Jobbers' term
Some City nostalgia is still yearning 1,3 away. 'I wish,' says a broker, 'we could get back to the days when the market knew how to move by less than 20 points at a time, in either direction. How long ago was that? Last month? How restful it was.' His fellows blame the jobbers, the market's middlemen, and always a convenient re- ceptacle for blame. Jobbers are the most genial of men except in the way of busi- ness, where they no more expect to be loved than do their racecourse equivalents in Tattersalls enclosure. When the market roared up through 1,000 on the Index, is was as though a well-backed favourite had landed a gamble which the bookmakers were unable to lay off. 'What do you expect?' says my broker friend. 'They're short of stock, everybody knows that, and wouldn't you be? Why tie up your money in your traditional business, when you know that after the Big Bang, the business won't exist? You put it into your new business, being an international dealer, or whatever that thing is the Council has dreamed up. Or you save up for the glorious day when the Stock Exchange gets a new constitution, and all the firms have to go to all the partners and buy their membership back from them? Ten thousand a head, they say, now — I just hope my wife never reads it in the papers.' The broker glances furtively round the bar, and lowers his voice. 'Mark you,' he mutters, 'now we know the jobbers won't be here for much longer, we're not so frightened of them, any more. We have a go at them. It's a bit like the end of term.' So it may be, but I dare say the prefects have one or two rods still in pickle.
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