From Beating The System To Trying To Fix It —The Story Of Gary Stevenson: The World’s №1 Trader Who Bet Against the System & Then Walked Away
The story of Gary Stevenson from rags to riches to becoming a voice for financial inequality
On a cold winter evening on the trading floor at Citibank London, one of the bank’s foremost traders was called into his boss’ office. After earning millions in the years leading up to that evening, Gary Stevenson had a brief epiphany, “What the f*ck am I doing here?”. Gary subsequently handed in his papers & decided to quit, but Citibank wouldn’t let him. He was, after all, one of their most prolific traders. Instead, they shifted him to their Tokyo office hoping he would change his mind. Gary spent the next few years in Tokyo before eventually quitting Citibank.
As it reads on YouTube, “At 21 years old, Gary Stevenson joined Citibank as its youngest trader. Three years later, he became the bank’s most profitable trader by betting on the collapse of the economy. He went from living in his parents’ two-bed terrace in east London to earning millions. But it didn’t feel right making money by betting on disasters. So, he quit, leaving his dream job in the City to campaign on the issue of wealth inequality.”
Gary Stevenson didn’t set out to become one of the world’s top traders, nor did he intend to rise as a proponent of fighting against inequality. His story is a rather paradoxical one — a poor kid from East London who cracked the market not through years of financial learning but with the insight that: the system was built for the wealthy. If he was going to profit, he’d do so by betting that it would stay that way.
In one of his interviews with Lad Bible, Gary summed up his journey with raw honesty: “I didn’t grow up learning how to make money. I grew up learning how people struggle to live without it.”
Gary came from a poor family in East London & after an incident involving drugs that got him expelled from school, Gary somehow got his break by being admitted to the London School Of Economics (LSE) based on his grades.
At LSE, Gary learned firsthand about the disparity between him & his more well-to-do classmates who came from wealthier backgrounds. While most of his peers at LSE had backgrounds forged in privilege, Gary came to the world of finance with his sharp streetwise intuition wearing the same clothes week in and week out at school, given his poorer background.
He was well aware of the difference between himself and the majority of his classmates and knew that his chances of landing a top job at a global bank were slim, regardless of his academic achievements.
When Citibank visited the LSE campus to recruit an intern for their highly coveted internship, it was Gary who won their popular card game recruitment test, against all the odds. Gary was eventually hired for Citibank’s internship, a dream job that would help him alleviate himself & his family’s financial status for life. But the story doesn’t end there…
Gary’s break came during the 2008 financial crisis. While most saw market chaos and an imploding economy, Gary saw an opportunity. He understood that the financial crisis wouldn’t just be a temporary blip but a long-term shift in the global economy. His insight was that the rich would get richer, and the working class would shoulder the burden.
“I realized that there was this huge imbalance growing in the world,” he recalls. “The money kept funnelling to the top.”
Gary’s strategy — something he calls “interest trading” — was simple in theory but difficult in practice. In essence, he bet on economic disparity. As a trader, he leveraged complex derivatives to profit from the low interest rates he believed would stay that way for years. He was right. Central banks kept interest rates low to stimulate growth after the 2008 crisis, but instead of benefiting everyone, the policies disproportionately enriched the wealthy who held assets like stocks, bonds and property.
“Interest rates are like the price tag on money,” Gary explained in an interview. “If they stay low, the rich will buy up everything.” He bet that central banks would lower interest rates in response to the crisis and keep them there despite most of the consensus being that rates would increase. He reasoned that as long as the economy was weak, banks would prioritize growth over inflation, resulting in a prolonged low-rate environment.
Gary used a mix of long-term interest rate swaps, betting against future rate hikes. He took advantage of futures contracts that allowed him to leverage his position substantially. By going long on bonds and shorting the yield, he profited whenever central banks announced new rounds of stimulus or quantitative easing.
However, Gary didn’t see his success as a victory in the traditional sense. Instead, he saw his winnings as a kind of indictment of the system. As he explains in his book The Trading Game: “If I’m winning, it means something is wrong. The economy shouldn’t be this predictable in its failures.”
But, coming from a poor background, Gary’s life as a trader was haunted by the understanding that his gains came from a system that inherently disadvantages others — particularly people in the lower-income strata of society; just like his family. As he admits in his talks and writings in the years hence — trading felt “bittersweet”, especially as he saw the wider population grappling with stagnant wages and rising costs of living.
Gary raked in millions for Citibank as an interest rate trader & got compensated millions in return. However, this understanding of the broken system that favoured banks & the wealthy, led to a sharp internal conflict for Gary.
He admits that while he was earning millions, he couldn’t shake the knowledge that his gains were built on a flawed system — one where the working class struggled while wealth was amassed by the hands of the elite. “It’s a game, but it’s a rigged game,” he says in his book The Trading Game & it serves as more than a how-to for financial success; it’s a wake-up call for anyone who believes in the myth of equal opportunity in the markets.
At the height of his earnings & after making millions, Gary walked away from Citibank & chose to dedicate his life to fighting for equal rights & championing inequality. While admitting that most people thought he was crazy to walk away from a job that earned him millions per year, Gary couldn’t help the fact that his friends & family would bear the brunt of the economic downturn as wealth was distributed to the elite while the working class took the hit.
Nowadays, Gary spends his time as an economist & public figure raising awareness about this flawed system & sees his success as a platform for advocacy. He warns that without systemic reform, inequality will only deepen, with disastrous social consequences.
In a world & climate where financial institutions seem impervious to reform, Gary remains a renegade voice for the masses, urging us to question the financial structures we’ve long accepted. “We need to focus on redistributing wealth before we focus on growing it,” he asserts, outlining a vision where economics serves the masses & not just the super-wealthy.
In his interview with the LAD Bible, one of his many interviews, Gary discusses his life’s story, his humble beginnings, his time at LSE & Citibank & his book The Trading Game as he uncovers the deeply flawed system that is transferring wealth to the rich as people from lower income backgrounds often bear the burden.
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