Billion Dollar Day - Documentary 1985

Video Transcription:

  Billion Dollar Day:

this year commercial breaks filmed round-the-clock in London New York and Hong Kong as three men gambled on which way the dollar would turn sin here every day when things got bad maybe you can't sir keep your call at that time we've got no chance to be perfectly honest Richard Hill is one of a new breed of men around the city of London every day he can win or lose a fortune in a war of nerves against dedicated speculators like Ronnie slap fur in New York and William Wong who plays the currency market from Hong Kong one day in June the three of them gambled 1,000 million dollars who won everyday currency dealers exchange hundreds of billions of dollars into pounds marks into yen francs into lira some of this torrent served international trade but most of it is now hot money searching for the most profitable home so lucrative at this business become that banks compete against each other 24 hours a day around the globe trying to make money out of money on June the 4th 1985 commercial breaks filmed simultaneously in London Hong Kong and New York with three of the players in this game of electronic poker in England it's nearly midnight and June the fourth is about to begin deep in the Kent countryside Richard Hill is still hard at work checking the market with his banks American branch know be good remember the whole world is longer sterling ok hang on till early for a spar get rid of them sort of the sins of fairies get going I don't think you're gonna make a fortune out of it in New York it's still only 6:00 in the evening Ronnie Schaffer speculates for himself and for 13 millionaires today he's already made $200,000 but Ronnie's an addict he'll search anywhere to make more ah listen can you please tell me how the courts are for Sterling and Deutschmark in Australia yeah in Hong Kong it's early morning June the fourth has already begun Radio Television Hong Kong the time half past six trading on the European foreign exchanges was a random bid capitalist Hong Kong was living on borrowed time it's people know that their buccaneering days may soon be over so the pace of their favourite activity making money becomes ever more frantic high up in a suburban apartment block one of the Far East sleeting currency traders has just woken up dear little open air uh-huh sue yeah 24 year old William Wong comes from a family of currency traders who left China 30 years ago after the Communists arrived Wong's skills are not so much a product of education as of thousands of years of Chinese trading tradition it's 7:45 today there are no big news stories from Europe and America to help him decide which way the pound will go you'll have to rely on his instinct this morning Williams late the pound is already rising he must decide within minutes whether to jump on the bandwagon and buy some pounds in the hope that they'll go on going up straight out of the offer oh my god surrounded by electronic gadgetry William is taking the pulse of a market which at this time of day stretches from Singapore to Tokyo William works for the American Chemical Bank one of the largest banks in the world Chemical is expanding fast in the currency market its dealers take huge risks but they're well rewarded Williams salaries starts at 25,000 pounds but with his colleagues on the currency dealing desk he shares 3% of their profits it's a hefty Commission which can double his salary if he gets it right if he gets it wrong William Wong faces the sack Williams in charge of trading the pound against the dollar it's just five past day the pound is still rising and Williams being forced to make a decision Omega he buys his first three million pounds with chemicals dollars gambling that the pound will go on up now that he's made his decision he'd like to buy more because of US trade it 35 this 24 year old can gamble 20 million pounds of his bank's money without asking anyone I think is flirting with go higher and well I think the market still looking level device Turner so I'm looking for the Box gonna change so that's why I'm paying 30 in the Booker's and see what's going on if nobody want to hit me then I was going out within minutes he's back in the market quoting a higher price trying to help the pound up as he steadily buys more 15 sorry okay forty fifty I do he's just bought another million pounds by mid-morning when he's up to 21 million pounds it could be time to get out before the price falls Paul Michaels you to sail with Porto people I'm see right by other people my fall on baguette hola meantime in London it's the middle of the night and in Connecticut it's late evening back home in a house appropriate for an international speculator Ronny slap furs checking the news for possible impact on the markets Ronnie's lifestyle depends on his ability to make money for his clients thirteen very rich individuals each with a minimum stake of half a million dollars the u.s. is just a convenient base Ronny is Swiss and his clients are spread around the world but they'll stay with him only if he delivers last year he made them an amazing 50% profit to do so he needs to keep at it day and night playing whichever markets are open his last decision of the day is to sell his remaining Deutsche marks hi Brad I think we should call square and uh why don't you sell uh 26-minute marks and now we have a look two more only two more big hole each other huh for William Wong a quick early lunch he's worried that the pound will fall and he's still sitting on 21 million of them but the dealing room is never far away he can check the latest exchange rate on a tiny portable receiver which he carries wherever he goes luckily the pound is up a bit now William has decided that the pound has peaked it's time to cash in his chips but by the time that he sells his 21 million pounds the market will realize what he's doing and the price might fall so he needs a disguise he lists the help of the dealers of the other currencies if they each sell 5 million pounds at the same time the other banks won't realize what's happening and William can take his profit but they'll have to be quick they're just waiting for his command oh yeah I only count litre bomb-maker a final check on the price with a casual wave of 5 fingers