Colin Lancaster’s Fed Up

Colin Lancaster’s Fed Up is a new addition to the literature on trading financial markets, promising the inside line on running a macro fund operating in the global markets during the Covid pandemic. Having worked as a sell side techie building trading systems for the last twenty years I’ve read a fair bit of this literature, from classics like Niederhoffer’s Education of a Speculator and Kindelberger’s Mania, Panics & Financial Crashes, to riotous shock fests like Belfort’s Wolf of Wall Street and Anderson’s Cityboy: Beer and Loathing in the Square Mile. For me the real standouts manage to combine market history, financial mechanics exegesis, storytelling and amusing anecdotage. The best example is Michael Lewis’ Liars Poker. Partnoy’s FIASCO and Das’ Traders, Guns and Money are commendable as well. So how does Lancaster’s effort stack up against the canon?

Lancaster plays it slightly differently as he presents a thinly novelized account of his experiences, rather than memoir or narratized tutorial. Because he presents his account as a novel I will mark him down on a couple of points later, but firstly I must recognize his major achievement with this book. Lancaster succeeds in his dramatic reconstruction of the flow of political and economic events week by week since Q1 2020. The lightening quick market reversals, central bank interventions, major political developments, and their impact on a fund manager and his team are described with gripping momentum, and rendered in such convincing detail that I could almost see the teeth grinding desk thumping traders hunched over their Bloombergs.

A novelized treatment gives Lancaster the scope to wander, so along the way we take in a lot of enjoyable pop cultural references. Amy Winehouse, Led Zep, the Stones, Guns’n’Roses, U2 and Freddie Mercury all get mentions. Even Dr John, and that’s one for the real musos! There’s even time for a Hunter S Thompson quote. Fiction also enables Lancaster to lecture his readers on pet economic and political topics. He uses the literary device of mentoring a junior to deliver set pieces on twentieth century fiscal policy, and the dislocation of quantitative easing as the “new normal”. Personally I found mentions of Clinton as the last President to balance the US budget, and the Reinhard-Rogoff paper on government debt to GDP ratios gratifying. Especially as the latter was used by Cameron and Osborne to justify austerity.

So where does Fed Up fall down? If you come looking for detailed explanation of the kind presented in Zuckerman’s Greatest Trade, you’ll be disappointed. If you don’t know what yield curve inversion is, Lancaster’s not going to enlighten you. The presentation of the story as fiction causes some irritation: there’s an Amy Winehouse dream sequence that serves no apparent purpose. And the relationship of the principal with his wife is referenced intermittently, with hints that his neglect has induced her to have an affair, but then it’s all left unresolved. There’s also a slightly sanctimonious tone taken on drug using colleagues that makes me suspect the author doth protest too much. And finally a couple of minor typos and factual errors: there’s no company called HIS Markit – it’s “IHS Markit”, and Lancaster is wrong about the timing of the death of Brian Jones. If he’s as big a music fan as he seems he should have got that one right. But I do appreciate his story about a team outing to the hotel bar where the Stones launched Beggars Banquet back in 68. That was new to me!

In conclusion, I think I’ll rate this as 3/5. Don’t pick this one up if you haven’t read Liars Poker. But if you are familiar with the classics you’ll find it thought provoking, entertaining and enjoyable.