It's Monday morning on the trading floor of Shane Longman, a London-based international bank. The market has been erratic, nobody is getting it right and with the US trade figure due, the dealers are under pressure to improve on last month's performance. Several members of the board are critical of the 'maverick' image of the trading floor. Heads may roll. Meanwhile, Hudson's mentally unwell wife abandons him and their infant son, and Chas Ewell befriends Louise, a 17-year-old runaway.
Chief Trader Wendy Foley's ceiling collapses when the man upstairs runs a bath once too often, tempting her to move house and change career; Max is trying to use computers to weather-watch a prediction of next year's grain and crop harvests; Declan meets a stripper disguised as a policewoman after cutting the clamps off his Audi once too often; Chas and Jimmy take Louise furniture-shopping; Executive Leonard Ansen fends off Lee Wolfe's insider-dealing accusation, which wildcard bank part-owner Peter Longman flies in from Tahiti to defuse.
Michelle takes Declan swimming in an attempt to cure his aqua~diving phobia, while she considers a marriage offer from old flame Bruno; Alex puts the house up for sale under Hudson's nose; Sirrka gets blotto and clocks a rival after their deal went sour; Declan's roof leaks and he drives Michelle and Bruno around after her licence is revoked again for speeding; Max's converted-church apartment suffers a power failure for thanksgiving dinner, while Hudson improvises lighting and Max arranges a vast luxury Chinese takeaway, courtesy of Max's experience in Beijing. Bruno solves Sirrka's deal with a scheme based on German regional elections matching the Bonds with the right client.
Posh student Colin wins few friends on 'work experience' by outplaying Declan and Chas at basketball and dating. Declan's deal is wrecked by Jimmy selling the bonds he needs to Stephanie: she then sells them back to the client very discounted, causing Declan to punch Jimmy; Louise goes shopping, cooking, is harrassed by Jimmy at a party, and leaves; coke-user Sophie's interest in Max wanes after he seems more interested in the vastly complex deal he is creating, only later does he reveal he once lost a friend to cocaine. Max leaps into the deal too early to maximise his margin and gets left with the whole scheme in his face and a vast hole for Shane Longman to trade out of.
Max conceives a scheme at the dentist to lift Shane Longman's profile by using an installation artist "like Christo" to wrap Dover Cliff in parachute silk; Hudson deals with an errant pigeon at home; Information Systems manager Hannah has husband trouble; Jimmy is moving further off the deep end handling a major Dutch State Loans issue; and the computers crash.
Max is scammed by hatchet-job "off the record" quotes by a journalist he used to date; Hudson is managing a billion-dollar deal with a possibly-corrupt bank in Venice; while Jimmy goes Tweeds and Shotgun for a hunting weekend, demonstrating his prowess by shooting a hole in the Dealing-Room floor.
Hudson Talbot, Shane Longman's capital markets originator, is woken in the middle of the night by his colleague, Max Lubin, the Bank's Director of Swaps. Hudson is persuaded, reluctantly, to discuss what sounds like another of Max's unorthodox but possibly brilliant schemes.
Hudson is stuck choosing a new nanny for Jamie while his mother visits, with even less success when Declan and Max's choices are even less suitable. Leonard and Hannah team up to take their stylish teenage daughters out, while Yolanda's condition makes Sirrka take stock and pour her last vodka down the drain. Hudson's next-generation genetically-engineered horticulture swap buyout deal fails despite all his efforts, proving that not all stories have happy endings and than not even this financial wizard can save every deal.
Peter Longman is in ebullient spirits. As Shane Longman's major shareholder, he has secured a deal with Tokyo-based Ikeda Bank to set up a joint venture. The signing of the agreement between the two banks is to be widely covered by the City press. Leonard Ansen is not so enthusiastic and believes Longman has rushed into the deal too quickly without considering the long-term implications of the tie-up. Ikeda executives give some indication of their desire to eventually take over Shane Longman but walk away from the deal after being less than impressed by what they perceived as a lack of discipline in the dealing room.
