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I'm frequently asked in the 
comments section of my videos 

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and by the university students 
that I teach how realistic are 

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some of the most popular Wall 
Street films. 

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I've worked as a trader for over
20 years, starting in the late 

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90s at some of the biggest 
investment banks and hedge 

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funds, and I spent about half of
my career in the United States 

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and half in London. 
On top of that, most of my 

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friends either work for or still
work for some of the top Wall 

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Street firms in areas like 
investment banking, trading and 

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securities analysis. 
So I know what it's like to work

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in the industry. 
I also know how it's changed 

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over the years and I've heard a 
lot of stories. 

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A friend of mine who doesn't 
work in finance put together a 

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playlist for me of some of the 
most famous scenes from some of 

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the biggest Wall Street films so
that I can react to them. 

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So first up we have The Wolf of 
Wall Street which is a really 

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fun film to watch, but I would 
argue that the title is a little

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bit miss leading as it wasn't a 
real Wall Street firm. 

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It was a penny stock brokerage 
running a pump and dump scheme 

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and the firm it's based on, 
Stratton Oakmont, was located in

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a strip mall in New Hyde Park, 
Long Island, which according to 

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Google Maps is a solid 2 hour 
commute from Wall Street during 

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rush hour. 
I guess The Wolf of a really bad

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commute to Wall Street wasn't a 
punchy title so they called the 

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film The Wolf of Wall Street 
instead. 

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I don't want to seem pedantic, 
but there are no actual wolves 

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in the film either. 
In many ways, the title of the 

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film is as much of a fraud as 
the guy that it was based on. 

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There are lots of crazy scenes 
in the film as it's about a guy 

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who ran penny stock scams and 
pleaded guilty to fraud and 

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other related crimes, spent 22 
months in prison and only paid 

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back $10 million of the $110 
million he was supposed to 

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return to the victims of his 
crimes. 

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It seems that he's now a 
motivational speaker, so I never

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worked at this type of a firm. 
For one thing, to commute to 

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Long Island wouldn't have 
appealed to me. 

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But it's probably a reasonably 
accurate description of what it 

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was like to work at a boiler 
room committing securities fraud

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in the 1990s with the dwarf 
tossing and things like that. 

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I have heard stories of that 
type of thing at some of the 

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interdealer broker firms where 
there's a certain amount of 

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hazing of new hires, hamburger 
eating contests between interns 

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and things like that. 
And some of those stories can be

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quite funny. 
But even at those firms, real 

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work does need to be done. 
About 10 years ago, a friend of 

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mine who was launching a hedge 
fund rented an office in one of 

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those short term office 
buildings in London, and he 

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noticed that one of the other 
offices on the same floor as him

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seemed to be occupied by a 
boiler room scam. 

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He told me that there was a lot 
of noise and rowdy behavior from

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down the hall, and he noticed 
that all of the employees had 

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printed out pictures of the 
watches that they hoped to one 

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day buy and tape them to their 
computer monitors as some sort 

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of motivation. 
He said that there were lots of 

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shiny suits, hair gel, and high 
fiving in the hallways. 

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I'm going to guess that it 
possibly feels a little bit 

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better scamming someone's 
grandparents out of their 

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retirement savings when you 
think of the nice watch that 

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you'll someday buy with the 
proceeds. 

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I don't exactly remember how the
story ended, but I think that 

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there was a police raid before 
any watches were bought. 

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There are lots of scenes with 
fast cars in the film too, and 

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some of that does ring true, but
usually the cars are taken 

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slightly better care of. 
If you look around the trading 

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floor, it's rare to see anyone 
much above the age of 40. 

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Traders and bankers are often 
young. 

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They spend more than 80 hours a 
week in the office, working 

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weekends and holidays. 
Often their base pay is not very

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high, or at least that was the 
case before the financial 

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crisis. 
And you would earn the lion's 

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share of your total compensation
as an annual bonus. 

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Young guys like fast cars. 
Buying would also signals that 

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you're doing well, so a lot of 
traders owned them. 

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A friend of mine knew a guy who 
had his Maserati towed during 

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the credit crunch and it was 
almost auctioned off by the 

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police as he had been too busy 
at work to collect it from the 

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car #. 
When the newspapers contacted 

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him, he pointed out that the 
fines were not actually that 

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expensive when compared to the 
cost of parking in central 

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London, which is a good point. 
Real life traders don't tend to 

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be anything like the guys in the
Wolf of Wall Street. 

