It's 11am on a Thursday, and Alpesh Patel has just finished work. Lucrative work. He deals in futures options on the FTSE, but his morning hasn't been spent wearing a ridiculous jacket and clawing the air yelling "Buy molybdenum!" and "Sell Pot Noodle!" at the top of his voice. He hasn't even left his north London flat. Instead, he's been sitting in his stockinged feet and staring at his computer with the concentration of a schoolboy who's almost made it through to the final level of Tomb Raider III.

Alpesh, 27, used to be a barrister, and his wig is still hanging in a corner of his pristine little study. Four years ago, he gave up the law and made the move to being a full-time "daytrader". The term still produces blank looks in Britain, but in the States - where the practice began - the collective actions of armchair stockbrokers such as Alpesh command the financial headlines, and send the Wall Street suitboys into a state of jealous anxiety.