Broker Sent Oil Prices to Eight Month High in a Drunken Stup

[frigidmagi]

Oilprice.com

On June the 30th 2009 oil mysteriously jumped by more than $1.50 a barrel during the night, to reach its highest price in eight months, the kind of swing that is caused by a major geopolitical event.

The amazing, true cause of this price spike has now been released by a Financial Services Authority investigation (FSA).

Although not authorised to invest company cash in trades Steve Perkins, a long standing, senior broker at PVM Oil Futures, had managed to spend $520 million on oil futures contracts throughout the night.

On the morning of the 30th an admin clerk called Mr Perkins to ask why he had bought 7 million barrels of crude during the night. Mr Perkins had no recollection of the transactions, and it turned out that he had made the trades during a “drunken blackout.”

By the time PVM had realised the transactions had not been authorised by a client, they had incurred losses of $9,763,252.

Between the hours of 1.22am and 3.41am, Mr Perkins gradually bought 69 percent of the global market, whilst driving prices up from $71.40 to $73.05, by bidding higher each time.

At 6.30am, presumably sobering up and realising what he’d done, he sent a message to his managing director claiming an unwell relative meant he would not be able to make it into work.

Following an official investigation Mr Perkins admitted to having a drink problem, had his trading license revoked for five years, and was given a fine of £72,000.

The FSA have said that they will re-approve his license after the five year period, if he has recovered from his drink problem, although they warned that “Mr Perkins poses an extreme risk to the market when drunk.”

By. James Burgess of Oilprice.com

You know, if I wrote this into a Shadowrun story or a story with Blast... Y'all would laugh me right out of the writing section just for how fucking stupid of an idea it is. Really? How is this possible?

[Charon]

I... don't...

WHAT?!

*goes to get the tar and feathers*

[B4UTRUST]

I'm not sure if I've just become so jaded to the rampant allowable stupidity in these sort of jobs(wall street, banking, futures markets, etc.) or if I'm just not awake enough for it to fully process, but honestly I'm not at all surprised or shocked at this. Nothing tells a person he's done wrong and helped fuck up the economy in a very bad way like a slap on a wrist and being told you'll get your job back if you can manage to cut back on your drinking from 20 to 15 dirty martinis a night

[Josh]

This is an excellent demonstration of how entirely too much power is being concentrated in far too few hands.

Not that I expect anything meaningful to come from this particular instance, but sooner or later we'll have another major tanking from an instance of a few malicious or stupid individuals that will set the ball rolling.