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Most of them went to top 
university studying things like 

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mathematics, physics, 
engineering and that sort of 

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thing. 
They're usually very hard 

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working with a lot of 
discipline. 

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Many of the traders that I know 
play musical instruments, run 

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marathons, or compete in sports 
at a high level because they're 

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really focused people and 
they're usually good at most of 

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the things that they apply their
minds to. 

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This is partially because this 
is the type of person that the 

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good firms hire, but also 
because trading strategies in 

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this day and age are often quite
technical and are not guesswork,

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instinct, or illegal as they're 
often portrayed in films. 

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Traders are usually very smart 
and interesting. 

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They're often really funny too. 
They're usually very focused on 

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work and can be quite colorful. 
I think this is because when 

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someone has been successful for 
a while, they're often quite 

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confident and willing to express
their personalities. 

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It's usually salespeople rather 
than traders who are the party 

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animals in finance, as their job
involves winning and dining 

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clients, taking them to sports 
events, concerts and things like

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that. 
But they still will have to be 

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at their desk the next morning, 
so they find a way of being fun 

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while also being able to make it
into the office the next day. 

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One of the most famous scenes 
from The Wolf of Wall Street is 

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to sell me a pen scene. 
Sell me this pen. 

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It's it's a amazing pen to for 
professionals to Here's a little

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trick. 
If you're being interviewed for 

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a job that's not at a stationary
store and the interviewer is 

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asking you to sell them a pen, 
there's a really good chance 

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that if you get the job, you'll 
either end up in jail or 

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testifying against the person 
interviewing you. 

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While the wolf of a rough 
commute to Wall Street is a lot 

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of fun to watch, it doesn't tell
you much about the financial 

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industry. 
Next up we have The Big Short. 

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OK, so The Big Short is a much 
more realistic depiction of the 

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financial industry, probably 
because it was written by 

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Michael Lewis, who studied at 
the LSE and then worked as a 

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bond salesman at Salomon 
Brothers in New York and London.

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Salomon was one of the top five 
global investment banks at the 

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time, and after a few mergers, 
turned into the investment 

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banking division of Citigroup. 
Now you always have to make 

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things a bit more exciting for a
film, but The Big Short didn't 

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have to stretch too much as it 
was about the global financial 

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crisis, which was a really crazy
time to be working in the 

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industry. 
I think The Big Short does an 

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amazing job of explaining 
complicated financial products 

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like securitization to people 
who don't know much about 

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finance. 
Here's Margot. 

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Robbie in a bubble bath to 
explain. 

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Basically, Lewis Raineri's 
mortgage bonds were amazingly 

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profitable for the big banks. 
They made billions and billions 

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on their 2% fee they got for 
selling each of these bonds. 

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But then they started running 
out of mortgages to put in them.

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After all, there are only so 
many homes and so many people 

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with good enough jobs to buy 
them, right? 

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So the banks started filling 
these bonds with riskier and 

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riskier mortgages. 
Thank you Banjo. 

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That way they can keep that 
profit machine shining right by 

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the way these risky mortgages 
are called. 

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Subprime. 
The film also shows how people 

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who do real research can have an
edge in market. 

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We have to act now. 
How do you know the bonds are 

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worthless? 
Aren't they filled with 

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thousands of pages of mortgages?
I read them. 

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I read them. 
I read yeah. 

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No one reads them. 
Only the lawyers who put them 

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together read them. 
The Big Short is very accurate 

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in its depiction of how people 
in the industry dress, or at 

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least before the appearance of 
the fleece vest. 

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When I worked in banking, there 
would have been no polyester and

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no logos in the building. 
If you were given some corporate

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branded merch back then, you'd 
say thank you and then you'd 

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quickly throw it in the garbage 
where it belongs. 

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I don't really know what's gone 
wrong in recent years. 

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I quite like this clip from the 
film where CDO tranches are 

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explained using Jenga. 
And I won't lie, I kind of want 

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my own Bond rating Jenga set. 
One of the good things about The

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Big Short was that it didn't 
just look at financial markets 

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as numbers moving around on a 
screen, which many films do. 

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It instead showed how financial 
markets are a reflection of 

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what's actually happening in the
real world, and that these price

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changes affect real people. 
Stop it. 

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Stop. 
What? 

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Do you have any idea what you 
just did? 

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Oh come on, we just made the 
deal of our lifetimes. 

