Trading in terror: did someone in the City know what was going to happen on 7 October?

Some years ago, I was in a pub when one of the blokes I was with suddenly started punching the air and laughing. He traded in potato futures and he’d just heard the crop had failed in large parts of South America due to flooding.

He was not bothered that people might go hungry as potatoes would be hard to find. All he cared about was that a shortage of produce meant a rise in price, which resulted in a financial killing for him. It was an image that has stayed ever since, of the City dealer cashing in on the misery of others.

That’s capitalism, right there. So it is with short-sellers, the speculators (or perhaps not, possibly they’re well-informed) who take a punt on shares falling. As the business, its employees and owners feel the pinch, they’re making a fat profit.