At first glance, the gold-paved streets of the Square Mile couldn't seem further away from the tumbledown, narrow alleyways of the Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem — but the two worlds are a lot closer than they appear.

Whether decked out in pinstriped suits or combat boots, the short-term, adrenaline-heavy atmosphere is what links two warzones. The skills of the players on either stage are finely honed long before they are let loose to put into practice all that they have learnt.

I went through both processes — six months sitting at the feet of my elders in the City; seven months of combat training in the heat of the Negev desert — and each time I was daunted to the point of paralysis on the day I was called into action.

Just as I will never forgot the first trade I enacted on my client's behalf (long of 50,000 on Vodafone, closed out a day later for a 6 per cent profit), likewise the moment the doors of our Jeep swung open and I first set a trembling foot in Aida's streets will be etched forever on my mind. The potency of the weapons at my fingertips — the SETS screen in the City, the M16 rifle and hand grenades in my army days — played into both my sense of power and sense of fear.

Just as the partners at my brokerage set much stall by a clean-shaven chin, along with a pristine shirt and tie under an immaculate suit, so, too, did my platoon commanders demand similar levels of grooming before each shift of guard duty began.

In both cases, ascending each rung of the ladder was a lengthy process, and not a pleasant one. As the head of our team of juniors in the City, I was ordered to use my position to keep in line those below me. When the partners wanted someone to go and get their coffee, the order would be routed through me and I would have to select one of the other juniors to head off to the shop. If they didn't come back quickly enough, I was told to call their mobile phone and reprimand them in no uncertain terms for their tardiness. If I protested, I was told: “It's either them or you. We gave you the order, so it's your responsibility”.

I witnessed the same behaviour in the army, but at least then there was a sense that a failure to follow commanders' instructions could put lives in danger, rather than simply lower the temperature of a broker's cappuccino by a couple of degrees. Later on in my career, I lived or died by my trading decisions: if I wanted to take seven-figure positions for my clients, I was the one responsible if anything went wrong. There, as in the army, the higher one rose in the system, the more weight rested upon your shoulders.

Ultimately, the thrill of the chase — the pure, unadulterated action of both the City and the Israeli frontline - was enough of a drug in itself to keep me hooked for months and years. However, once the veneer wore off and the underlying morality (or lack of) in both worlds shone through, the comedown was vicious.

Whether in the City as a trader, or the army as a combatant, those higher up the ladder use the muscled, macho image of their respective fields to dazzle potential recruits and blind them with seductive promises of instant, accessible excitement. But behind the façade, both jobs were built on shaky ethical foundations.

‘It wasn’t worth selling my soul’

“The basest instincts come to the fore when the name of the game is money, and your standing in society is based purely on how much you’ve made and how fast you’ve made it. I was as guilty as the next man of adopting this skewed outlook – but it wasn’t until I left it all behind me that I realised how deeply I’d been bitten by the lust for lucre. When I was trading millions on behalf of my bosses and clients, I saw nothing amiss about spending £500 on a Cavalli sweater or a grand on a drug-fuelled night out. Cash that could be made in an instant could be spent the same way, and there was always more where the last wad came from. In the end I got out because it was clear to me that it was a case of now or never. Spending all day with men in their late thirties who couldn’t see past the next deal, the next line of coke or Porsche Carrera set alarm bells ringing – if I didn’t want to turn out like them, I had to call it a day. Much as the casino atmosphere was limitless, fast-paced excitement for a boy in his mid-twenties, as a long-term lifestyle choice it was shallow. It wasn’t worth selling my soul.”
Extracted from Binge Trading, The Real Inside Story of Cash, Cocaine and Corruption in the City.

— Seth Freedman's book Binge Trading (Penguin, £8.99) is published on Thursday.

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