UK macro traders and strategists prepare to start work at 10pm

If you're a macro trader or strategist in the City of London, you need to get some sleep tonight. Rest could be hard to come by tomorrow.

Needless to say, the cause is the British election, which as Deutsche Bank's macro strategist Jim Reid notes today, appears due to return a Conservative majority of 28 seats. However, with margins in many constituencies slender and the Conservative campaign afflicted by the seemingly erratic behaviour of its figurehead, nothing is certain.

Election night therefore promises to be long and eventful as results come in.

The BBC has unearthed 29 year-old Jordan Rochester, an FX currency strategist at Nomura, who says he usually works 12 hour days, but that tomorrow he'll be working through the night fuelled by energy drinks and caffeine. Jeremy Stretch at CIBC says he'll be doing the same after sleeping somewhere in the office tomorrow afternoon.

Another macro strategist at a European bank informs us that Thursday's working day is likely to begin at 10pm on Wednesday night as the exit polls come out and to become particularly intense between midnight at 2am on Thursday as it starts to become clear whether the exit polls were accurate. "If they are very tight, it will become an all-nighter," he says.

"I'll be in at midnight tomorrow chat to traders in Asia," another strategist informs us. "The gilt market is not open as far as I know, so this is really going to be an FX thing."

Goldman Sachs said today that there's a 'sizable risk of election surprises' that could lead to a hung parliament. However, Bobby Vedral, the former Goldman partner who managed cross asset global market strats for the securities division until March 2018, is predicting a majority of around 40 seats for Boris Johnson as the Tories win Brexit votes in the north, as people shy away from Corbyn's association with radicalism, and as students on university holidays forget to vote. Forecast heavy rain tomorrow may also have an effect in dissuading non-committal voters from leaving the house.

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