On 6 February 2008, Mr Redmond took an extended lunch break between 13.14 and 16.41. He drank alcohol over lunch and it appears that this affected his behaviour on his return to the office, although he was not visibly drunk, he was.
We do rather love the turn of phrase they use at the FSA. Not visibly drunk.
The regulator has today passed judgment on David Redmond, the Morgan Stanley commodities trader who laid on a rather serious post-prandial bet one afternoon last February.
The story continues…
Between 17.04 and 19.37 on 6 February 2008…
…[after his lunch]…
…Mr Redmond sold 24,868 lots and bought 19,493 lots of WTI Futures on the ICE web-based trading platform, WebICE. His trading represented over 30% of the total lots of WTI Futures traded on ICE on 6 February 2008. His short position reached 8,900 lots at 18.36. By 19.37, Mr Redmond had a substantial net short position of 5,395 lots.
The FSA notes that Redmond then appeared to have “panicked” when he sobered up a bit realised the extent of his limit-breaching short position. A couple of hours of frenzied trading then ensued (one trade every 7.5 seconds on average, according to the Times) through which Redmond tried to limit his position - or else conceal it.
So: where did he go to lunch?
