Hearing Chicago MERC trader commited suicide after blowing out

I don't know this man or anything about him. And I'm sorry he came to this very bad end.


But let's face it, this was an individual that snapped. We are 6 weeks into the-end-of-the-world.

Clearly, he was doing something he should not have been doing. Nothing was 'done' to him. He stepped in front of the bus and dared it to run him over.

It did.


PS Let this be a lesson to you margin addicts.
 
Quote from Landis82:

As a former floor trader of 10 years in NYC, I totally disagree with your "analysis".

You point to what YOU PERCEIVE is the reality of this particular trader's situation - - - having to downgrade his standard of living, but that may not be the case given the amount of self-esteem that comes from trading for 20 years and the resultant shame that comes from "blowing-up".. . . being deemed successful by his peers, family, and friends for so long, only to then see it disappear in one day. He obviously couldn't deal with the "consequences" - - - but that doesn't necessarily mean that it revolved around a downgrade in lifestyle. That is a rather spurious ASSumption on your part, is it not?

Did it ever occur to you that perhaps one of the biggest reasons why he got up in the morning disappeared. That, unfortunately had become his "identity". If you've never been there on the floor, and in that kind of environment and community . . . you have absolutely NO IDEA what you are talking about.

Your post implies that this was some sort of "silver-spooned" kid that had been groomed with kid-gloves . . . Most likely you couldn't be more wrong as he probably worked his way up from a runner on the floor, to phone clerk, to broker, and local.

So easy for you to "judge" someone else, let alone define what REAL problems are.
How convenient of you . . . We should all be so lucky to be "judged" by you and your worldly knowledge.

You just pissed on someone's grave that you've never met.

Congratulations.
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Agree 99%. The 1% is because I don't think it was worth the 2 minutes it took you to type this, wasting that time on such a pathetic and obviously clueless internet blowhard. Scum like this should be killfiled, /ignored, and cast aside like the worthless trash they are. You might as well argue with a rat or a cockroach.
 
I totally agree with Landis . . . but why did this trader need to take such risks as to jeopardize his career, not to mention his life? If preservation of the ability to live and trade another day is what is keeping you out of the abyss, then you damn well better take all steps necessary to prevent such an event from being even a remote possibility.

But I have a hunch any trader who willingly exposes himself to that fate, after so many years, must have already given up to some extent inside. I don't want to speculate about this specific case, but generally, if one day you were to wake up and realize, shit, what I've been doing doesn't work anymore (and history shows that happens to even the best traders), wouldn't the temptation to throw it all on the line eventually become irresistable?
 
Quote from illiquid:

But I have a hunch any trader who willingly exposes himself to that fate, after so many years, must have already given up to some extent inside. I don't want to speculate about this specific case, but generally, if one day you were to wake up and realize, shit, what I've been doing doesn't work anymore (and history shows that happens to even the best traders), wouldn't the temptation to throw it all on the line eventually become irresistable?
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No, a 20 year veteran wouldn't "throw it all on the line".

If he lasted and made a living 20 years he knew what he was doing; he had discipline.

After 12+ years full time I know I'd never do anything so absurd as you suggest.

And who said what he was doing didn't work anymore? I tend to think that some of you don't have a clue as to what the life of a trader is really all about.
 
Quote from datstrader:

This man was a personal friend. I was at the CME when the reports and rummors were comming out. They called him Joey ZAZA. I only could say a great guy, fun to be with. I know that he was trading large and making money doing it. I'm only guessing that it was too much to make back and i'm sure it was a large amount that were on those cards.(I know the number but i just don't want to say). The loss was over the top...He will be missed.........
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Condolences, Datstrader.
 
Quote from Pa(b)st Prime:

Agree 100%. Very few floor traders came from great inherited wealth. Jeez if I was a titan of industry I'd hope my offspring could do better than risk their sanity trading in a friggin' futures pit.