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We should celebrate. 
You just bet against the 

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American economy. 
Fuck yeah we did. 

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Fuck yeah. 
Which means? 

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Which means if we're right. 
If we're right, people lose 

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homes, people lose jobs, people 
lose retirement savings, people 

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lose pensions. 
You know what I hate about 

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fucking banking? 
It reduces people to numbers. 

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Here's a number. 
Every 1% unemployment goes up. 

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40,000 people died. 
Did you know that? 

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There can sometimes be something
a bit cartoonish about the 

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depiction of traders in films 
where they're shown as not 

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caring about anything, and 
that's not really true. 

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But prices do move to match 
reality, and if something bad is

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happening in the real world and 
you don't trade on it, it 

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doesn't prevent the bad thing 
from happening. 

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The price is still going to move
to reflect the reality, and if 

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you don't trade it, it just 
means that someone else makes a 

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profit instead of you. 
So I was right. 

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I took a rash of shit for two 
years. 

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But I was right and everyone was
wrong. 

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And yeah, I got a bonus check 
for it. 

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Sue me. 
You know, it's a lot of money. 

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I get it. 
I could feel you judging me. 

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That's palpable. 
But hey, I never said I was the 

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hero of this story. 
For me, the most realistic part 

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of the film was Credit Suisse 
being on the wrong side of the 

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trade, trying. 
To sell $200 million worth of 

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securities in a pub smells like 
sheep. 

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You could do this, I don't. 
Want to pressure you then? 

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But if you don't. 
Pull this off. 

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We lose everything. 
All right, let's see what Credit

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Suisse's appetite is. 
We miss your Credit Suisse. 

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OK, so Next up we have the 1987 
film Wall Street, which is a 

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classic of the genre. 
I think everyone in banking and 

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finance has seen this one. 
It came out about two months 

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after the 1987 crash and a few 
weeks before Ivan Boesky was 

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sentenced to prison for 
securities fraud. 

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So the film was very much of its
time. 

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Wall Street is the story of a 
young stockbroker called Bud Fox

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who's trying to get ahead on 
Wall Street in the 1980s and is 

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obsessed with a legendary 
corporate Raider called Gordon 

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Gekko. 
Bud gets a meeting with Gekko 

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and pitches him a bunch of 
stocks, leaving Gekko 

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unimpressed. 
Chart breakout on this one here.

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Whitewood Young Industries 
explosive earnings, a 30% 

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discount from book break cash 
flow, couple of 5% holders, the 

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dog very strong management. 
It's the dog, pal. 

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Then Bud gives him inside 
information about the airline 

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company where his father works. 
Gecko buys the stock, makes 

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money and becomes one of Bud's 
clients. 

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But then he gets drawn into 
Gecko's world of inside trading 

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and stock manipulation. 
Insider trading is, of course, 

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illegal, and regulators are 
always on the lookout for it. 

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Back in 2009, there was a big 
scandal centered around Raj Raj 

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Antaram and his fund Galleon 
Group, which implicated traders 

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at other big Wall Street firms 
too. 

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According to the writers, Gecko 
wasn't based on any single 

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person, but was instead inspired
by a number of people like Carl 

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Icahn, Ivan Boesky and Michael 
Ovitz. 

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The famous Gecko quote Greed, 
for lack of a better word, is 

227
00:13:02,600 --> 00:13:06,440
good, echoed a speech Ivan 
Boesky had given at Berkeley a 

228
00:13:06,440 --> 00:13:10,440
few years earlier where he had 
said I think greed is healthy. 

229
00:13:10,520 --> 00:13:13,840
You can be greedy and still feel
good about yourself. 

230
00:13:14,440 --> 00:13:17,560
The film dips into the world of 
corporate rating, where 

231
00:13:17,560 --> 00:13:21,120
companies are bought and assets 
are stripped and sold, which 

232
00:13:21,120 --> 00:13:24,560
often leads to job losses. 
This was a big deal in the 

233
00:13:24,560 --> 00:13:28,760
1980s, and the film shows the 
human cost of the financial 

234
00:13:28,760 --> 00:13:31,840
decisions made by corporate 
Raiders like Gordon Gekko. 

235
00:13:32,520 --> 00:13:36,840
In the 1960s, there had been a 
trend in corporate America where

236
00:13:36,840 --> 00:13:40,880
the CEOs of large growth 
companies were buying up smaller

237
00:13:40,880 --> 00:13:44,920
companies, often in totally 
different industries, building 

238
00:13:44,920 --> 00:13:47,560
what were known as diversified 
conglomerates. 

