, Big Swinging Dicks). I was expecting to be bored.

I was completely wrong.

Gary should have been a broker. That's where the greedy working class Essex boys were supposed to land. Traders were all about pink shirts, monogrammed coughs, braying public school accents and an inflated sense of self importance. How was a boy from Essex who'd been kicked out of grammar school for selling drugs supposed to become one of the youngest and most successful FX traders in the world?

By being smarter, more fearless, and by understanding how to play The Trading Game.

This is a great book. I was quickly sucked into Gary's dysfunctional world, reading about his outsider view of how trading for the big international banks works. His descriptions of colleagues - The Slug, The Frog, Snoopy and others - were all so well drawn that I felt I could be sitting next to him, squawking at the brokers, doing the whole buying and selling and moving the world.

In real rags to riches to "let me out of here", Gary takes us on a tour of one of the most bizarre global systems where hard work and being right when everybody else is wrong can pay massive rewards. But, like a Faustian pact, he finds it's even harder to get out than it was to get into this world.

Loved it.
Thanks to Netgalley and Gary's publishers for my copy.

I have never given much thought to traders but this book absolutely fascinated me. What an incredible writer Gary is, keeping the audience engaged consistently through some quite meaty topics. I listened to parts of this on audiobook narrated by the author and can throughly recommend. 10/10 HIGHLY RECOMMEND

“I was a clever, poor, ambitious kid, who just didn’t want to be poor any more.” An unusually gifted mathematician, Stevenson beats the odds first by getting into the London School of Economics, and then wins a trading game to get internship at Citibank. He has no idea what kind of job it would lead to – just that it would give him the chance to make a lot of money. And it does. Not bad for an unsuccessful grime musician (MC Gaz) who was expelled from school for drug dealing.

Ironically, it’s not Stevenson’s numeric skills that enable him to advance. Initially perplexed that he can’t understand how trading works, he quickly realises that he’s far from alone, and that many longer serving traders are as clueless as he initially is. Knowing that many interns are never offered jobs, he makes himself useful in the best way he can think of – fetching lunches, coffees, at his desk by 6am, and always ready to take note as and when a dealer decides to share a few gems of wisdom. Gems like you won’t necessarily make money by being right, but you can really cash in by being right when others are wrong.

Stevenson outlines some of the mechanics of the work he did. Despite his best efforts it can be hard to follow, but it’s still possible to grasp the arc of his story even if the details don’t make sense. He starts on the STIRT (Short Term Interest Rate Trading) desk, where currencies are traded, taking profits from differences in rates. It’s not long before he’s being taken to Las Vegas for lads weekends with guys he barely knows or likes, and long lunches with brokers where his job is mostly not speaking and thinking he had to eat raw chicken because he didn’t know he could grill it.

It slowly dawns on Stevenson that it’s not actually a job. It’s a lifestyle. It’s not what you know, it’s how you participate. Take the hazing from the more senior guys, expect to be ignored, fetch and carry to ingratiate yourself, and learn to exist in a state of permanent sleep deprivation. One truly surprising revelation is that the basis for the annual bonus payments – which dwarf the base salary – are a secret. Traders endlessly speculate about “getting paid” which is code for “I’m expecting a great bonus”. Although no one talks about exactly how much. It’s known that some banks have fired someone rather than payout big.

Traders have a profit and loss account that is updated in real time as each trade goes through, and can be seen by everyone on the trading floor. In September of 2008 when Lehman Brothers go under and the global financial crisis washes over the world, Citibank get bailed out, and the STIRT traders discover they can make even more money. And everyone can see the huge profits Stevenson makes.
Stevenson never looks back, bets bigger and bigger and rapidly becomes the most profitable trader in the office. The generally accepted wisdom is that markets will fall, then rise again. But Stevenson is determined to be right when the rest are wrong and realizes everything he learned at the LSE was wrong. He bets that there will be no wholesale economic recovery, and cements his position as Citibank’s most successful trader.

Stevenson’s insights to his personal life are strangely detached. Told as if he were an observer, not a participant. Just weeks before he trousers a bonus of almost £400k, he matter of factly describes a Christmas with his parents and his siblings, all of whom buy him presents, while he buys nothing in return. A girlfriend relocates to Japan when Citibank move him there, but opts to live in a different town. Clearly unhappy in his job and keen to find a way out, Stevenson still decides to end his relationship with her rather than have her continue to tell him to quit. In each of these instances he offers little insight as to why.

At the start of the book Stevenson references early moments in his career where people told him “once you get in, you’ll never get out”. By 2011 Stevenson sees a global economy that is terminally broken, with boom and bust replaced by sustained inequality. The bigger his reputation becomes in trading circles, the more bemused he is as to why he doesn’t enjoy it.

