Trading arcades – where associates of a proprietary trading group trade on their own behalf – came to the fore in the late 1990s as dealers moved away from pit trading to electronic screens. Sian Williams visited one of the earliest such firms in the UK.
Rule number one of trading. One man’s pain is another man’s gain. And the recent pain in the financial systems around the world is as much about throwing up opportunities as it is unpicking the world’s largest economies.
One unexpected spin-off in the futures and options markets is likely to be an exodus — willing or otherwise — of traders, fund managers and, particularly hedge fund staff from their existing jobs. Associated with it will be a boom in proprietary and so-called “arcade” trading, where these same financiers test their skills but their own money in financial markets....