239
00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:52,280
The trick was for a high PE 
company to buy up companies with

240
00:13:52,280 --> 00:13:56,280
low growth but solid earnings 
and a much lower price earnings 

241
00:13:56,280 --> 00:13:59,040
ratio. 
Earnings per share would then go

242
00:13:59,040 --> 00:14:02,200
up, and for a short while 
investors didn't appear to 

243
00:14:02,200 --> 00:14:06,400
notice that growth was slower 
and that on top of that, 

244
00:14:06,520 --> 00:14:09,640
management wasn't very good at 
managing a collection of 

245
00:14:09,640 --> 00:14:13,920
unrelated businesses. 
There are examples like CBS, the

246
00:14:13,920 --> 00:14:17,840
broadcasting company, buying up 
Fender musical instruments and 

247
00:14:17,840 --> 00:14:22,080
mismanaging it. 
By the 1980s, corporate Raiders 

248
00:14:22,080 --> 00:14:25,880
started taking control of these 
inefficient conglomerates and 

249
00:14:25,880 --> 00:14:29,320
breaking them up so that the 
individual businesses could be 

250
00:14:29,320 --> 00:14:32,080
run properly. 
This was good for economic 

251
00:14:32,080 --> 00:14:35,920
efficiency but bad for workers 
at these firms and the job 

252
00:14:35,920 --> 00:14:39,640
losses and disruption made a lot
of people angry at the time. 

253
00:14:40,280 --> 00:14:44,160
A fun Side Story is that the 
look on Wall Street at the time 

254
00:14:44,320 --> 00:14:46,800
would have been much more 
conservative than the way that 

255
00:14:46,800 --> 00:14:50,760
Gordon Gekko dressed in the film
with his contrast color shirts, 

256
00:14:50,760 --> 00:14:54,320
suspenders, Cartier watch and 
peak lapel suits. 

257
00:14:54,560 --> 00:14:58,240
Apparently Alan Flosser who 
owned a custom and made to 

258
00:14:58,240 --> 00:15:01,960
Measure Suit store in New York 
came up with the look for the 

259
00:15:01,960 --> 00:15:05,960
Gordon Gekko character which 
Michael Douglas loved and after 

260
00:15:05,960 --> 00:15:09,880
the film came out, Wall Street 
guys started dressing like 

261
00:15:09,880 --> 00:15:13,040
Gordon Gecko. 
So the film inspired the Wall 

262
00:15:13,040 --> 00:15:16,040
Street look of the late 80s 
rather than Wall Street 

263
00:15:16,040 --> 00:15:19,800
inspiring to look at the film. 
The way that people dress at 

264
00:15:19,800 --> 00:15:23,280
work has changed quite a bit 
over time and one of my first 

265
00:15:23,280 --> 00:15:27,280
jobs in the late 90's the bank I
worked for announced a casual 

266
00:15:27,280 --> 00:15:30,960
Friday's policy and so that 
Friday I wore a Sport coat to 

267
00:15:30,960 --> 00:15:34,680
work without a tie. 
I was a bit unlucky that day as 

268
00:15:34,680 --> 00:15:38,440
the CEO walked by my desk that 
morning to go into my boss's 

269
00:15:38,440 --> 00:15:41,920
office and I did notice him 
giving me a funny look as he 

270
00:15:41,920 --> 00:15:44,800
passed my desk. 
A few minutes later, while the 

271
00:15:44,800 --> 00:15:48,360
CEO was still in the office, an 
e-mail was sent to the whole 

272
00:15:48,360 --> 00:15:51,080
floor. 
There was a loud Ding from every

273
00:15:51,080 --> 00:15:54,600
computer because back then 
everyone had their notifications

274
00:15:54,600 --> 00:15:58,200
turned on and would read their 
emails immediately because 

275
00:15:58,200 --> 00:16:01,000
e-mail was somewhat new and we 
didn't get that many of them. 

276
00:16:01,400 --> 00:16:04,680
The e-mail said that all men 
should be wearing ties in the 

277
00:16:04,680 --> 00:16:07,520
office no matter what day of the
week it is. 

278
00:16:07,880 --> 00:16:11,760
A friend of mine raced over to 
my desk and threw me a tie so 

279
00:16:11,760 --> 00:16:15,080
that I could put it on before 
the CEO came out at the office. 

