Take five underemployed pilots. Give them intense markets training, add in an investment portfolio to experiment with, pit them against a control group from other backgrounds, and see what happens.
That is what a small London-based trading firm did in August, hoping to prove the “discipline, control, process and self-awareness” that pilots show in the cockpit would translate into above average pay-offs from the financial markets.
Kate North-Hill, a 45-year-old captain with 20 years’ experience who lost her job when Flybe collapsed in March, was one of the group selected from a pool of almost 200 applicants to train with Amplify Trading, and given a chance to share in the profits from a small portfolio she would run.