the first 5 million goes the price hasn't moved yet month elia 61 in quick succession they sell 5 million pounds another 5 million and the last 5 million and he's out the steam has worked table a quick check on the price wait 50 55 it's already down a tenth of a cent but William has beaten the market is a good morning this morning make a twenty thousand US dollars two hundred per centimeter and joy once a dealer always a dear five o'clock news time this is Nick page a bomb has been found on the steps of the Syrian embassy in London the fourth man has been accused of belonging to a spy ring in the United States currency trading is an addictive business his wife still fast asleep Richard Hill is already getting his first fix of the day with a call to his banks Hong Kong office to see what's happening and to give a special warning of what he intends to do to the pound for their ears only okay my what will be till almost early because I'll probably try and bash it down we going trauma four quick fifty or sixty point I guess we do feel some pride in town occasionally but it's not part of our job I'm primarily on there to make money so the pants falling off of a sake advantage of it Stumbo Oh you need yeah you need love it's 6:30 a time where no traditional city gent would be seen dead arriving at work but Richard Hill is no traditionalist more of a financial elite than an economic scholar he started right at the bottom in thought his bank but at the age of 31 he already earns more than most of their high street managers Hill likes to arrive early to be ahead of the game his life centers around this huge dealing room Barclays might have a stayed high street image but when it comes to currency dealing Richards up there with the gamblers and the bank loves him for it as Barclays sterling dealer it's in the hot seat on the circular currency dealing desk surrounded by the dealers of the other currencies think cable will lead the way down cable down $2 Marta 306 check Barclays treats its dealers differently to the American banks they get no Commission but then they are sacked if they get it wrong just a gentle push sideways sorry sometime this week for this marathon every five but they're still hungry to make money working with tiny margins on hundreds of millions these eight young men squeeze every penny they can out of the market last year Barclays Bank made over 100 million pounds profit just from foreign currency beating nicely different started by all the bank's knew all our parties and Simon for motion the question whether you make the best use of doesn't about as much of a trend at the moment such as I would just play the market on people's position particular profit advocate that still means bashing the pound this morning so with London still mostly asleep he calls Barclays Hong Kong on his computerized dealing screen what's cooking he asks he then tells them that he wants to sell some sterling and the amount ten their shorthand for ten million plans Barclays Hongkong spread the word trying to tempt other banks into buying it's early afternoon and William flushed from his morning success as a likely candidate he decides to call but his London direct to find out their latest price table chemical Hong long in our festival in London Richard quotes a competitive price to tempt William into buying and William falls for it buying five million pounds five million of Barclays pounds have just traveled to chemical Hong Kong as Richard sells more the price falls and within ten minutes it's down half a cent the five million pounds that William bought is now worth twenty thousand pounds less in this small job Richard has scored William is gracious in recognizing a competitor's skill well it's a penis why'd you say that down there well sometimes you can see a screen you can let the market it's 8 o'clock in the morning in London and the world is quiet no coos no assassinations no new cry scenes to rock the currency markets now Richards boss Chris Pavel has arrived possible saga are you an organizer then Chris pav Lou used to be one of the world's biggest sterling dealers but now pushing 40 he knows he's too old for the game that he loves is nobody on that desk it's over 35 people starting them the early 20s for about 10 years and by the time there is a very early thirties they had about enough as you can see now the market is having small present but the dealers cannot afford to lose that concentration of warming they studied at 7 o'clock this morning they're going to be here five o'clock worship and the market well it's quiet busy they got to keep the adrenaline going the code to make sure the concentration is there just in case and the market is highs to interrupt now with Richards opening gambit over Tunisian biggest players entering the market trying to buy 20 million pounds with its Deutsche marks perhaps it needs these millions to buy a lot of British goods but more likely the Russian otherwise known as Boris in reality the Bank of foreign trade Moscow is speculating that the pound will rise Richard calls Moscow direct to find out what's going on professing his message with the customary hi hi friends they could easily be blocking him they could be buying a little to push the price up before selling a lot the right side John I think the Russians fine sterling Marcel's Werner but Richard guesses that they must be buying from other banks - in a big operation as the pounds that gives to rise Richard thinks one so he decides to risk jumping on their bandwagon using the other traders to ring out and get prices so they can hit the market with tens of millions as quickly as possible hi everybody in the market our initial disturbance 5865 dopefather his first 5 million pounds and with each way he buys another 5 million quickly I got in a second Agra maze as the price rises 5x5 5865 500 he's bought 35 million pounds anything Richard and the Russians between them have helped the pound up half a cent but now taking the profit proves irresistible so Richard starts selling fire use 20 points payable we make in 1890 we're so sorry 1995 yes a brief speculative bubble has burst but richard has won against what you saw about 35 minutes not 30 points which sounds like a proper so much money for classical took about three minutes yeah ideally