280
00:16:15,440 --> 00:16:18,640
I've never been seen without a 
tie ever since. 

281
00:16:18,640 --> 00:16:22,280
In fact, I think it's wise to 
keep a spare one on hand just in

282
00:16:22,280 --> 00:16:25,400
case of emergency. 
I can't really tell you how 

283
00:16:25,400 --> 00:16:29,800
accurate the film was, as I was 
a child when it came out in 1987

284
00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:32,200
and I never worked in leveraged 
buyouts. 

285
00:16:32,400 --> 00:16:36,000
It's worth noting that Oliver 
Stone expected audiences to 

286
00:16:36,000 --> 00:16:39,160
think of Gordon Gekko as the 
villain in the film. 

287
00:16:39,400 --> 00:16:43,200
He was supposed to represent the
excesses and ethical failings of

288
00:16:43,200 --> 00:16:46,440
the financial world. 
Stone apparently couldn't 

289
00:16:46,440 --> 00:16:50,440
understand how after the film 
came out, people would tell him 

290
00:16:50,600 --> 00:16:53,680
that they loved the film and 
that Gekko had inspired them to 

291
00:16:53,680 --> 00:16:58,640
pursue careers in finance. 
OK, so Next up we have American 

292
00:16:58,640 --> 00:17:02,360
Psycho, which came out in 2000 
and was about an investment 

293
00:17:02,360 --> 00:17:06,520
banker named Patrick Bateman who
leads a double life as a serial 

294
00:17:06,520 --> 00:17:09,280
killer. 
But that's by no means the worst

295
00:17:09,280 --> 00:17:11,280
of it. 
In one of the most sadistic 

296
00:17:11,280 --> 00:17:15,760
scenes in movie history, Bateman
hires 2 prostitutes, brings them

297
00:17:15,760 --> 00:17:19,839
back to his apartment and forces
them to listen to Phil Collins 

298
00:17:19,839 --> 00:17:22,680
music. 
Do you like Phil Collins before 

299
00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:26,280
paying them to leave? 
I doubt that I'm the only person

300
00:17:26,280 --> 00:17:28,640
who had to block his ears during
that scene. 

301
00:17:29,080 --> 00:17:32,480
So does the film accurately 
depict the life of a New York 

302
00:17:32,480 --> 00:17:35,680
investment banker? 
Not really, no. 

303
00:17:35,960 --> 00:17:39,360
One of the most famous scenes in
the film, which was supposed to 

304
00:17:39,360 --> 00:17:43,400
highlight the superficiality of 
Bateman and his colleagues, was 

305
00:17:43,400 --> 00:17:46,640
the scene where they compare 
their almost identical business 

306
00:17:46,640 --> 00:17:50,160
cards, getting jealous about the
different paper quality and 

307
00:17:50,160 --> 00:17:53,240
typefaces. 
There were quite a few problems 

308
00:17:53,520 --> 00:17:56,560
that made this scene entirely 
unrealistic. 

309
00:17:56,880 --> 00:18:00,840
Firstly, investment banks 
provide employees with business 

310
00:18:00,840 --> 00:18:03,120
cards. 
People don't get their own cards

311
00:18:03,120 --> 00:18:07,840
printed up at Staples, but if we
skip over that, the scene still 

312
00:18:07,840 --> 00:18:10,960
doesn't work. 
Junior investment bankers spent 

313
00:18:10,960 --> 00:18:14,480
their first year or two putting 
together client presentations, 

314
00:18:14,640 --> 00:18:18,240
and their bosses go through the 
presentations insisting that 

315
00:18:18,240 --> 00:18:21,720
they're absolutely perfect. 
There'll be no grammar errors, 

316
00:18:21,720 --> 00:18:25,040
no commas out of place. 
Everything has to be perfect 

317
00:18:25,040 --> 00:18:29,360
before a client sees it. 
Bateman's card, the first one 

318
00:18:29,360 --> 00:18:32,720
shown, is not correctly 
centered, which no self 

319
00:18:32,720 --> 00:18:34,920
respecting investment banker 
would miss. 

320
00:18:35,280 --> 00:18:38,520
There should be a space after 
the ampersand in Pearce and 

321
00:18:38,520 --> 00:18:41,680
Pearce and the word acquisitions
is misspelled. 

322
00:18:42,040 --> 00:18:45,360
I'm sure you agree with me that 
this is wholly unacceptable. 