The book ends not with a bang, but a rather slow fizzle. He wants out but Citibank have millions of Stevenson’s bonus money locked away all to be forfeit if he quits. Citibank try to bore Stevenson into submission, but Stevenson refuses to leave without his cash despite failing physical and mental health. It gives him a chance to enjoy Tokyo, where they post him to try and distract him but his prodigious work ethic is broken, and he spends weeks off sick. He lawyers up, but knows that ultimately Citibank could keep him in court for years. When Stevenson’s release finally comes, he has no idea why they finally gave in. As showdown’s go, it’s not so much a damp squib, and more a soaking wet one.

So what does a retired millionaire trader do aged 24? Well, the book doesn’t say, but a quick online search reveals he now has 170k subscribers to his “Garys Economics” YouTube channel and has become part of the Patriotic Millionaires movement and campaigns with Millionaires for Humanity for higher taxes on the wealthy.

There’s an insightful documentary here that includes his mum and dad : – https://youtu.be/LJ6ZSgkxgFQ?si=GIaYdYGUAf91XhJY

And here he can be seen on BBC TV getting right up the nose of Nickie Aiken (MP for City of London & Westminster, but not for much longer) and Annabelle Denham a Director at the Institute of Economic Affairs, a hard right “think tank” whose funding remains deliberately opaque.
https://youtu.be/e1sD80TXKwQ?si=W2MtNnkgkx7mIT5f

This is a fascinating story about a young man from the East End who wants to be a millionaire and starts training as a money trader at a large banking corporation. The detail that he goes into is amazing. and his ability in what he does coins millions for the bank and a great salary with bonuses for himself. Eventually it no longer satisfies him and his efforts to leave the Bank are thwarted at every turn. Great conclusion.

Whoa! Where do I start? It's a great read; compelling, enthralling (apart from a slight lag around the middle, which I'll forgive as it hints at the repetitive nature of the job), and fascinating. However, there's darkness in this story that's disturbing.

Gary Stevenson documents the greed and shallowness of his fellow traders. Their nature as human chameleons to court other traders and brokers, the casual and ingrained sexism, prejudice, bullying, cruel "banter" and selfishness made me nauseous to think that these people have significant influence on the well-being of our economies. It's all just a game to them.

There's also a hint of darkness about Gary's own behaviour; so many unanswered questions about his actions and behaviour that you wonder whether he has ever addressed it and decided to keep quiet, or has in fact preferred not to go there. The expected narrative of a young working class lad making good is one of "treating" your parents with some of your windfalls, enjoying events and having a taste of the "good life" with your mates...because you know the good fortune might not last. Instead, there seems to be a shameful secrecy about the huge sums of money he earned. I wondered if Gary saw the cash as not "earned" but spoiled with guilt like Judas' 30 pieces of silver, money received for the betrayal of his own people.

Other readers may have a different take on it, but I was left with a million questions. I would certainly recommend it though!

If you were to bring up an image of a city banker in your mind, you're unlikely to think of someone like Gary Stevenson. A hoodie and jeans replaces the pin-stripe suit and his background is the East End, where he was familiar with violence, poverty and injustice. There was no posh public school on his CV - but he had been to the London School of Economics. Stevenson is bright - extremely bright - and he has a facility with numbers which most of us can only envy. He also realised that most rich people expect poor people to be stupid. It was his ability at what was, essentially, a card game which got him an internship with Citibank. Eventually, this turned into permanent employment as a trader.

His first bonus arrived in 2009 - only months after the banking crisis. It was £13,000 - more than half of what his father made in a year as a postal worker. His next bonus is £395,000 and after that, he's into the millions. His obsession - it can't be described in any other way - is to become the most successful trader in the world. It dominates his life - but he does realise that as the bonuses grow, so does the gap between himself and the people he grew up with. He's never going to be one of the people he works with and he's lost the intimacy with his old group of friends. There's the occasional girlfriend but it's an unsatisfying life.

And then there's the struggle of trying to leave it...

I did wonder if I was going to like this book: vast sums of money made from betting on disaster horrifies me. A few pages in, I realised that I had to judge the book, not on whether or not I admired the values of the author but on whether or not I valued what I was being told. I found that I did. I gained real insight into the way that a trading floor operates - and why it doesn't always operate well. I appreciated just how risky it is.

There was a downside for me. The book is subtitled A Confession. I expected more in the way of introspection and self-examination than I found. I suspected it was there - Stevenson was one of a group of thirty millionaires who signed an open letter in 2021 calling for increased taxes on the rich - but little of it emerged in the book.

I'd like the publishers for sending a copy of the book to the Bookbag. As well as reading the book, I listened to an audio download (which I bought themselves) narrated by the author. I warmed to Stevenson more when I listened to him than when I read what he had to say.

Good pacing but it needs to be more structured as came across as lots of rambling on.

Then learnt that this is non fiction ,completely changed the game. You could hear Gary talking and his behaviours etc. Would like to read more from this author as kept me engaged. The storytelling in Japan was beautiful.

Post on storygraph.
3.75⭐️

There’s no denying that this is a rollicking read. It takes you right into the heart of the city and examines - unsentimentally and without fear - the corrosiveness, venality and pointlessness. Instantly readable.