The Secret Club That Runs The World: Inside The Fraternity Of Commodity Traders - Plot & Excerpts
Ensconced in their Mayfair office tower, oil traders working for the Swiss multinational trading company Glencore International were fighting longtime business associates who were suddenly leery of trading with them. It was the fall of 2008, the period during which Andurand made so much money as the oil market sunk toward its low point, and financial firms were all under scrutiny as the U.S. banks flailed. Nobody in the financial markets wanted to take any risk. But Glencore, an infamous trading firm known equally for its opacity and its high tolerance for risk, was now especially vulnerable. By October, the price of a standard credit default swap, or CDS, on its debt—an insurance-like policy that would pay the holder if Glencore couldn’t pay its creditors—had zoomed past its already heightened levels, fueling the increasingly widespread belief that it was about to go under. Like any trading company, Glencore borrowed heavily to finance its operations, and depended on a steady flow of credit to keep the lights on.
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