The best trader in the world
"An investment is just a short-term trade that's gone wrong." - Michael Platt
![[]](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!uhSg!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fbcb80c86-787a-4931-8903-9e97848ed364_503x1041.jpeg "[]")
Two decades apart two young men graduated from the London School of Economics after studying economics and maths and joined the fixed-income trading desks of two of the world’s largest investment banks – JP Morgan and Citi. Both men came from two of the UK’s least affluent areas. One grew up in Preston in the North of England and the other in the East of London. Both men claimed to be the “best trader in the world”. But who was the better trader – Mike Platt or Gary Stevenson?
Gary’s story is now well known. He may be short of practical solutions, but no one can deny how media-savvy Gary is. He understood the power of passion, big ideas, big claims about his career achievements, and being someone relatable. To be fair, Gary said he was the most profitable trader at Citibank during 2011, so only one year and one bank. Stevenson asserts he made $35m of revenues and got paid a bonus of $2.5m. But here’s the thing. Citi’s revenues from trading were more than $15bn in 2011 and in a firm of …
