Gary Stevenson’s The Trading Game has been lighting up my Kindle and my brain in equal measure. I expected a memoir about fast money; instead I’m getting a primer on macroeconomics, risk psychology, and what it means to stay in the arena long enough to matter.
Trading is macro bets in disguise
At its core, a trader is betting on what central banks will do next: do rates climb, stay frozen, or collapse? Stevenson describes desks that lend dollars long-term and borrow them back overnight—a spread trade that only works if your read on the Monetary Policy Committee is sharper than everyone else’s. It makes sense why traders revere MPC members: they sit even closer to the levers than the people pressing buy and sell.
I still have homework here. I want to understand the mechanics of those lend/borrow loops, the instruments involved, and how profitability actually shows up on a desk’s P&L. That becomes my next deep-dive topic.
Do traders create value?
Reading Stevenson alongside Daniel Priestley has been eye-opening. Priestley is the entrepreneur’s entrepreneur: empower small firms, find a micro-niche, create jobs, keep tax rates attractive so builders stay and invest. Stevenson, meanwhile, is blunt about wealth concentrating at the top and argues for taxing the rich harder. They recently debated on Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO podcast—you couldn’t script a sharper left-versus-right clash.
Yet they share a worry: money chasing unproductive assets instead of fuelling real innovation. Priestley’s answer is incentives; Stevenson’s answer is redistribution. I’m not sure where I land, but holding both lenses makes my own career decisions less ideological and more practical.
Pain threshold: the lesson that sticks
One Stevenson line lives rent-free in my head: “Every trader has a pain threshold. You could have the best trade in the world, but if you hit your pain threshold, it doesn’t matter—you’re out.” Translation: survival is part of the strategy. It isn’t enough to know the destination; you must have the liquidity, the capital, and the emotional bandwidth to stay in the game until you reach it.
That idea maps perfectly to life. You can pursue a purpose-driven role, build a product, or grow a studio—but if you run out of cash or burn out before it works, nobody remembers the noble intent. The goal is to finish the journey, not just start one that sounds impressive.
Applying it to my own moves
I’m currently being courted by a new company. A few years ago I would have accepted any offer out of fear. This time I walked their floor like a visiting consultant, listened, asked operational questions, and realised I’m in a position to choose. Just knowing I’ve got options flips the psychology: I value my current role more because I’m no longer trapped by it.
The same mindset applies to trading experiments I want to try—opening a small account, pricing UK sovereigns versus spot gold, testing whether bullion beats collectibles. I’ll only allocate what I can afford to lose, so the “pain threshold” stays comfortable and I can learn without nuking my savings.
Emotional control is part of the toolkit
Desk stories aren’t the only drama in the book; my own team had a day where tempers flared and responses were sharper than they needed to be. It reminded me that leaders who last are the ones who can hold their composure. I don’t have that superpower yet, so staying calm—especially when I know I’m right—is becoming a practice, not a wish.
What I’m investigating next
- Trader workdays: Stevenson’s crew is on the desk by 6:00 and done by mid afternoon. Is that typical across London?
- The exact products behind “lend long, borrow overnight” trades.
- How far I can push automation (GPT + Selenium) to support any future trading experiments without trusting AI to click through systems unsupervised.
For now, I’m savouring the book, dumping questions into my notebook, and letting the ideas percolate. Survival first, upside second—that’s the rule on the trading floor and, increasingly, in my own career design.