Those were the days- and Donald Trump was in the news even then!

So what does a very old note book dating back to those early, early days of my joining the financial markets have to impart to us and how have things really changed?

Jump back in time to the early 1980's, yes decades ago when some of you were not born and others of us were in our youth. At the time it seems I was learning about backwardations and contangos of the LME (London Metal Exchange). It was also a time when options were opened directly with a single counterparty and therefore had to be settled or closed with the same counterparty. In other words they were relatively new for LME products and not widely traded and we were yet to develop into the concept of ‘traded options’ in fact they were not listed on LIFFE until the 1990's to give it some context.

 I made notes on some technical terms for operating my Lotus 123 computer and I have inserted a cutting called Morning Metals Comment dated 7th December 1984 with various little notes. The one which catches my eye is  ‘BSM is trying to delete short sellers in London in his attempt to bring London onto par with Kuala Lumpur’ and that the ‘overall high of ￡9850 (per ton) may well come under attack’.

 A few of you might remember that subsequently in October 1985 there was an International Tin Crisis and the most noteworthy points were that the LME survived it despite a drop of around $2,700 a ton when tin finally found a price in March 1986. My lasting memory wasn’t so much the price as our clients didn’t trade in tin, but the fact that 22 nations could and did renege on their contractual obligations.

As usual the crisis was precipitated by issues with the lack of controls and transparency. In effect  ‘It was not revealed until after the collapse of the ITC on 24 October 1985, that the buffer stock manager has contracted to sell forward 60,000 tonnes of tin on an unpriced basis’. (Source: Hansard extract - https://bit.ly/2msOGP1). 

As always there is a reason for the lack of control and transparency at the time, in this case it was the result of the base agreement which took the form of an international treaty and thus, it did not fall under English Law but a treaty in which the UK only had 4-5% of the votes. What is also interesting, even from today's perspective, is the Hansard extract states that one of the reasons for reluctantly signing into the treaty was ‘because the majority of the Community member states wished to join’, another rease was our relations with the producing countries.   As an aside Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and the UK were the ‘community nations’ who were listed as members at the time. Also it was in part being discussed in Parliament was because of the impact on the Cornish tin mining industry.

So there in the 1980's we were in the world of the European Community and here we are on the brink of leaving the European Union. On the economic side I had made a tiny note ‘low money supply and high interest rates’ with further notes on what Reuters pages to monitor for money supply expectations, Eurodollar rates amongst other economic factors. I will leave you to ponder the outcome of decisions made in the next few decades and the situation of global economics in 2018 as this is just a little snap shot based on a find in the basement.

Moving rapidly on from the concepts of single options and the limitations of the Lotus 123, enter LIFFE and yes, I have a clipping (see above) ‘That’s life in the LIFFE ‘madhouse’' by Robert Lea.  Sadly, I have not noted the newspaper or the date but it does start  “They got a bloody good kicking” was the consensus option on the Tory Party among the cream of the Thatcher Youth to be found on the floor of the madhouse of Cannon Street they call LIFFE.’  It also refers to New Labour – ‘Like New Labour, which is stressing that the past is history and what matters is the future and by mid-morning traders had forgotten the election and were looking forward to the non-farm jobs data…’ .

From the extract I surmise it was probably Friday 2nd May 1997 and some of you might recall being on the floor on that precise date.  Also of note on that day in 1997, Donald Trump and Marla Maples announce they are separating and ‘Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery’ was released.  Jump forward to 2018 and dare I say more…no.

Finally, it would be fun to find out if anyone recognises faces in the photos and where are they now? Who is are the men centre stage in the photo and who is that serene looking woman?  Despite the press on women at the moment, were have been making in-roads for decades in finance and beyond and I for one, think we should get some credit for what we have achieved already against the odds. Was it fun, certainly, how can one not celebrate one's own youth?