Eight ordinary people are given a million dollars, a fortnight of intensive training and two months to run their own hedge fund. Can they make a killing?

The experiment reveals the inner workings of a City trading floor. The money is supplied by hedge fund manager Lex van Dam: he wants to see if ordinary people can beat the professionals, and he expects a return on his investment too. Yet no-one foresees the financial crisis that lies ahead.

The traders were selected in spring 2008, before the US credit crisis gathered pace. The successful candidates were chosen, trained and dispatched to their specially created trading room in the heart of the Square Mile. Among them are an environmentalist, a soldier, a boxing promoter, an entrepreneur, a retired IT consultant, a vet, a student and a shopkeeper.

As the novices learn the dark art of trading stocks and shares, the financial markets start to buckle. Making money takes second place to basic survival as the brutal realities of global economics take their toll on the traders. How do they cope? Will they secure themselves a bonus, or walk away with nothing?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00gthhq

Now see the unseen City-4 January 2009

Lex Van Dam and his million dollar TV gamble-07 Jan 2009

Well if we are dreaming I'd like to have a go with somebody else's money.

Here's episode 3 and some potted thoughts

Million Dollar Traders

I guess it depends what you were expecting to get out of the series. Personally I thought it was a fascinating and realistic look at the pressures of being a trader, and the intensely difficult journey that proves far too difficult for the majority to endure (myself included). Interestingly, even the 'winning' traders chose not the pursue a career in the city even though Lex could probably have got the top 3 traders sorted. I thought it made for an interesting experiment, don't think it was ever supposed to about about charts vs fundy's, more about how the individuals coped with the stress, what's involved, how they go about their business, and what it takes to be profitable.

Velocity,

That just about summed up my views on the series.You never know there may be a new 12 part series after popular demand with an extra show on BBC3 analysing each persons portfolio but I wouldn't hold yer breath! :-)

If there is another series, I'd love to put my name down for a part. Hopefully, would do slightly better than saga.com. and if I didn't it would be the best wake up call ever.