When I was 20 something I had a buddy who worked as a derivatives trader over at Deutsche Bank in the City of London. He was from the East End of London, but in his team he was surrounded by three Germans. As such he picked up a lot of their lingo, and it seemed to me that he’d perfected the guttural cursing of his fellow traders.
His favourite word — one he used for everything, from a bad chicken kebab to someone cutting him off on the road — was fotze. It is not particularly polite.
If my friend was trading today (maybe he is, I’ve lost touch), he’d most certainly be walking about yelling FOTZE!! Repeatedly, at the top of his lungs.
The 18 Minutes of Trading Chaos That Broke the Nickel Market
Yet the day before, the market had started to unravel, with prices rising by a stunning 66% to $48,078. Now, the traders watched with a mixture of horror and grim fascination as the price went vertical. Already at an all-time high by 5.42 a.m., it lurched higher in stomach-churning leaps, soaring $30,000 in a matter of minutes. Just after 6a.m., the price of nickel passed $100,000 per ton.
Further on in the article:
The head of one of London’s metals brokerage recalls feeling sick as he watched the moves, realizing what the spike in prices would mean for his company, the market, and the global metals industry. “Those 18 minutes will haunt me,”….
To which I’d say, too flipping bad. This is the game you’re playing pal, and if you cocked it up, you pay the price. That, after all, is what the free market is all about. Price discovery.
What now? There will be hedge funds suing. Definitely.
Hedge fund titan Clifford Asness leads trader furry after LME cancels $4billion in nickel trades.
In response to the outrage
The LME’s CEO, Matthew Chamberlain, told Bloomberg: “Had [the LME] allowed the price to spike up it would have been extremely difficult for some of our market participants.”
So what? We now bail out Chinese billionaires because it may have become “difficult for them”? GTFO!
Cliff is 100% correct.
Sadly, this is yet another nail in the coffin of Western-led hegemony in the financial markets..amongst other things too.
This is the beginning of the end of the LME. Mark my words.
Here is a live picture of the Western world today.
