Jeremy Isaacs started as a blue-button at Smith New Court (later acquired by Merrill Lynch in 1995), working on the London Stock Exchange as a trainee trader at one of the biggest stock jobbers. He was in at the start of equity options in the early 1980s.
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“No one had very detailed experience in trading options, and at a very young age I was better at it than most people, simply, I think, because I was quite numerate.” Also, he stayed sober. These were the days of open outcry.
“You had these quite fabulous characters,” Isaacs recalls. “They would periodically go on three-hour lunches and drink huge amounts. I would wait for them to come back from lunch and make a fortune off them. My bosses would call me in and ask me: ‘Jeremy did you really do that?’ And I would say: ‘Yes, of course.’
