Drunk Trader to Resume Career

Ever wake up in a Sunday-hangover stupor and wonder how in the world you burned through so much cash during the prior night’s bender? If you recall, Steve Perkins’ situation last year was something like that, only a smidgen more extreme.

The British PVM Oil Futures trader was awoken on June 30th of last year by a 7:45 AM phone call from the PVM admin clerk, inquiring curiously about the 7 million barrels of oil futures Perkins purchased for $520 million of the firm’s money in the middle of the previous night. Perkins, a broker at the time, was authorized to trade only the funds of his clients, not that of the firm. After a series of storytelling from Perkins, it was shortly discovered that his hasty oil trading activity was the result of a late night of boozing after a weekend-long golf getaway.

The unauthorized trading was so momentous, it moved the global oil price to an eight-month-high, jumping more than $1.50 a barrel in under half an hour at around 2 AM of Perkins’ debauched night. The consequence of the blacked-out trading-while-intoxicated binge: a $9,763,252 loss for PVM (only about $3m less than the firm’s annual revenue) and a $10,500 personal fine for the broker, not to mention a five-year trading ban in the UK.

The Daily Telegraph reported yesterday that the British rouge trader maybe re-entering the futures market via Geneva-based biofuels, energy, and agri brokerage services firm, Starsupply Renewables SA, who has hired Perkins, and the folks at the FSA are disturbed, to say the least.

The Swiss commodity firm, which is the world’s largest biofuels brokerage, brought  Perkins on just two days after his trading ban announcement by the FSA. Though banned in the UK, the FSA cannot forbid Perkins’ trading elsewhere in Europe. “The Swiss would have been made aware of this and it is up to them whether they continue giving him authorization to work,” an FSA spokesperson commented.

According to Reuters, under his new digs,

Perkins will not be engaged in any regulated market activities or trading, and will instead start off by helping to write training materials for graduate recruits.

Kevin McGeeney, CEO of Starsupply, is stated in the Reuters report saying “we believe Steven Perkins is a good man, who did a stupid thing.” Hopefully their speculation on this one is accurate.

And you thought drunk dialing was dangerous?

Short URL: http://www.traderdaily.com/?p=2517