Traders

Series overview

Although Global had locked up most of NBC's "Must See Thursday" situation comedies for their Thursday night broadcasts, they lost the rights to broadcast the medical drama ER to rival CTV. Traders was broadcast against ER in the 10 p.m. Thursday time slot. Many critics at the time believed the show would die an early death against the time slot competition, as ER had even beaten the other American networks in the time slot in a convincing manner. However, despite the stiff competition, Traders received good ratings, in part thanks to its lead-ins.

Bruce Gray and Sonja Smits starred as the firm's senior partners, Adam Cunningham and Sally Ross. The cast also included Patrick McKenna, David Cubitt, Rick Roberts, Chris Leavins, Gabriel Hogan, David Hewlett, Peter Stebbings and Alex Carter.

The show, although one of the most popular Canadian television series of its era, was expensive to produce. In the 1997–98 season, Global entered a joint production arrangement with CBC, and the series was shown on both networks for several months, with episodes airing Thursdays on Global and Fridays on CBC. However, this arrangement was not continued after the 1998 season.

The exterior shots of Gardner Ross are of the Canada Permanent Trust Building at 320 Bay Street in Toronto, currently the offices of CIBC Mellon.

Characters

Sally Ross (Sonja Smits), a former economics professor and the only daughter of Cedric Ross who is one of the partners in the firm. She takes control of the firm when her father is arrested for embezzlement, loses control of the firm back to him, and regains control on her father's death.

Adam Cunningham (Bruce Gray), the Machiavellian elder statesman of the bank, although a junior partner to the Rosses. Like Sally, he comes from a rich family, but he fell on hard times when his father lost the family fortune. Less of a risk taker than Sally or Jack, Adam is often at odds with them. He is very much in love with his wife Gillian (Linda Goranson), who has an unidentified illness and is lobbying to be permitted assisted suicide.

Marty Stephens (Patrick McKenna), the driven head trader of Gardner Ross, making the firm money through risky short term trades. Stephens often derides the senior partners as "overheads"—a double insult based on the fact that their offices are above the trading floor and, in his view, they eat up rent without bringing in any regular income. Although largely driven by money, he has a soft spot for his wife and two children.

Jack Larkin (David Cubitt), the firm's ambitious young investment banker and junior partner. He grew up as a juvenile delinquent with an abusive father and got through college as a boxer. He became a trader in Vancouver before coming to Gardner Ross. He is also responsible for bringing Grant Janksy into the firm. Jack dies in the Season 4 episode, "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" after being fatally shot by Martha, an operative of Jean Paul's company.

Ann Krywarik (Kim Huffman), the firm's female broker. She started her career by specializing in accounts held by elderly single men. She is at times Jack's paramour. She works as a broker, trader and mutual fund manager. Grant Jansky, a colleague has feelings for her. Ann dies in the Season 3 episode, "Boomwith" after being caught in a limo explosion with the team being devastated by her death which is later revealed to be murder.

Donald D'Arby (Rick Roberts), a young, smart and shy investment banker. He usually works for Jack and runs a mutual fund later in the series. D'Arby is from an extremely rich lumber family.

Main crew

Story arc

The entire series encompasses a large story arc, with several characters disappearing, and some reappearing, throughout the series. As such, like other series with a consistent story arc, it is often best to watch the episodes in order as plot points often cover several episodes and very few episodes stand entirely on their own.

Basic story line

Gardner Ross is a small Canadian investment bank that is somewhat profitable, but often faces a takeover by a larger institution due to its inability to compete in a global marketplace. Crisis strikes when senior partner Cedric Ross is jailed after money goes missing from an initial public offering. Fearing that his partner Adam Cunningham will take advantage of his absence to agree to a friendly takeover by a larger bank, he calls on his only child, Sally, to take care of his interests in his absence. Meanwhile, hotshot trader Jack Larkin is looking to break into investment banking and approaches Adam, who agrees to allow Larkin to join the firm if he can land another IPO. Jack undercuts a rival bank and wins the IPO, but as the investment syndicate falls through, Gardner Ross finds itself responsible for most of the underwriting of the issue, and if the sale goes poorly, faces the loss of all of its investment capital. Luckily, head trader Marty Stephens saves the day by making a large profit for the bank selling the issue into a cool market.

The three major players each have different agendas. Sally wishes both to keep the bank independent and to solidify her control of the bank despite her lack of experience. Adam wants to steer a safe course that will bring consistent but relatively low returns on capital. Jack seeks outgrowth at any cost seeking bigger and bigger deals, culminating in a $1 billion financing of a harbour project. This infuriates Marty who sees the plans of the investment bankers stealing capital away from his consistently profitable trading while putting him under pressure to bring more capital into the bank.

