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Politics : Ask Michael Burke -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (94418)	2/7/2002 4:26:08 PM
From: Monish Shelat	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 132070

IWO must tell you that the spread b/w Bid and ask sometimes drives me crazy...

To: Knighty Tin who wrote (94418)	2/8/2002 9:23:31 AM
From: Knighty Tin	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 132070

To All, The Wall Street Journal has a great article on the American trader for an Irish bank who lost money and then tried to cover it by doubling up, and then the markets went down more, so he ended up with a $750 mm hickey (not Fred) and has pisaddeared. Here is what amazes me: the guy is managing that much money and he doesn't even know what puts and calls are. Or, apparently, short sales. Or money discipline. If I or anyone else had walked into that bank and said "let's do 90/10 where losses are very limited and the upside potential is unlimited," they would have thrown us out as insane speculators. But because this maroon was using "traditional" techniques for losing money, they handed him the key to the corporate vault. You wonder: how does an idiot like this get a job like this? The answer is: by having idiots hiring. The trader reminds me of a Light Heavyweight championship fight I saw in the 80s. Dwight Braxton (Quawi was the name he changed it to after getting out of prison) was fighting the number one contender. When asked to preview the fight, the commentator said, "the top contender does not have the speed or boxing skills to avoid Braxton's power. And he is not known as a puncher, so he can't back him off. It looks to be a short fight to me." And it was. Braxton destroyed the dude. But the thought that stuck in my mind was, this guy has no speed, no boxing skills and no punch. Why is he the number one contender? There were scores of worthy light heavies who had one or more of those attributes in spades. True, Braxton would have beaten up most of them, too, but that's why he was champion. So, this trader got to be number one contender for his position through a miracle of myopia. <g>