[Nick and his staff are walking into the trading building]

Trainee: Other dealers wear red jackets. All same. Red is lucky Chinese colour.

Nick: Well that's the point. We want to stand out. We're a new operation. We need to be noticed.

Trainee: May be bad luck. Different colour.

Nick: Bollocks. We make our own luck

Trainee 2: Nick's right. We're cooldudes, man, Whooo!

[Cut to Nick at his desk later]

Nick: Fernando, anything happening in Tokyo ?

Fernando: Nothing. How's SIMEX ?

Nick: No - same here. No one's playing. 5-90 and trading small.

Fernando: 600 and thin too.

Nick: 5-80 here. There's a seller who wants to trade in size. Shall I low tick him ?

Fernando: Yeah. Flush him out. Squeeze the sucker.

Nick: How many ?

Fernando: 200. Buy them….. now !

Trainee: Buy 'em !

Nick: Filled. We paid 5-80 for 200 !!

Fernando: Way to go Nick. I sold at 590.

Nick: Fuck a duck. Just made 2000 quid. Yes ! [Nick "high-5s" his staff]

Nick [narrating]: They were a good bunch and they were keen to learn. It looked like a madhouse with all the traders waving and shouting like bookies at a racetrack, but it all made sense once you got the hang of it. There were some hiccups of course but that's normal in any operation. Especially a new one, like ours. The important thing was we were picking up the business, and the future looked rosy.

[Cut to another day in the bank office]

Staff: Nick, what's the difference between initial margin and variation margin ?

Nick: Initial margin's like a down payment on each futures contract that we trade, and we don’t have to pay that in full until the contract matures. But in the meantime the value of each contract may go up… or down. So SIMEX calculate our positions on a daily basis and they'll ask us for more money if the market moves against us. And that's variation margin.

Staff: Got it ! I think (chuckles)

Nick: We need to open an errors account. We've had a few mistakes. Nothing serious, but I need somewhere to put them 'til I can work them out.

Staff: Sure. And what number shall I give it ?

Nick: What's your lucky number ?

Staff: 8. 8 is a very lucky Chinese number.

Nick: And how many numbers do we need ?

Staff: 5

Nick: Then let's give it all the luck it can handle. Call it the 88888 account.