'Blackout' trading binge: Drunken broker pushed oil price to 8 month high overnight

[dipsydoodle]

A drunken broker apparently shook the global oil market much like a major international incident. A report claimed a senior broker at PVM Oil Futures pushed oil prices $1.50 higher in a night of blacked-out trading.

­Steve Perkins spent $520 million of his client’s cash on oil futures contracts throughout the night during a “drunken blackout". The US Financial Services Authority made this discovery while investigating a mysterious oil price spike on June 30, 2009.

For two hours in the middle of the night, Perkins purchased 7 million barrels of crude, or 69%of the global market, bidding prices higher and higher and bringing them up to $73.05 from $71.40, CNBC reported.

The next morning, an admin clerk called Perkins to ask why he had bought so much crude during the night, but Perkins couldn’t recollect making the trades. Later, after he apparently sobered up and became terrified with what he had done, the broker sent a message to his boss claiming he had to stay at home to care for a sick relative.

https://rt.com/business/news/drunken-broker-oil-hike-212/

[orwell]

1. He probably made money...

...because he was brain dead drunk.

If he thought about it he would have lost his shirt.

A monkey with darts and all that...

[SheilaT]

2. I've seen this story, although I'm sure I haven't read all of the

details, but there's something truly off about it.

Maybe it's just that I can't imagine being in a blackout drunk state where I do complex tasks, such as this guy did. But I can't tell from the article if this guy went into his office in that state, or did all those trades from home.

Somehow, I'm wondering if he didn't just make a whole huge bunch of stupid trades and has used the "blackout drunk" excuse to keep him from appropriate punishment. Like being fired or giving up all the money he otherwise would have made on those trades.