Trader Jack -The Story of Jack Miner (The Story of Jack Miner Series) (16 page)

Happy? I was ecstatic. I would get $48,000 a year. That was about £30,000, about £10,000 more than Dad paid himself, before he died. If the fund went up I would make money on my own investments and get a bonus as well. What a deal! Some work experience!

'Come and meet the team,' said Ruffish. 'We have four fund managers here, each doing their own thing with emerging market funds. We incubated them and their funds have grown rapidly.'

'Emerging?'

'Stock markets in developing countries - China and the rest of Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa and South America.'

'What about Britain, Europe and America?'

'There are too many of those hedge funds. We can't compete. You'll see at our morning meeting that we have seriously smart guys who know their countries. One is a mathematician, another an astrophysicist, the third a barrister and the fourth an accountant.'

'And me with my mediocre GCSEs!' I thought. 'Maybe I should get the hell out of here.'

Ruffish seemed to read my mind: 'You're an experiment Jack! Just do your best.'

He led me to a door on the other side of the room. We entered a passage with an adjoining toilet and shower room on the one end and a fairly large meeting room on the other.

It had a large round table, a
Reuters
screen, a laptop and whiteboard on the wall at the far end. Soon after we sat down, the other fund managers filed in. Ruffish introduced me and asked them to explain what they did. They were casually dressed. No ties and jackets. I felt out of place and took off my suit jacket and tie. They looked at me curiously. The meeting was totally relaxed. Bess came in with a notebook and took notes. I noticed two of the men ogle her cleavage. She didn't let on whether they annoyed her.

Krishna Doomassamy, small and thin, with fine features and an open necked white shirt was the mathematician. He played the Asian markets, including India, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Hong Kong and Taiwan. He looked as if he was in his early thirties. Tong Chong Ping, an astrophysicist, with black framed glasses, was a little taller, but just as slim. It was difficult to gauge his age. He could have been anywhere between twenty five and forty. Tong spoke with a thick Chinese accent and his speciality, unsurprisingly, was China and Hong Kong.

Aram Zabkian, shook my hand warmly, telling me that he came from Estonia in Eastern Europe. His light pink shirt was open at the top and exposed a hairy chest. He was an accountant, about forty, balding, stocky with bulging muscles and had a neat small beard. It was evident that he irritated Bess. He touched her arm when he asked her to pass him a glass of water and she pushed him away in disgust. Aram's fund covered Russia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary, Estonia and other Eastern European markets. The final fund manager came in a little late. She was a big woman, who towered over the others. Her long black hair was braided and she wore a light cream suit. I assumed that she would have an African accent, but it was very British.

'Are you the barrister?' I asked meekly, guessing that she was the lawyer who Ruffish had talked about.

'Graduate from Oxford University, no less,' said Krishna. 'Themba Shaka Mafuta meet Jack Miner.'

I shook her hand.

'Call me Maffie for short,' she said smiling. 'I mainly cover resource shares in Southern Africa and South America.'

'Maffie is a descendant of the Zulu King Shaka. He conquered Southern Africa,' said Krishna smiling. 'Watch out for her! Shaka was a brute. If his soldiers were out of line, he would beat them with a "knob kierie".'

He stood up, clutched a long ruler and waved it around like a big stick.

'Knob kieries are thicker than that!' laughed Maffie, grabbing the ruler from Krishna and gently tapping him on his shoulder. 'My great, great, great, great, great granddad, used to hammer them on the head if they didn't perform.

How have you done this month, Krishna?'

'I think you'll reprieve him this month, Maffie,' said Ruffish. 'He's doing pretty well. And you Maffie. Are you winning like, your great, great, great, whatever?'

'The market's doing OK, thanks Ruff.'

'What did you do at university, Jack?' asked Tong, looking me up and down.

I felt embarrassed and shuffled about restlessly.

'Jack's going to university later. We're trying out something. Raw talent against you geniuses,' said Ruffish.

'Is he doing work experience, Ruff?' asked Aram. He had obviously worked out that I was no more than sixteen or seventeen.

'We're incubating him. He's going to run a small fund,' replied Ruffish.

'The Schoolboy Fund?' scoffed Aram. The others looked at me sceptically.

