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

Boys and girls, let's be fair, these are rookies, this is a staged TV "reality" show, they've been set up to look crap, and we're looking at last year's market with 20/20 hindsight. But it was a bit 1980s. I was just waiting for somebody to pick up a phone and shout "Sell pork bellies". ;-)

'this is a staged TV "reality" show, they've been set up to look crap'

Thats not true, it is not a reality show it is in fact an observational documentary.

The series was filmed in July and August, and given that (looking at the market as a whole) the FTSE went UP from approx 5151 on 15 Jul to 5628 on 29 Aug, it's not in the least surprising that they were busily buying shares rather than selling. So were an awful lot of other people.

And had they been selling, that rally could easily have caused them to be stopped out anyway.

NickB: I bow to your superior knowledge. BTW, documentary has an 'n' in it, innit? :-)

Thanks have corrected.

I know some of the people involved in making that prog, they are film-makers and are a long way away from the 'reality tv' producers mindset.

The show is aimed at a mass audience, not other traders, other traders need a film made for them.

NickB: I guessed you might be on the media inside -- it would be really interesting to hear more, if you're free to share.

What the show does really well is expose the psychology needed for trading and how well, or otherwise, the participants match that. It also helps demolish the myth that trading is easy.

It's still staged in the sense that button-pushing on a trading terminal would make lousy television, hence the format.

I still enjoyed it! Sell pork bellies! :-)

A study in emotional turmoil and facial expressions associated with. It seems those that did well used the competitive advantage of trading equites that they have a special knowledge/interest in whilst those that lost, shot at anything that jumped out of the trees just as it turned or spiked.They must be trading cfds as Lex could then offset the losses though evidently not with DMA as they are on the horn and not meddling in the auctions. The Mrs found it boring but then she will watch Trinny and Susannah/Dancing on Ice til the cows come home. The budget does seem a bit low as they hardly leave the room or do any crazy music or intro shot of Rollers as in the Apprentice. Quite nostalgic seeing those stories breaking again!

I'm actually quite disappointed in it. The chances of any of the viewing public learning anything from it are next to zero and it seems to be little more than an opportunity for Lex van Dam to raise his profile.

I'm also unsure exactly what his sidekick (Is his name Anton? I bet his real name is Tony.) is doing there. Having taken Chloe aside last week, she clearly needed more of his time this week. He needed to sit down next to her and force her to pick up the phone and make some trades. As things stand he's there as a mere observer who can identify problems but doesn't do anything to address them. What use is that when these guys are mere rookies?

I was dissapointed with last nights show, it just never really got going did it,
its all far too laid back for me, and i dont particularly like the guy whos in charge of them all either,
I think it would make for far better dramatics if it showed more charts and the prices actually moving in real time,like when the woman shorted xta and it immediately shot up, they simply showed a chart after the fact, would have been far more interesting for viewers to capture it in real time,
I understand its aimed at the mass market, but to be honest i found yesterdays show a bit dull,
the old chap, bless him,he was out on a limb,
i quiet like the skinhead lad, and great to see a woman is the front runner so far,;-)

I've got both shows on TiVo but not found a time when Mrs TP has other plans - as I am sure it would drive her to a proverbial early bath..

However, on the matter of trading, I remember hearing an anecdote a few years ago about a guy who trained total novices to trade using TA. Just general market trading such as currency, commodities, etc. I think he trained them for about a week and then let them loose (I nearly typoed lose!!).

All he wanted was simple folk who could follow his rules. None of this business of overlaying the decisions by influences of history, news, sentiment, etc. The story was that, as long as they followed the rules, it worked. Where they went wrong was improving or modifying the rules - or not following them in the first place.

A bit like the mechanical trading that you folk were watching in that thread that was running a couple of months ago - but I guess that the people I was talking about were operating before the time that fully computerised buying and selling was possible.

TP

Anton Kreil: The biography

Final part tomorrow

27 Jan 2009
21:0022:00
BBC Two
3/3. By the final close of trading just three traders are left, but will they make a profit?

The earlier episodes were hardly interesting, or informative...it's a programme that appears to have no purpose other than to reduce the number of Repeats on BBC.
I guess they thought it would be like "the Apprentice" - or- property-ladder combined...but it's way off the mark IMHO.
Furhtermore I think you can see the fundamental flaw right from the start - why is the UK stockmarket being Traded in Dollars? (=the title)....
I may tape this episode and wait for others (here) to tell me...

Cos at the time a million dollars sounded bigger than 60k in CFDs.

Or am I being cynical?

Just looked at his site. Anton, The Brand. Pass the sick bucket, Alice.

It aint on my tele listings , they moved it ?

Dil,it's on tomorrow.

That explains it then :-)

Cheers banjo.

lol,no problem.

Just watching last week's show, it showed Amit shorting WOS, the commentary saying it was falling fast, and showing the screen with WOS +19. The continuity person doesn't understand trading methinks!