The summer my daughter was twelve, her school marked the end of the year with a small ceremony in the gymnasium. I remember the rows of standard school chairs, the parents fanning themselves with the printed program, the faint squeak of the floor under the children’s shoes. There was no stage; a stretch of the gymnasium had been left clear of chairs, and the children performed there in turn: a song, a few recited lines, a dance that had plainly cost weeks of rehearsal and lasted ninety seconds.
My daughter had a part, and I had cleared the afternoon to be there—which, in the life I was living then, was not a small thing. In my jacket pocket was my phone, and on the phone, refreshed every few minutes, was the level of the American market. Across the ocean, New York Stock Exchange had just opened. I was the chief investment officer of a fund, and the close of the day in the United States would move the marks on the positions I was responsible for.
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