For all we know his home was at risk-or he'd just borrowed money from family-this could've been a multi-day meltdown. From what I've heard (I didn't know Luizzi) this was a much more severe financial/emotional hit than some "spoiled" trader who couldn't bear being seen in a downsized "C" series Benz.

I've had some epic blowups. They're tough to deal with especially when a few hundred traders are gossiping about it. If anyone here doesn't think it could ever be them then you're not opening your mind fully to the realm of possible outcomes. Truth be told, I'd guess more than a few people on ET have committed suicide....
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Not for nothing...but the locals-traders that trade/traded in the SP pit are about as far from being spoiled/rich/stuck up pricks as you can be. I have been fortunate to be friends with some of them and have met many others through my buddies. The ones I know are guys you can find at a bar drinking beers...watching (most likely betting) sports....and hitting on chicks. Just like every other normal dude out there. They aren't the Ivy League MBA type pricks....those types wouldnt last 5 minutes down in that pit.....let alone any pit. I have traded around those slick Wall Street types.....most of them couldnt handle that kind of pressure and would fold like a tent.

This story is really a sad one. My condolences go out to friends and families of this guy.
 
A brother trader has ended his life.

What many of the novice imbeciles making smart-ass remarks fail to realize is that it's NOT the loss of money that hurts-- it's the loss of precious TIME in one's life -- the thousands of long hours and hard years that go into building an account to the point where one HAS millions of their own dollars to trade. Even if the money could eventually be replaced, the lost years spent earning it are gone forever.

It's easy for some here to be an armchair idiot, criticize his actions and think they'd handle things so differently. Nothing cuts like losing that which took a lifetime to build. I think the guy was holding himself to a higher standard and I admire that. He was a brother trader. Though I wish he didn't end his life over the loss, I'll always respect what he worked up to.

May you rest in peace, Joe.

-Prof.
 
<i>"I've had some epic blowups. They're tough to deal with especially when a few hundred traders are gossiping about it. If anyone here doesn't think it could ever be them then you're not opening your mind fully to the realm of possible outcomes."</i>

One of many turning points in a trader's career is the realization that on any given day, if we do something too stupid, complete blow-out is possible. Unfortunately, it usually takes personal experience to grasp that fact. If the trader continues on past there, focus shifts from fixation on catching every little market move to capital preservation... only targeting the cherry trades with high reward for risk taken.

The biggest fallacy most retail traders perceive is that someone out there somewhere is a market god, a person who hits every move crisply every day, no matter what. Totally false. Even the biggest traders running accounts that most here will only dream of face the exact-same hurdles everyone else does. The difference between fledgling and successful is self-management, once the nuts & bolts of trade execution have been learned.

It pains me to read such a story, regardless. The fact that I'll be 44 in a couple of months brings it a little closer to home. Tragic that this gentleman made an eternal decision with short-term illogic. The money doesn't matter... not nearly that much. It never does.
 
Quote from DHOHHI:

No, a 20 year veteran wouldn't "throw it all on the line".

If he lasted and made a living 20 years he knew what he was doing; he had discipline.

After 12+ years full time I know I'd never do anything so absurd as you suggest.

And who said what he was doing didn't work anymore? I tend to think that some of you don't have a clue as to what the life of a trader is really all about.
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As I said I didn't want to speculate too much about this particular case, but obviously it wasn't just a typical postion gone awry for him. If it was just a one time outlier event, he would just dust himself off and get back in the ring, it would take time but any long-time veteran would know he could make it back and more. Some part of him gave up, that much is obvious.

So tell me Linus, what is a life of a trader really all about? You wouldn't do anything so absurd as commit suicide either, right? Wake the fuck up pal, if you don't believe you can lose your edge or think you've seen everything a market can do after 20 years in this business, you are just delusional. What happened to this man is the worst-case scenario for all of us here, the possiblity of it will always haunt me in some small corner of my mind as long as I trade.
 
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