Eric Packer

Eric Packer, the novel’s protagonist, is a 28-year-old capital trader who lives and works in New York City. He is the founder and head of a financial trading company called Packer Capital. The novel follows Eric Packer through a single day in his life in April of the year 2000. From the confines of his limousine, he trades stocks and currency as the car moves through slow traffic. Eric becomes baffled by a specific problem of the yen, which is the Japanese currency. The value of the yen continues to rise against all reasonable expectation, and Eric organizes his trades around the belief that the value will fall imminently. The continued rise of the yen thusly destroys most of Eric’s personal fortune, and he eventually destroys the rest of his fortune on purpose in an act of frustration and hopelessness.

Eric spends much of the day...