How to invest

Part one: In which Aziz learns an important financial lesson without losing his shirt

It’s late summer, 2008. I am 28 years old, two years into my job at Barclays investment bank in London. I am a bond strategist (a bond is basically a tiny slice of a huge loan to a company; investors in the bond market trade these slices with each other). My role is to advise the bank’s clients—big investors like pension funds, governments, hedge funds,…