father he's the best of the world because he said it has lens trade and the hallway started getting the Sun because when he was saying his early twenties and he was kicked the bar by the other dealers and then it has no ego whatsoever if he's wrong he knows he's wrong he'll cut out you say I had enough I'm not going to build the market and he's there to make the work for parties finally know four years ago that's why it's so good six people October 16 balls about yeah through 49.1 profit dollars creating the morning 3.04 7 Mars you get by 7:00 a.m. the man from Davos Switzerland is at work seventeen floors above 3rd Avenue Manhattan unlike Richard at William Ronnie's dealing is his overview nested and his business is 100% pure speculation sure sure how do you guys see the dollar he works with a partner X Harvard man Brad Westerfield with their two young assistants they spend most of the day sitting and waiting for the right moment to plunge in and buy you talk to Mike the thing is it breaks this level 90 don't they I denied you don't they I had an idea okay this morning they think Deutsche marks look good so they're buying already we used to be more aggressive but the market changed completely so at the moment the way we trade we just wait and wait and then easier situation then we jump in very fast very quickly and then it has to be right if it's not right we cut it and then we stay away again at 45 oh that's fine yes yes okay thank you hi 23 in Africa by currency dealer standards Rani works long-term he might even keep his marks until tomorrow in London some important financial news is due in under half an hour the latest money supply figures will almost certainly have an effect on the pound but nobody knows which way richard is gambling that they'll send sterling up so he's bought 20 million but now sterling is falling as other dealers place their bets come I cut it down a bit for the money supply through getting gambling on something you don't know that to be honest in Hong Kong William is out celebrating another good day he only broke even in the afternoon but he managed to hang on to his mornings profit after buying and selling a hundred and twenty million pounds he ended the day twenty thousand pounds up but once a dealer always a dealer William likes to keep in touch day and night sexter actually those money supply figures are due out any moment fifty again now five hour ago in London as the price wobbles tension is mounting look I you turn these figures around about two seconds above half a percent and the pound should rise below and he'll be in trouble what what upper half money supply that's right it's bad news he wants to sell but this time he doesn't succeed in meeting the fall in New York it's now nearly new and they're already jumping into the market again but not because they want to I see a lie I've heard all office while Richard can hang on they're being forced to quit wiggling as their marks full 95 at 9:00 this Bank is just checking around the market now we found out in Eastern Bloc countries were buying dollars and selling pounds very aggressively and so basically were just forced out of the position that's something we we have no control over and we had to take a loss we took about an eighty thousand dollar loss if we hadn't gotten out of it so quickly it would have probably been a lost 130 hundred fifty thousand dollars just one of those things you have no control over and we just try to take our losses quite quickly the kind of training we've done this morning that's ready to be at lunch luck oh it's just a wrap up around choppy don't know Ronny and Brad's loss for the day so far total $70,000 now they're out at lunch wooing a prospective client an inevitable question soon comes up one of the very touchy areas that Middle Eastern is usually asking is a few structure instead of elaborate on that a little more yeah of course there is a fix management fee and then we have an incentive fee performance fee which we charge once a year now that cuts on when you reach a certain figure in support right that's assets on a graduated scale which basically amounts to levels around 20 25 % of products so that these are a course a little bit high but with the ability so dynamic something the pieces a little ahead of mine don't forget about 24 hours right good night Neil in the 10 exhausting hours that Richards been at work the pound has moved up and down two cents he's made just under 100 thousand pounds for the bank buying and selling 750 million of them how does he feel about handlings of huge sums I got to be honest I never really thought about it so you do every day this comes naturally but surely his antics affect the pound long term we can't have that much influence in the market when it depends so much on commercial demand day to day we can properly move the right our favor but let's say nothing dramatic Lanza is like unbelievable I can't help you I told you we were getting dollars elsewhere explain oh well that was before you in New York they're getting edgy Julia limited water talk to me event already you leave anything where you just told them to execute just do it always they want to sell marks but they keep missing the moment these are Paula Hogan desk of noise thirty big and given ok beep daily pay sorry all right it's late afternoon trainings just gonna being it's getting me casino so ever buys the next applies ourselves one hundred million and just moves it one big figure and it's just and it means nothing I mean I'm as far as the next 24 hours it just makes everybody run they get in I get out always at the bottom of the top it's unbelievable okay by the end of the day ronny was lucky the afternoon position with the loss turned to a profit and he broke you ronny richard and william between them made over a hundred thousand pounds through this day buying and selling more than 1 billion dollars they made some of that money from other dealers but most of it comes from companies who need foreign exchange for investment and trade and even from holidaymakers on their way abroad the banks provide all of them with a good busy marketplace but by dealing so much with each other they add to the speculative froth of what has become a very wild business it's the price the world pays for a free market in money.