Meanwhile, the charges against Cedric are dropped on a technicality. However, Sally discovers that he did take an illegal commission on the IPO, and refuses to give up her control of the shares. Sally makes a misstep by bragging about the harbour project, nearly defaulting on a progress advance in the process - she has to be bailed out by a much larger bank, making the original deal totally unprofitable. The larger bank gets a share of Gardner Ross in the process, threatening Jack's expansion plans. Sally decides to take the company public to raise capital to pay off the larger bank, but with Adam's help this results in Cedric being able to buy enough shares to re-take control of Gardner Ross and force Sally out for ordering Marty to keep buying Gardner Ross stock in a futile attempt to stop him, technically violating capital requirements.

However, Cedric is soon murdered and his stock goes back to Sally. Adam is caught up in his own betrayal, but Sally keeps him on because his dismissal would end the firm's credibility on the street. Adam and Jack buy back in as partners. However, Jack is betrayed by Ann on a software investment and goes bankrupt when his shares in Gardner Ross don't cover the amount he borrowed to buy them. He unwisely assaults another banker and is suspended as a result.

Themes

Several themes are repeated during the course of the series.

David v. Goliath: Throughout the series, Gardner Ross is constantly comparing themselves to their larger competition. The investment bankers often trade blows with the much larger (if fictional) Canadian Corporate Bank (most likely based on one of Canada's Big Five). The trading floor's key competition is Federated Dundas, a brokerage firm with ten times the staff and capital, and the home of Marty's nemesis "McGrath" (played in a memorable cameo by Joe Flaherty, although otherwise unseen during the series). Even Canada's status with respect to the much larger economy of the United States is examined, with Sally eventually partnering with both a U.S. venture capital fund with twice her working capital and the entrepreneurial Texan who runs it.

Family: All of the characters have varying family troubles. Ironically, Marty has the most stable "nuclear" family with a wife and children, but even his relationship is rocky. On the other extreme, Ann is so disconnected from a family life that she listed Gardner Ross as her person to contact in case of an emergency. A few characters suffer the loss of a close family member during the series. Chris is alienated from his family, and despite the efforts of a family friend to mend the relationship with his father, he never manages to do it. Donald, similarly disowned, does manage to build bridges with his parents. Niko perhaps has the worst relationship history, cutting herself off from her own son in order to further her career, only to find herself caring for the child when her ex-husband is arrested.

However, obligations to family often prove problematic. Feeling guilty about abandoning his sister to their abusive father, Jack found his sister Cathy a job at the firm, and on her first day of work she engaged in an incident of insider trading. Similarly, fearing that his talented son would drop out of high school, Marty called in all his favours in order to prevent his son from having a job on a trading floor.

Business Ethics: The characters often grapple with ethical issues, and even Adam raises these issues on occasion. For example, to increase its cash flow, Gardner Ross attempts a takeover of a cigarette company that is actually trying to get out of the tobacco business. Marty is constantly "walking the line" on ethical issues, taking advantage of information that doesn't quite meet the criteria for insider trading on a near daily basis. Although he knows the rules, he consistently breaks the spirit of the law, and occasionally steps over the line. For example, when he took a short position on a stock that was put on the restricted list when Gardner Ross announced a takeover attempt, he covered the short in order to save the firm millions at the expense of its client.

Cameos

The show featured cameos from several notable Canadian personalities playing themselves, including:

Hon. John Manley MP - At the time was the sitting federal Minister for Industry

Marianne Limpert - Olympic Silver Medalist swimmer

Derek Porter - Olympic Gold medalist rower

Edward (Eddie) Greenspan - Noted defense lawyer

Bob Rae - Former Premier of Ontario and current MP. Ironically in the episode there is a scene where he says he will never go back into politics, but he in fact does about 10 years later.

Michie Mee - Rapper

Mike Bullard - Comedian, spoofed himself by playing a telephone repairman (Bullard is a former Bell Canada employee)

Kim Stockwood - Singer, performed her song "12 Years Old"

Izzy Asper - Then Owner of Global TV network which aired Traders. Asper plays piano incognito at a corporate event. Marty's drunken wife argues with him and declares: "Do you know who I am?" Izzy responds. "No, do you know who 'I' am?"

Awards/Nominations

Near the peak of its run, Traders was frequently nominated in the Gemini Awards, earning 28 nominations and nine wins during its run. Most notable of the Gemini wins are the two consecutive awards for Best Dramatic Series in 1998.

DVD release

Alliance Atlantis released season 1 on DVD in Region 1 (Canada only) on November 25, 2003. This release has been discontinued and is now out of print. Seasons 2-5 remain unreleased.

Streaming

In 2019 the series started streaming online on the Canada Media Fund's Encore+ YouTube channel, the series was removed when Encore+ ceased operation in 2022 & all videos were taken down.

In the UK and Australia, it is available on Amazon Prime Video.