I ask, careful, two months into my first job as a trader. Around me, twenty traders shoulder-to-shoulder. Walls of Bloomberg terminals stacked to the ceiling.

Above me, on the black screens, gold keeps falling.
$800. $795. $790.

Next to me, the head of desk, Stefan Keller, keeps his eyes on the screen. A hard man who can go weeks without saying a word. Running a book measured in billions. A soft question is just a chance to remind you where you are.

I look again, still trying to understand. A mine collapsed? A central banker spoke? Something. 

He replies without looking:
“Because there’s a seller.”

A few traders nearby shift in their seats. I want to ask why there’s a seller but the face of the trader next to me says don’t.

I’m still on probation. Two months in, ten to go. Half the guys who started with me will not be kept. Badges deactivated overnight, chairs empty by morning. 

That’s when I hear it—the voice I can’t place, not mine, something older, colder.

“You think you want to know why. Not knowing makes you nervous. You want something simple to fit in your head. The market doesn’t care about your stories.”

“Forget it. You won’t get it. You will not understand until you bleed.”

The numbers keep falling. I don’t look away. I’m learning to sit still while the world burns.

This is the story of how I became a trader—how I died—and how I learned to trade the madness.