A Dying Breed: Currency Traders Are Left Out of New Wall Street
- Recruiter has one key piece of advice: Take the pay cut
- `It's not easy to see they've been replaced by an algorithm'
The forex trading floor of a bank in Singapore back in 2006. Photographer: Munshi Ahmed/Bloomberg
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Charlie Stenger, a currency-broker-turned-recruiter, has seen it all. One fired trader wept in his office. Another admitted he hadn’t told his wife he was unemployed, and left the house every day in a suit to sneak off to a coffee shop. Then there are the delusional guys, who carefully explain how they’re not interested in jobs that don’t pay as well as those they just lost.
Stenger, who was laid off from ICAP Plc in 2013 and now works for Sheffield Haworth Ltd., tells the men and women he counsels: Take the pay cut. Oh, and don’t wait for the phone to ring.