Trader Dreams of Another Recession

Meet 34 year old Alessio Rastani. He made headlines overnight when he claimed on the BBC that "Governments don't rule the world, Goldman Sachs rules the world [and] Goldman Sachs does not care about the rescue package." Was this a stunt or a hoax? Was he simply voicing the truth?

Other notable quotes from the interview included:

• "For most traders, we don't really care that much how they're going to fix the economy, how they're going to fix the whole situation, our job is to make money from it."
• "Personally I've been dreaming of this moment for three years. I have a confession, which is I go to bed every night, I dream of another recession."

The Telegraph UK reported that from their research Rastani was an independent trader, an "investment speaker" and "works and lives with his partner Anita Eader in a £200,000 semi in Bexleyheath, south London. The house, complete with a mortgage from Royal Bank of Scotland, belongs to her not him."

"He is a business owner, a 99pc shareholder in public speaking venture Santoro Projects. Its most recent accounts show cash in the bank of £985. After four years trading net assets are £10,048 - in the red." He "has never been authorised by the Financial Services Authority and has no discernible history working for a City institution ended up being interviewed by the BBC remains a mystery."

If you want to know more about Rastani, read the Forbes interview here where he says that: "I’m not an institutional trader. I wouldn’t dream of ever doing that. I trade my own money, my own account. That’s what I always wanted to do. I like the idea of not having a boss. I did work for one institution, but I realized I want to do it for myself. I just started, and I worked with some of the best traders in the world. I saw how they were doing things. Eventually I developed my own style."

Other responses from the media about Rastani the trader, included:

• The Independent: "the trader who lifted the lid on what the City really thinks"
• The Guardian had an online poll with two options: "No, this is how capitalism works", or "Yes (but only by his honesty)".
• BBC business editor Robert Peston tweeted that Rastani had "voiced what traders working for big firms and funds say in private."
• A Blog Entry on the Financial Times asked: "Do traders dream of defaulting Greeks?"
• Forbes said: Gawker promptly called him a “sociopath.” My colleague at Forbes said he might be a psychopath.  Some people commenting on his Facebook page called him a “muppet,” a “nasty little self-publicist” and a “totally honest bastard who wants to rise to the top of [on] the rest of the world’s misery.” Another suggested that he die.

Rastani has a website: Leading trader where he sells trading alerts. Which suggests that in all probability, he did all this as a marketing stunt to garner attention to his name and his website.

He writes in his blog:

I have a confession to make. I go to bed every night and I pray for another recession. In fact, if indeed we are heading for another global recession, which I believe we are, then I have been dreaming of this moment for 3 years!

...

One of my biggest regrets is that I did not make as much money as I should have done in the crash of 2008. I did not do too badly though. I managed to capture the most of that year’s trends. But I got sucked into the “fear” and the “waiting for the news” B.S. that everybody else was getting sucked into.

I made a promise to myself: never again! That year taught me to stick to my trading plan and just trade the nice trends like a good trader.

That is exactly what I am waiting for this year and next year as well. If a global recession is heading our way, then that is an opportunity. It is an opportunity not just for me but for everybody, including you, dear reader. Don’t get fooled by the fear of everyone else. Always remember the words of Warren Buffet: "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful".

The soundbite relating to Goldman Sachs reminds me of this youtube video about quantitative easing and pins Goldman Sachs as one of the culprits: