Well January has just about gone and thoughts now turn to Spring, which in theory should only be a few weeks away but judging by the weather lately, it seems a long way off. Our Annual Christmas party was cancelled as the Gibbs Ladies hadn't been well and it was thought best to cancel the shindig. The Ladies are now a lot better and we hope to have another bash later in the year. A summer Barbeque with tents in the garden sounds good but of course I'm dreaming as Summer seems a million light years away. The Christmas holidays were quite long and I must admit we wasted the time away. As the weather was lousy we simply didn't get out as much as we should have. The net result is that Grant and myself ended up visiting the local hostelries and generally developed Cabin Fever. When the holidays came to a close, we were all out of routine and work loomed on us all like a dark cloud. That said, after getting back to work and routine once more established, things became more bearable. It's been a typical winter month in Blighty and my diary hardly reads like an adventure novel. That said, we have had some snow and we have managed to get out into the countryside and do some walking. It's also been very windy here, particularly on the 9th of January. The following day we headed to Abergavenny to walk the canal paths around a pretty place called Goytre Wharf. We took our usual route but eventually found the path blocked as lots and lots of 60 foot high Cedar trees had come down in the night. It was still very windy and looking up we could see more Cedar trees being punished by the wind.......it was time to make a hasty retreat. It was a nice walk though and we'd been lucky to see some sunshine.

In other news, I note that the financial markets have been in turmoil recently. The Swiss Central Bank caught everyone off guard and decided to get rid of the cap against the Euro, thus sending the Euro down the Suwannee and causing merry mayhem in the Financial Markets. A week earlier the commodity markets took a dive as Chinese Hedge Funds (I'd never heard of any before) decided to flog the back off the Copper Futures Market. All good fun and it got me harking back to the time when I masqueraded as a Futures Trader in the dying days of the Last Great British Colony of the East - Hong Kong. For those with a long memory, this was the time of the Sumitomo Copper Scandal...and the story was just about to break. The long and short of it was that a Japanese Trader at Sumitomo Bank - a certain Mr. Hamanaka, had been manipulating the Copper market. Everyone knew that something was up and with this in mind I'd been sent to Tokyo with one of our London Brokers to go and see some of the traders there and report back on what was going on. It was an interesting week, I seemed to be like the Grim Reaper knocking on doors. I went to see one trader and was told by his colleague that he no longer worked at the bank and had had an accident. Oh, what happened? I asked - the Japanese trader responded "He fell in front of the Bullet Train two days ago" - Oh.

Then at another trading house I went to see one of my Japanese counterparts - Again I was told that the trader was no longer at the bank as he was ill. I was told he was dying of cancer. This was news to me. I asked when he had been diagnosed with cancer. "Three days ago".. came the reply. So it didn't take a genius to work out that there was trouble brewing. Our London trader reported back to HQ that the **** was about to hit the fan. Mr. Hamanaka was a client of ours but at least our guys in London had an inkling what was going on and had reduced all positions we'd had with him. On the Thursday night I flew back to Hong Kong. Very early at about 3.00 am on Friday, the story had broken. Mr. Hamanaka's manipulation of the Copper market was due to the fact that a good chunk of the World's copper supply had been stored on Cargo ships that had been travelling around the world for the last couple of years and as such had contributed to a perceived global shortage of the red metal. The cat was now out of the bag and Copper was about to plummet. Who should then walk into the office at 4.30am and face the hurricane? Why only me....I spoke to our New York traders who were all running out of their office as they knew what was coming.......I expected carnage and asked that the chief trader stayed put to make the Copper market and I would deal the Aluminium Book.......big mistake. As market makers we had to put prices up on the Reuters screen....but no one knew what the prices were....our Director in New York said don't put any prices up......... guess what ...not one trader asked for a price in Copper.........so the Copper trader in New York went home. Then Japan arrived for work and decided to sell Aluminium..... my logic was that the Aluminium market was sound enough and yet those Japanese chaps wanted to sell THE LOT...... and guess who bought it off them...yep ..me. I got hit quite a few times...apparently I was the only person making a price in Asia and so everyone was queing up to sell as much as they could to me. Dont get me wrong, I was knocking the price down big time and think I had knocked it down by about a $100 dollars a tonne by the time everyone had stopped selling and had started laughing. So, by default I was now one of the largest holders of Aluminium futures contracts.... And then silence. That was always the trouble in Asia....a lack of liquidity.....and so for the next 6 hours I would have to sit there and wait until London opened up and the true price of Aluminium would be revealed. It was a long 6 hours and I dont recommend it to anyone. Eventually when Europe awoke I was called by our Managing Director.....who went BALLISTIC....he was more ****** off that the fact we werent showing prices on the Reuters screen.....but then went silent when I told him the Aluminium position. I should also mention that I was alone in our office as my boss and the other traders were all in Malaysia visiting their copper clients. So my suffering was a solo event. The big shot London Traders eventually rang me up and b******ed me for taking so much on board. I was persona non grata. I watched as the market woke up and guess what...Aluminium opened a lot higher and our London guys made a killing selling off our Aluminium. No one called to congratulate me.
I left the office and Jayne, myself & a young Grant got on a plane to London then to Wales and went to Aberaeron for a week. I'd booked the holiday but had no idea if I still had a job back in Hong Kong. The Financial Times made for interesting reading and Hong Kong had got a mention about how the markets had been in a total state of confusion when the news had broke. It had made the front page........

So there we have it folks...a quick trip down memory lane.....and it still makes me break out in a cold sweat. As for the markets these days, I'm more concerned with potting up my fruit & vegetable plants to sell at the local Farmers Market. Funnily enough it's a lot less stressful.

LG