Rogue Trader

it's called arbitrage trading which is booked under the bank's own accounts , if you can do that then you can trade proprietary.

Barings didn't want it , they just wanted arbitrage and that man was not NL but a guy in Tokyo , think his name was fernando .

most of the institutions there did not do right out directional trading.
 
Nick had 34000 naked options calls....then there was an real earth quake and the market plunged..he wad doomed...Can you imagine 34000 naked options positions.

Thats is he took naked calls to get the premium
 
Digs said:
Nick had 34000 naked options calls....then there was an real earth quake and the market plunged..he wad doomed...Can you imagine 34000 naked options positions.

Thats is he took naked calls to get the premium
Don't think so. Selling CALLS in a plunging market would be a GOOD thing to do.
 
The Fall Guy

I do not support Nick Leeson in any way for what he did, however it is quite clear that if senior management at Barings were in the slightest bit competent, Nick would never have got himself into the mess he did. In fact, Barings senior management were so incompetent, that even if it wasn't for Nick Leeson, Barings still wouldn't be here today as I am sure that some other risk-management failure would have brought about its downfall.

The real culprits were the senior management. Nick was the fall guy.

Isn't it interesting how the top bods were quite happy to continue to let NL trade while he was making profits (so they could all pick up fat bonuses on the back of HIS performance), but were completely unwilling to take the flack when the proverbial hit the fan.

It speaks volumes about the outstandingly low calibre of Barings management, such that they sat back and pocketed the bonuses while NL traded, but completely failed to support him in his time of trouble.

And let's face it, NL's time of trouble was brought about by that very same management's inability to implement proper risk controls.
 
Digs said:
Nick had 34000 naked options calls....then there was an real earth quake and the market plunged..he wad doomed...Can you imagine 34000 naked options positions.

Thats is he took naked calls to get the premium


This was when he had conned all the margins he could get from Barings and it was still insufficient to cover his margin for his open futures position.

Crazy ! no wonder he had ulcers and was throwing up all over the place , on top of this he kept it secret from his wife til the last moment.

Lucky he didn't die from the stress induced cancer
 
Both Leeson and the Barings' top brass got what they deserved .

banks and UK banks in particular are run by toffs who don't know their margarine from a top up margin. they just think that they are entitled to glamour and easy money from the markets by right of birth .

remember the part when one of them stood up at the annual dinner and said : " apparently , making money from the market is not very hard "

well they found out the HARD way , it is very hard and you have to pay attention every waking minute to what you are doing especially when you have a dweeb like NL running things for you .

on top of that, their weak spots were uncovered as the " record " business played to their greed and fantasy . sub-conciously they knew to investigate further might shatter the fantasy and they made their choice against this and paid hell for it .

leeson ? well he was just an idiot who's gamble backfired bigtime .

he thought he could go into the gunfight against a fully loaded opponent with a half loaded gun .
 
What about the smart ones who took the other side :cheesy:
I doubt they've finished half the champagne yet :LOL:
Always look on the bright side ;)
 
Attention seeking

wisestguy said:
anger ? how's this ?

Relax - it's simply that Alexandrews cannot think of anyhting useful to contribute , but has to somehow draw attention to himself.
 
neil said:
Relax - it's simply that Alexandrews cannot think of anyhting useful to contribute , but has to somehow draw attention to himself.

Ooo, err, pot, umm, kettle and, err, yes, umm black.

Jesus, relax guys, take a chill pill - I was only trying to inject a little humour. There's no need to go off on one and make a complete tit of yourself, neil.

Alex
 
oatman said:
What about the smart ones who took the other side :cheesy:
I doubt they've finished half the champagne yet :LOL:
Always look on the bright side ;)


Agreed!

I wonder how many T2W members/newbies would do exactly the same as Leeson if put on the floor with no experience??????

I remember a couple of years back some newbie in a London arcade blew up Sussex Futures out of his lack of understanding.

Im sure it wont be the last time we see the likes of Leeson. Bring it on! I live off of other peoples errors of judgement :D
 
BBB said:
Agreed!
I remember a couple of years back some newbie in a London arcade blew up Sussex Futures out of his lack of understanding.
:D

Sussex blow up wasn't too bad for the other traders on the Sussex floor..... I believe John Sussex himself made up the short fall in their accounts.

Much worse was the Griffin/John Park blow up a couple years earlier.....took years to sort out and the other Griffin account holders only got back a few cents per dollar from their accounts eventually.
 
.......then there was also the ICA Trading blow up........

Basically be very careful whatever you do!
 
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