Veteran bond trader reappears...as a contractor

Now's not necessarily the time to go into contracting. As we've variously reported, Credit Suisse cut 3,050 contractors in the year to October and those who are left behind at the Swiss bank say life there is a bit of misery.  Simultaneously, banks are said to be resorting to their standard Christmas practice of forcing a month's holiday upon contractors in effort to save costs during December. None of this, however, has dissuaded, one veteran London bond trader from the pursuing the contractor pathway himself.

Paul Osborn had a good run as a trader. His trading career began at Deutsche Bank in 1985 and ended at Daiwa (where he built an entire fixed income trading desk from scratch) in February 2016.

Since then, he's been "gardening." Now he's back, as a contractor at Citi.

Osborn declined to comment on the details of his role at Citi, but his LinkedIn profile suggests he's positioning himself as a specialist in market structure with an emphasis on multilateral trading facilities and MiFID II. Earlier this month, the Financial Times reported that MiFID II-related roles in London were soaring, with 1,300+ MiFID jobs on offer in October alone. Rates typically start at £350 a day, but can easily be double that, or more.

Richard Burgess-Kelly, a recruiter who works with MiFID contractors, says hundreds of new MiFID-related jobs are being posted every week and that contract roles will likely remain available throughout 2018 as banks and asset managers integrate the new regulations.

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Photo credit: Lucio Bracamontes, Bronx, New York by Jorge Quinteros is licensed under CC BY 2.0.