I thought that I had better stand up to this lot. Otherwise they would ride all over me.

'The Aquarium Fund?' I suggested.

'Sounds a good name, Jack,' said Ruffish. 'Jack used to help his Dad in a fish and chip shop. He bought fish at the market. He knows value. Have any of you guys traded the real thing? Been in a real business?'

'I've traded tins of baked beans, sardines and sweets. We'll offer you a special discount at my Dad's grocery shop, Jack,' said Krishna, half joking.

'Don't laugh guys. I'm sure you've read in the papers about schoolboys and girls who beat fund managers,' said Maffie. 'Are you happy to supervise Jack, Maffie?' asked Ruffish.

'Sure. Schoolboy and Woman. Aquarium will surprise you bigots,' joked Maffie.

During the rest of the meeting they talked about various markets and how their funds were doing. Afterwards Ruffish and Maffie took me to my own working space. On the desk were a cordless phone, large laptop and a
Bloomberg
screen showing prices, charts and news reports.

'Do you have chart books here?' I asked.

'We run off charts on the printer, but we also subscribe to a chart service,' said Ruffish. 'I'm old-fashioned, I'm the only one that looks at them.'

'If Jack wants them, you're back in fashion,' grinned Maffie.

*   *   *

The days passed quickly and autumn and winter swiftly followed. Early in the morning I would go for a run with Jazz and Pattie, have a quick shower, climb on to a bus in Swains Lane, opposite the Heath, and be in the office by 9am. By December, it was too dark, cold and wet to go out for a run, so the dogs had to wait for Martha. I hated going to work in the grey pre-dawn light and coming back in the dark. Longed for the spring.

Ruffish insisted that I study for the Investment Management Institute examinations. It was a pain to wade through the boring text books in my free time. But Ruffish and Maffie said that I had to do it. If I didn't pass, the Financial Services Authority, the market regulator, wouldn't allow me to manage money for investors. In the meantime I could only trade on behalf of myself and the firm.

I kept in contact with Ivor Ensworth and Tom and Tess by email. He invited me to go to South Africa for Christmas, but I decided to spend it with Martha. Occasionally I would go and visit the Slimcops or go out with them for dinner. I was grateful that Stan had paid off Dad's creditors and especially happy that Gill Derby had received her back rent plus interest. Bailey & Baton were at last off my back. Stan's solicitor was a tough negotiator and had pushed the furious Baton's fee down to a derisory £1,000. Even that was far too much!

Leila introduced me to quite a nice girl. Suzi, an artist, was plump and pretty, but not really my type. I went out with her a few times and I'm not sure who dumped who. She didn't seem to be terribly keen. I spent evenings at my local in Swains Lane and other pubs in Hampstead or Highgate and met a few girls. We went to restaurants and movies. But there was nothing serious. I played football on Sundays and had drinks with the players afterwards. I didn't have much in common with them other than joking about football teams we supported. None of them were interested in cricket. I was an outsider from Yorkshire and accepted it. I felt pretty relaxed and the bad times, including the bridge, became distant memories.

Newspapers no longer carried anything about the Yapolovitch murder. Case unsolved. Old news. I was no longer scared and money wasn't a problem. There was more than enough to keep me going. Sometimes I thought about Sandy and Maggie. Wondered what they were doing. Maffie was now the only girl who interested me, even though she was older. Unfortunately she only wanted me as a friend. We often went to lunch together and joked around.

I bought a book on Shaka, King of the Zulus. He was an exceptional military strategist. So much so that historians called him the 'Black Napoleon', after the brilliant, ruthless, French Emperor and Commander who dominated Europe around 1800. Shaka's favourite battle manoeuvre was the pincer movement, which he called the 'Horns of the Buffalo'. His Zulu impis, or regiments, would advance towards the enemy in the formation of a buffalo's horns. Shaka's main force was in the centre and there were regiments on the left and right, just like horns. The impis in the centre would run towards the enemy with their spears held high. As soon as they clashed, the regiments on the left and right horn would turn inwards and surround the enemy from the rear. Shaka never lost a battle. Dingaan, his jealous brother, murdered him.

'Maffie, do you think Shaka's tactics could work in the markets?' I asked when we were having a light lunch in a French brasserie, near the office. It was spring and for a change, the sun was shining. I enjoyed going there with her, as she spoke French and joked with the waiters.

'Shaka believed that the best form of defence was attack,' she said. 'I guess that's what I do. Research shares and without any hesitation, buy or sell. If you vacillate you lose.'

'You qualified as a barrister, why did you become a fund manager?'

'It's a long story. My father, Lucky Mafuta, was an anti-apartheid activist in the seventies and eighties. He spent time on Robben Island, when Nelson Mandela was there.'

'So you were a little girl when he was in prison?'

'Yes. Those were tough times. My mother had to bring up four children in a hut with one room. We were very poor. She struggled to find enough money to visit him in prison. So we moved to Cape Town.'

'When did Lucky get out?'

'Soon after Nelson was released. When Lucky was young he was a socialist. But after South Africa became a democracy in 1994, Mandela wanted the blacks to share the whites' wealth. My father was a miner and the big mining companies made him a director and gave him shares. So he became a rich capitalist.'

'Why didn't you stay in South Africa?'

'To be quite frank, Jack, my Dad embarrassed me. From being a struggling activist with high ideals, he became a fat cat,' she continued. 'The government managed to spread some of the whites' wealth, but it landed in the pockets of elitist blacks. The rest of the people remained very poor. I felt guilty about that, so I decided to leave.'

'You're still privileged.'

She winced: 'I wanted to prove to myself that I could go it alone. So I studied hard and did well at school. For the hell of it, I applied to Oxford. I was amazed when they accepted me. I studied law because I was interested in human rights. But when I qualified as a barrister I couldn't get much work, so I became disenchanted.'

'You could have practised in South Africa.'

'I would have had to retake the exams. English law is different to South African. They practice Roman Dutch Law there.'

'That doesn't prevent you from taking the exams.'

'Too late, I've got used to earning a good living. I don't have to rely on any money from Lucky,' she laughed. 'My fund allows me to keep an eye on Africa. I can monitor corruption. I'm a trustee and advisor of a human rights group.'

'What about your love life, Maffie?' I asked touching the back of her hand. She withdrew it quickly.

'How many times do I have to tell you, Jack? We're good friends. I don't want to spoil that.'

Maffie noticed the disappointment on my face. She knew that at work, things weren't going right for me. It seemed that my gold and bank stock winnings were just beginners luck. I had become frustrated with my trading. I had followed the Manson way, but the system wasn't working. It required patience, but hedge funds are supposed to perform consistently every month. If the shares aren't making profits, you have to close your positions. I wasn't used to that.

At first the shares that I had bought rose about five to ten per cent and then slipped back. Under the risk controls of the fund, I was 'stopped out'. This meant that my losses were limited to a maximum of ten per cent. Time and time again, I was forced to sell. Previously I would have waited. Indeed, several of the shares that I sold, went up a lot afterwards, but it was too late for me, as I was already out.

I had to follow the rules of the hedge fund game and rigidly follow Ruffish's risk controls. That was reasonable from his point of view. He was risking the company's money and couldn't take any chances. I made money some months, but March wasn't a good one. The $1 million fund had fallen to $900,000 and I had traded actively with no success, for six months. It seemed that the boy trader experiment was a flop.

I was having lunch with Maffie that day, because she cheered me up. I was miserable ahead of a meeting with Ruffish early afternoon and was sure that he would fire me. Maffie punched my arm gently.

'In South Africa they call me Themba. It means "Trust, Hope and Faith". That's what you should have Jack.'

'I have trusted myself, but it hasn't got me very far,' I said gloomily as we walked back to the office. 'I like Themba. Why do you call yourself Maffie?'

'Maffie's short for Mafuta. It means Fat. They used to call me fatty Maffie at school. The nickname stuck.'

I glanced at her, but couldn't tell what was hidden under her flowing dress.

'You're not fat, Maffie,' I lied.

She laughed: 'Really? I spend my life dieting. Exercise doesn't seem to work.'

'You could run with me this weekend, Maffie. I could be your personal trainer. My fee is . . .'

I leant over and gave her a kiss on her cheek.

'I think church will cool your ardour Jack. Did you know that I'm in a gospel choir? Come and hear us next Sunday.'