Million Dollar Traders BBC Mayhem

Million Dollar Traders - TV Show on BBC Fiddles While the Stockmarket Burns

I have decided to create this blog to follow the new BBC 'reality TV' show Million Dollar Traders. I'm not quite sure how this will all work out, but I found the first episode fascinating and the whole show may turn out to be something of a cult experience.

Obviously the show has been set up to provide maxmimum entertainment to the viewing public and you wonder just how it has been edited. At the moment it looks a bit like Big Brother in a trading room.

I shall try and resist the temptation to be rude as what the novice traders are doing verges on the impossible!

They have taken people who apparently know nothing about trading, given them a two week crash course then let them loose with a "million dollars" - around £500,000 I guess, but a million dollars sounds more impressive, of somebody else's money on a trading floor in the midst of the worst economic crisis in living memory.

The person responsible for this mayhem is Mr Lex Van Dam - variously describd as "hedge fund guru" "city whizz kid" "top city trader" - and yes we are led to believe that that is indeed is real name.

He gives the impression that he is very worried about the fate of his million dollars. But let's face it, a) if he was that worried he would have left it with the Northern Rock and b) it is not beyond the realms of plausibility to imagine that in the background he is doing the opposite trade to every trade that his novice apprentice sorcerers are doing, so that he will break even. Or am I being too cynical ?

Be that as it may it's all jolly good fun and we have already had some amateur dramatics and tears as the sacrificial novices get emotionally involved (or not as the case may be - a la Simon munching his cornflakes while piddling hedge fund guru Lex Van Dam's money down the pan).

Stay tuned for more shenanigans and further write-ups from yours truly. Comments are more than welcome !

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