Josh Levy never intended to be part of an uprising. He left his job as a currency trader at Goldman Sachs early last year to join Valhalla Forex, based just a few minutes' walk from his former employer, on the 15th floor of a building on downtown Broadway in New York.
The grandeur of its Wagnerian name belies its size: it is a small organization, specializing in proprietary trading in the forex spot markets, although it also dabbles in forwards.
Within weeks he had become exasperated with his dealers and market-makers. "We had good price discovery brokers so we knew within three pips where the price was," says Levy. "But the bid-ask quotes we were getting from the dealers were often quite far off the fair-market value. If the price was really 90-93 sometimes, especially in fast markets, we'd get prices which were four or five pips off the market, sometimes more."
Having worked at a broker-dealer, he ought, one might think, to have been better prepared.
For a start, Levy does not include Goldman in the group which so frustrated him. "I've been on the other side, but I also didn't think things should be as bad as they are.