''Million Dollar Traders'' is a 2009 British reality television series devised by hedge fund manager Lex van Dam, which attempted to recreate the famous Turtle Traders experiment devised by

Richard Dennis Richard J. Dennis, a commodities speculator once known as the "Prince of the Pit," was born in Chicago, in January, 1949. In the early 1970s, he borrowed $1,600 and reportedly made $350 million in about six years. When a futures trading fund und ...

in the 1980s.

Background

''Million Dollar Traders'' follows a group of twelve wannabe traders dealing in shares during the events of the

financial crisis of 2007-2009 Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of ...

which was then whittled down to the final eight. The contestants come from various backgrounds, including a fight promoter, a day trader, an IT/banking recruitment consultant, a working mother, a retired IT engineer and a student, among others. During the series van Dam gave the London-based contestants the sterling equivalent of $1 million of his own money to trade for 2 months. Former professional trader Anton Kreil was appointed as the manager of the group. As with the original experiment, those who lasted the course broadly confirmed the claim that novices could become professional-level traders, making small profits or at least lower losses trading in very turbulent markets during the filming than professionals, who lost four times greater amounts over the same period.Learning to trade at the school of hard knocks ''The Financial Times'' 19 Nov 2010
/ref> The three-part BBC series, narrated by

Andrew Lincoln Andrew James Clutterbuck (born 14 September 1973), known professionally as Andrew Lincoln, is an English actor. His first major role was as the character Egg in the BBC drama ''This Life'' (1996–1997). Lincoln later portrayed Simon Casey in ...

, was a part of the "City Season" programming on the BBC. It aired on

BBC 2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

in the UK at 9pm on Monday evenings between 12 and 27 January 2009.

Episode list

Contestants

References

External links

{{BBC programme BBC Television shows British reality television series 2009 British television series debuts 2009 British television series endings Business-related television series in the United Kingdom Trading television shows