Funniest thing ever seen at a prop firm
- Thread starter Pumpanddump
- Start date
Did you read the part where he said that she was "doing well" with this approach? It does make sense that someone COULD make that mistake once or twice BUT no way in hell she did it for long enough to "do well" without knowing she was trading the wrong stock. The characteristics of those stocks (re huge difference in daily volume) alone should make you realize that the story is BS
Think about it; she checked the morning news for "Intel" every morning but didn't notice the symbol or that the closing price did not match the INTL charts? Seriously...
Think about it; she checked the morning news for "Intel" every morning but didn't notice the symbol or that the closing price did not match the INTL charts? Seriously...
Not so much prop trading but scary/funny none the less...
I do know of the story of someone who bought a lot of option volatility in a stock, only because they read the wrong numbers and mixed the codes up.
I think it was Royal Bank of Scotland v Bank of Scotland.
They looked at the historical volatility for one and thought the implieds were incredibly cheap - mixing up the two stocks
They realised their mistake the next day and rather than minimise the damage and cutting or managing it via trading the gamma, they decided to 'try and corner the market' - it did not go well but I dont know of the numbers but these guys liked to swing big.
...............
I have also sat opposite some guys running a small hedge fund ($15m) - they had no real strategy but were very good sales guys. We shared offices.
One day they had all 4 positions they had on go their way and they made about 4% on the day.
They didn't know what to do - do we run it, cut it, get bigger.....?
It was hilarious to watch.
I suggested to them -
Q: how much are you trying to make each year -
A:10-12%
Q: Its now early March and if you exited all 4 positions you will be up 7.5% for the year.
A: right.
Q: could you easily exit the positions today, sleep on it and then put the same positions back on again tomorrow?
A: yes
Q: then should you do that?
....after 30 mins of discussions back and forth between them they cut their book and locked it all in.
The next day it would have reversed and gave back their gains, and the best part was they were patting themselves on the back for how genius they were. (and you did not need to be a genius to ask them the questions I asked them)
Needless to say their funds did not thrive - at last look I saw one of the guys recent fund was down 30% since 2010.....as I said good sales guys.
I do know of the story of someone who bought a lot of option volatility in a stock, only because they read the wrong numbers and mixed the codes up.
I think it was Royal Bank of Scotland v Bank of Scotland.
They looked at the historical volatility for one and thought the implieds were incredibly cheap - mixing up the two stocks
They realised their mistake the next day and rather than minimise the damage and cutting or managing it via trading the gamma, they decided to 'try and corner the market' - it did not go well but I dont know of the numbers but these guys liked to swing big.
...............
I have also sat opposite some guys running a small hedge fund ($15m) - they had no real strategy but were very good sales guys. We shared offices.
One day they had all 4 positions they had on go their way and they made about 4% on the day.
They didn't know what to do - do we run it, cut it, get bigger.....?
It was hilarious to watch.
I suggested to them -
Q: how much are you trying to make each year -
A:10-12%
Q: Its now early March and if you exited all 4 positions you will be up 7.5% for the year.
A: right.
Q: could you easily exit the positions today, sleep on it and then put the same positions back on again tomorrow?
A: yes
Q: then should you do that?
....after 30 mins of discussions back and forth between them they cut their book and locked it all in.
The next day it would have reversed and gave back their gains, and the best part was they were patting themselves on the back for how genius they were. (and you did not need to be a genius to ask them the questions I asked them)
Needless to say their funds did not thrive - at last look I saw one of the guys recent fund was down 30% since 2010.....as I said good sales guys.
Watching a grown man call his wife in tears to tell her that he lost it all is never funny or interesting. (Flash Crash)
Usually those are the guys going home the next day with their tail between their legs. We did OK with the Flash Crash and a few other big vol days. If you are on a floor long enough you'll realize that for every dollar you make ten traders lose ten dollars each. If you do that well based on luck or an error you generally keep your mouth shut and cross your fingers. It can be gone that fast too.
I'm not going to name the bank/firm but we had a Murphy bed, a few futons and a shower. Boxers would be a good thing compared to what happened at times.
When that guy tried to light his shoe on fire on the airplane (the shoe bomb thing) the guys on the floor tried to see how hard it was to burn a shoe. They set off the fire alarm and the fire department had to evacuate 16 floors including a floor of FINRA and SEC employees.
I have a bunch of old Worldco hardware and monitor stands. Inside two of the monitor stand tubes in a guy's office we found rolled up 50's shoved inside the tube and in another we found coke. The coke went down the toilet.
lol most awesome thread ever...love the video above, watched it several times = priceless
A trader once forget his elevator security pass at the firm I was with at the time. He called up management to try to get access but he had forgotten his wallet and didn't have ID so they wouldn't provide him the elevator code.
About 15 minutes after we thought the guy went home, we hear tapping on the window. The kid, who was about 21-23 at the time, found his way up to the roof, located the fire escape and climbed down from the roof to the 15th floor (about 6 or 7 stories) to get into the office & avoid going home.
That was a good laugh. I wonder where this kid is today. With that type of determination and neglect for risk, nobody call tell...
About 15 minutes after we thought the guy went home, we hear tapping on the window. The kid, who was about 21-23 at the time, found his way up to the roof, located the fire escape and climbed down from the roof to the 15th floor (about 6 or 7 stories) to get into the office & avoid going home.
That was a good laugh. I wonder where this kid is today. With that type of determination and neglect for risk, nobody call tell...
I have seen someone go completely nuts that I feared for the life of my family! lol
In a private message someone linked me this thread.
1- How did this thread die. Should not be allowed.
2- How could I not have been here for Walter Bruan stories. The saddest moment of my time here on ET is to learn that I missed that convo.
The world is a sadder place without him. I've known some nutty fucking people, but he was in his own league.
1- How did this thread die. Should not be allowed.
2- How could I not have been here for Walter Bruan stories. The saddest moment of my time here on ET is to learn that I missed that convo.
The world is a sadder place without him. I've known some nutty fucking people, but he was in his own league.