Finance The Trader: A dodgy deal in jargon

I'VE OFTEN wondered about the computer gurus who design trading systems. Do they, for instance, have any understanding of what it's really like being a trader? Or do they, as is widely believed round here, live on another planet?

"Definitely another planet," grumbled Laura last week as we ploughed our way through the user manual for the new in-house trading system. "What language is this? Vulcan? Klingon? I can't make head or tail of it."

Whatever it is, not one of us can understand it; a bit of a problem given that we're meant to be using the guide and the system it describes.

Soon, however, it should be no more than a hideous memory. Laura and I have been slaving away for days, playing with the system and re-doing the user guide. It's been an edifying experience. If nothing else, it's a forceful reminder of how you can shell out loads of money and still not get what you were originally looking for.

What, for instance, are you to think of a trading system that relies on everyone being calm when they're doing a deal? You can tell this is the case, because if you accidentally put a decimal point in the wrong place, the program will merrily calculate away. What you actually need is something that will flash red lights and come up with comments like: "When did you ever see anything with a yield of 73 per cent? I don't know, if it weren't for me..."

To be fair, that's a bit of an extreme example. After all, you'd hope anyone would spot something was up when the answer didn't make sense. But there are plenty of other little points that make the whole kit less than a joy to work with.

"No, I can quite see that," said my mother when I told her about it. "Still, understanding the manual isn't a bad first step, is it? Why don't you read me some of it?" So I did, something straightforward about dealing with inverted yield curves and so on. There was a pause, then my mother sighed. "Oh darling," she said sadly, "that's the revised version, is it?"

I hung up, feeling gloomy. So much for plain English. But Rory was not having a word of it. "Listen," he told us, "None of my relatives would understand any of this, either. The thing is they're not meant to. The whole idea of the jargon is to make it all sound terribly mysterious and terribly impressive. For heaven's sake, if people really knew what we were doing here, they'd be keeping their money under the mattress, wouldn't they?"

We laughed, and then we stopped laughing because, naturally, he was right. Many's the time in the last place when we got credit clearance for dubious deals by spouting a lot of jargon. So what about the trading system manual, we asked?

"Much clearer," said Rory. "Really, massively clearer. Even a graduate trainee could understand it." He paused. "So do you think you could make it just a little less comprehensible...?"

And so we picked up our dictionaries of jargon and got on with the job.