Max takes the dealers gliding while waxing lyrical about the promise of commercialised space. Sirrka has a run-in with a child in a supermarket. Declan has a run-in with a stylish Italian dealer while her major EEC-ESA fund launch collapses and the Italian press portray him as the woman's toy-boy. Jimmy begins to cook his dealing book. Chas is irked by his musician-brother's contempt for banking, leading him off the cuff to create a £30,000 fund they can use to buy a supporting act slot on tour.
Max is using astrology to predict deals and outcomes, to varying effect; while Sirrka's quest for affection and contact leads to high-class hooking, until she meets a pair of tricks she doesn't want to handle; Michelle wants out of her hotel suite and into a proper home; Max's astrology seems to work on major projections, and Hannah has a birthday.
Max meets art-gallery assistant Maxine while arranging a deal in Warsaw with a Polish Shipyard: convincing the buyer to buy two to guarantee work for the Shipyard workers union; Michelle goes househunting; Alex applies for custody of Jamie; Sirrka is burgled and ODs on vodka in a hotel until rescued by Chas; giving Leonard the opportunity to run her position with flair for a day while she recuperates.
Hudson buys £45 worth of giant Amazon snail for his nephew. Max has paranoid chills over a menacing black American he thinks is an SEC investigator. Wendy quits as Head Trader, lured upstairs to create new markets for James and Peter; she is replaced by the brusque, hard-nosed Lee Wolfe-appointee Sylvia Roux Teng. Michelle finds the perfect flat and Declan takes her for an aerodrome spin in her restored beloved 911. Sirrka sees Hudson's escaped Acoccatina Maginata in an alcoholic haze, convincing her to go to AA, meets fellow traveller Yolande, who introduces her to H and lesbian experimentation. Jimmy is finally fired for falsifying his position for eight weeks. To Max's relief the huge black mysterious American turns out to be a photographer who does a major shoot on the dealers for Shane Longman PR.
Sirkka investigates a corporate client's background and her passionate reaction brings her into serious conflict with her colleagues and the Bank's executives.
Michelle and her new assistant, Hilary, are puzzled by a client who balks at making a profit, and Max is surprised to find that Sylvia - the new Head Trader - believes that his job is not essential to the Bank.
The beautiful Claudine – an old friend of Declan's – persuades him into a deal he soon regrets. Michelle is unsympathetic as he gets into more and more difficulty, but the Bank softball match gives her the chance to help him out.
Lee Wolf travels to Prague to complete a multi-million dollar deal but his acquiescence in a colleague's questionable arrangements gets him into difficulty.
Hilary's job is threatened when Sylvia tries to convince the Bank's executives that they need staff cuts. The deal which might save her looks like it's going wrong. Sirkka faces a personal trauma on her own.
Declan and Michelle are having a difficult time. Declan wonders whether things would be better if they did not work together. As it happens, he is approached by another bank but he is unsure why.
Hudson unwillingly introduces his friend, Danny, to the trading floor. Danny is an expert in chaos theory, and starts giving good advice. Sylvia is impressed and thinks Danny should be part of the team. Michelle and Hilary get involved with a deal for an attractive tycoon. For Michelle, it's just business, but Hilary hopes it might be more.
Hudson is embroiled in a difficult issue. The childminder has left and Hudson's mother – visiting from the United States – is standing in and looking after his son. Inevitably there's friction. Sirkka finds that she has to look closely at her relationship with her friend, Yolande.
Contrary to the image he projects at the Bank, Lee Wolf is a gambler and an unlucky one. His debts put his job and his personal life in jeopardy. He has to pull off something big to survive. While things get worse for Wolf, however, they get better for Declan and Michelle, who have a big decision to make.
Sylvia saddles Hilary and Chas with an unsaleable issue and won't accept that the problem has been caused by her. Hilary's attempts to sort things out are complicated by the fact that everyone at the Bank is off to the wedding of the year.