The Secret Diary of A Rogue Trader

I had quite a fright today. When I came into the office my boss was already there (he must be under real pressure to have gotten up so early). In his hand was my diary and he had flicked through it! I had inadvertently left it on my desk overnight (I've really got to be more careful!). He flung it down on the desk. My heart started to pound. I thought the jig was up. Then he started to roll around laughing, clearly finding the very notion that I might actually be a rogue trader highly amusing.

'Nice touch', he said. 'But you didn't fool me. It'll take more than a silly 'Rogue Trader' diary to wind me up!'. If only he knew.

The other bit of worrying news today, is that I'm no longer officially a 'rogue' trader. My unauthorised positions have actually turned a profit. If I close out now (but I won't), I'll probably get promoted.

But things are definitely getting a lot tighter here - yesterday one of the Compliance guys actually came onto the trading floor. He wasn't there long, though, before being told to p.ss off by the head of commodities trading. And some chap from Risk had the audacity to actually ask one of the guys on our desk a question about a position. He must be new. And talking about new hires, the head of equities trading (he doubles up as head of Risk too, of course) has made two senior appointments into the Risk unit this week. There were initially lots of complaints about nepotism (as both girls kept calling him 'uncle'), but as soon as we met the ladies, we were won over - even if it's kind of difficult to talk to the one he refers to as 'Ting Tong', as she doesn't speak much English.

I'm off on holiday for the next two weeks now (at last). I was originally worried that I might be 'outed' if I went away, but the boss has reassured me that, as things are going 'so well', he'll just leave me to manage my positions remotely. He's clearly got better things to do than worry about ficticious profits, false documents and imaginary clients!