323
00:18:45,880 --> 00:18:49,840
David Van Patten's card is a bit
better, but once again, not 

324
00:18:49,840 --> 00:18:52,840
correctly centered. 
And the word acquisitions is 

325
00:18:52,840 --> 00:18:55,000
once again misspelled on that 
one. 

326
00:18:55,240 --> 00:18:57,400
It's misspelled on all of the 
cards. 

327
00:18:57,680 --> 00:19:00,960
I don't really know what to tell
you, but it's clear to me that 

328
00:19:00,960 --> 00:19:04,160
Pearson Pierce is not a top tier
firm. 

329
00:19:04,640 --> 00:19:08,200
I work on Wall Street and 
Pearson Pierce. 

330
00:19:08,880 --> 00:19:12,920
Have you heard of it? 
No. 

331
00:19:13,800 --> 00:19:16,760
No, not really. 
All of these clowns should be 

332
00:19:16,760 --> 00:19:20,760
fired, in my opinion. 
The nail gun scene, you might be

333
00:19:20,760 --> 00:19:24,000
surprised to know, is actually 
reasonably accurate. 

334
00:19:24,200 --> 00:19:27,880
In the film, Bateman is a serial
killer, but he clearly knows 

335
00:19:27,880 --> 00:19:31,200
nothing about construction. 
His nail gun doesn't appear to 

336
00:19:31,200 --> 00:19:34,160
be hooked up to an air hose, so 
it won't work. 

337
00:19:34,320 --> 00:19:37,520
And even if it was, he would 
lose the element of surprise 

338
00:19:37,520 --> 00:19:41,440
when the air compressor kicked 
in, alerting his secretary of 

339
00:19:41,440 --> 00:19:44,560
what's about to happen. 
I know you're thinking that he 

340
00:19:44,560 --> 00:19:47,160
should have bought a battery 
three powered nail gun, but they

341
00:19:47,160 --> 00:19:49,320
weren't actually available back 
then. 

342
00:19:49,680 --> 00:19:53,600
Bateman, if he's going to be 
taken seriously, should get a 10

343
00:19:53,600 --> 00:19:57,160
gallon compressor installed in 
his living room, charge it up 

344
00:19:57,160 --> 00:20:01,040
before his guests arrive, and he
should probably disable their 

345
00:20:01,040 --> 00:20:05,160
safety on the nail gun too. 
Now, the reason I say that the 

346
00:20:05,160 --> 00:20:08,680
scene is somewhat accurate is 
that we once had a Patrick 

347
00:20:08,680 --> 00:20:12,480
Bateman like IT guy at one of 
the firms that I worked at who 

348
00:20:12,480 --> 00:20:16,280
ordered a nail gun online and it
was delivered to his desk when 

349
00:20:16,280 --> 00:20:18,400
he had stepped away for lunch 
one day. 

350
00:20:18,760 --> 00:20:22,080
One of my colleagues at the time
signed for it, and when the guy 

351
00:20:22,080 --> 00:20:25,440
arrived back at the desk, he was
asked what it was for. 

352
00:20:25,760 --> 00:20:29,640
We'd all seen the film. 
He told us that he had bought it

353
00:20:29,680 --> 00:20:32,920
so that he could assemble some 
IKEA furniture at home. 

354
00:20:33,440 --> 00:20:36,520
And there are two things pretty 
much everyone knows about IKEA 

355
00:20:36,520 --> 00:20:38,960
furniture. 
You don't assemble it with a 

356
00:20:38,960 --> 00:20:42,120
nail gun, and bankers don't shop
at IKEA. 

357
00:20:42,920 --> 00:20:46,400
Back then, I used to ride a 
motorcycle to work, and I 

358
00:20:46,400 --> 00:20:49,640
decided that it was prudent to 
wear my helmet at the desk for 

359
00:20:49,640 --> 00:20:53,240
the rest of the day until the 
nail gun left the building. 

360
00:20:53,920 --> 00:20:57,200
God knows what that nail gun was
eventually used for. 

361
00:20:58,080 --> 00:21:01,920
OK, so the last film on the list
is Rogue Trader, which came out 

362
00:21:01,920 --> 00:21:06,480
in 1998 and was based on Nick 
Leeson's autobiography. 

