Close Up - Big Dealers (featuring John Key)

Television (Full Length Episode) – 1987

This episode of current affairs show Close Up offers a fascinating portrait of the early days of New Zealand's foreign exchange market. Reporter Ted Sheehan heads into "the pit" (trading room), and chronicles the working life of a senior forex dealer, 25-year-old accountancy graduate John Key. The "smiling assassin" (and future Prime Minister) is a calm and earnest presence amongst the young cowboys playing for fortunes and Porsches, months before the 1987 sharemarket crash. As Sheehan says, "they're like addicts who eat, breathe and sleep foreign exchange dealing".

He's exceptional. He is one of the best that I've seen in my 12 years within the markets ... John has an uncanny ability to know when to hold positions, when to cut positions ... he seems to have a sixth sense with respect to where the market is about to move to.
– Elders trading room manager Chris Wright on Key's trading talent