363
00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:10,120
Leeson worked his way up from a 
back office role at Bering's 

364
00:21:10,120 --> 00:21:14,520
bank in the 1990s and was 
eventually sent to Singapore to 

365
00:21:14,520 --> 00:21:18,240
head up Bering's trading 
operation on the Symex exchange.

366
00:21:18,520 --> 00:21:21,840
The film follows Leeson's rise 
and the antics he and his 

367
00:21:21,840 --> 00:21:24,920
friends got up to when they 
start making a lot of money. 

368
00:21:25,560 --> 00:21:29,560
Whenever Leeson made a trading 
error, he hid his positions in a

369
00:21:29,560 --> 00:21:33,520
secret errors account, often 
doubling down on losses and 

370
00:21:33,520 --> 00:21:36,560
exiting the positions when they 
got back to break even. 

371
00:21:36,960 --> 00:21:40,160
He got away with this for quite 
a while, but over time the 

372
00:21:40,160 --> 00:21:43,320
positions hidden in the errors 
account grew and grew. 

373
00:21:43,600 --> 00:21:48,840
So what are you going to do? 
Well, I just have to keep buying

374
00:21:48,840 --> 00:21:50,840
futures like the going out of 
style to support the market. 

375
00:21:51,160 --> 00:21:54,680
When the Kobe earthquake caused 
a huge stock market sell off in 

376
00:21:54,680 --> 00:21:59,560
1995, Leesons error accounts 
suffered losses of over £800 

377
00:21:59,560 --> 00:22:05,880
million or $1.3 billion. 
Nick did what any sensible rogue

378
00:22:05,880 --> 00:22:09,840
trader would do in his position.
He left a post it note on his 

379
00:22:09,840 --> 00:22:12,640
desk saying sorry and he fled 
the country. 

380
00:22:12,960 --> 00:22:16,360
He later said that he didn't 
understand the severity of his 

381
00:22:16,360 --> 00:22:19,920
losses until he read in the 
newspaper the next day that 

382
00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:23,360
Bearings had gone bankrupt. 
He was arrested at the airport 

383
00:22:23,360 --> 00:22:27,560
in Germany, got extradited back 
to Singapore and was sentenced 

384
00:22:27,560 --> 00:22:31,200
to 6 1/2 years in jail. 
When he was released from 

385
00:22:31,200 --> 00:22:35,360
prison, he managed a football 
team for a while and today he is

386
00:22:35,440 --> 00:22:39,920
a motivational speaker. 
Is this movie realistic? 

387
00:22:40,400 --> 00:22:43,240
It is. 
It might be a bit too realistic 

388
00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:46,680
as this type of mistake has 
happened a number of times since

389
00:22:46,680 --> 00:22:50,000
the film came out and the losses
have only gotten bigger over 

390
00:22:50,000 --> 00:22:52,360
time. 
A year after the collapse of 

391
00:22:52,360 --> 00:22:57,320
bearings, there was a $2.6 
billion loss at Sumitomo Queco. 

392
00:22:57,320 --> 00:23:03,240
Altobole lost $2.3 billion at 
UBS in 2011, and the biggest 

393
00:23:03,240 --> 00:23:09,360
loss of all was Jerome Kerrviel,
who lost $6.3 billion in 2007. 

394
00:23:09,760 --> 00:23:14,800
Kerrviel actually became the 
world's poorest man in 2008 when

395
00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:18,760
a French court ruled that he had
to pay back the full $6.3 

396
00:23:18,760 --> 00:23:23,480
billion that he had lost. 
I guess Sam Bankman freed outdid

397
00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:28,920
Jerome Curvial by losing $11 
billion in crypto in 2022, but 

398
00:23:28,920 --> 00:23:32,280
FTX wasn't a bank and there's no
movie yet. 

399
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:34,480
Thanks for tuning into the 
podcast. 

400
00:23:34,640 --> 00:23:38,360
Make sure you hit the subscribe 
button and the bell icon too so 

401
00:23:38,360 --> 00:23:41,920
that you're notified whenever a 
new podcast is released. 

402
00:23:42,080 --> 00:23:44,400
Have a great day and talk to you
again soon. 

403
00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:49,200
Bye. 
Bald. 

404
00:23:49,280 --> 00:23:51,360
The bald from the eyebrows down.
Wow. 

405
00:23:51,560 --> 00:23:52,560
Nothing. 
Not a stitch. 

406
00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:54,520
It's like lasers. 
Wow, New world. 

407
00:23:54,520 --> 00:23:57,120
See, I've heard that too.