Bonuses at bankrupt VDM
Former option traders for Curvalue/VDM pocket bonuses over the trading year of 2009.
The bankrupt trading firm Van der Moolen will start paying significant bonuses to their former option market makers in Amsterdam. These former Curvalue traders are rewarded for their profits in 2009. I always figured a bankrupt firm won’t pay out anything anymore – as it’s usually a little short on cash. When a golden treasure is found in the basement, there will be a long queue of companies and people waiting for payment.
Not this time. After the bankruptcy, Van der Moolen received 32 million EUR from a tax ruling. There are dozens of creditors at the door, but right behind the fee for the liquidators themselves are the market makers demanding their bonus. It may be hard to understand, but I understood this correct due to the nature of their labour-contracts. They are the only former traders from the company getting bonuses over 2009.
It wasn’t a terrific year for trading, but in eight months the traders earned a result of 4 million euro. In midst of a sinking ship, with ongoing conflicts with management on bonus agreements and traders leaving to start their own firm – that’s a significant amount. It contributed a net profit of 1,5 million to the company’s after all costs – which seems okay comparing it with Optiver’s 6 million profit over a full year in an ongoing operation. I understood the bonus deal at Curvalue/VDM was 40% of the nett result, but with salaries being paid out from this bonus pool. After subtracting all costs including salaries, an estimate of 400.000 euro was left for the group of option traders. It’s petty cash for a whole group, but keep in mind the circumstances.
However, there was a slight problem. While the total bonus amount of 400k was clear, dividing the money among 25 traders is a whole other ball game. Each trader has the right to start legal procedures trying to obtain a bigger share of the bonuspie, blocking payment to the rest for years. In a extraordinary version of the classic prisoners dilemma, all individual traders had to agree on their cut. Somehow they managed to agree, everyone from the highest bonus (over 100k) to the lowest (zero) agreed and on the division.
Socialists and shareholders will love it, greedy derivatives traders who have gotten rich in the past years by pocketing a huge bonus every year will receive a little additional cash. On the other hand, these option traders contributed around 1,5 million of clean profit to the company and they have a bonus deal on paper. You can’t really blame them for the board burning the balance sheet with expensive expeditions.
The court in Amsterdam has approved the preferred status of the bonuses last thursday.
So; no there was no need to go bankrupt: they could’ve sold this division…
SLECHTBERT: Oh no! I deserve much more!
The DOKTOR also wants his money!!!!!!!!
i`m Frank!!!!
Hi Frank! How are you doing?
A. Paardekooper (You can call me Pfannekuchen!)
There won’t be any bonus for the DOKTOR … Richard *personally* saw to it that no 2008/2009 bonus would be awarded to the DOKTOR because of his poor handling of VOW. One of a few good calls made by RDD.
I´m still fine.Doing nothing and collecting bonus for being Frank!
Last man standing at VDM
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.
The world’s BEST traders worked at Curvalue.
Hey Frank!
I admire you for that. Actually, can’t tell you what I’m doing. Don’t really know it myself… heheh
A.P.
Dutch Mafia hard at work!
Eggi,Anal,RDD,Hans,Frank,Schwarz,Pfannekuchen,the bitch,Linda,Schaink etc.!
Morning Egbert!
I thought amsterdamtrader.com was banned from our computers!? Well, I am sitting in my old office and yet it works!
Thank you so much.
re: SLECHTBERT: Oh no! I deserve much more!
so now i know what egbert has been upto since alphabay, fking vdm shareholder even after eating up another of vdm’s direct descedent ..
did he get the 100k bonus off this ?
Management (Egbert) doesn’t get bonus – only traders are involved here
What the f*%$? I do NOT get bonus? But all these dumb traders earned, they learned it from me (and let’s not forget Onno, my fashion buddy)!
so 400k divided bij 25
who got more, and who got less then 16k???
haha, these comments make me laugh..
Egbert and Onno they were kind of a dream team…
Will we ever see them again back together in action?
I left VDM in 2006. Who is DOKTOR?
It is Doktor Frank N., the trader who gambled away 5 million EUR in 2008 in VW. Very much appreciated by his colleagues in Switzerland. Frank was denied any bonus although he tried to make his colleagues at the Eurex desk pay even more than they had to pay already. Frank not only sunk all the P&L he had accumulated during the bonanza year 2008 but in the end even ended up at a loss because he was simply incapable of cutting his losses.
Herr Doctor rerum naturialum F. N. … not to be confused with the other Frank (Van Der Linden, ex-Global Equities Trading).
He had a lousy excuse for everything that went wrong. When he went on holiday we often had to adjust the vol in his sheets signficantly to bring them back in line with the market and then he gave us shit that it cost money after he returned from his holiday. He came in at seconds to 900 every morning starting to trade completely unprepared i.e. did not know about any macro or single-stock event. In the case of VW he did not know AT ALL what hit him in the opening auction on Monday morning. He was a ticking time bomb and most probably continues to be.
5.34pm
ben jij dat Duif ???
@ 7:25pm
man, that sort of behaviour sh*ts me. he went to liquid capital right? their risk managers are nothing like at optiver and imc; where they will sit at teh end of the desk and watch every trade going thru and asking u wat ur doing etc. they will look at a position once a week and everyone will have an excuse as to the position they have on, no matter how poor. that frank n will kill liquid. and why does he have to refer to himself as doctor…must be pretty insecure.
Swiss or German operations have nothing to do with this story. Only the Amsterdam based traders will receive bonus over 2009.
yeh at liquid head of single stocks…not sure if he was the trader , but no wonder they dropped 12m eur on bp if that bloke was rolling in unaware of stock specific events…
liquid have a tendency to hire ex academia for jobs they shouldn’t be doing. head of stocks, head of training….
to 10:33 pm
The Swiss and German parts of VDM did not operate under the Curvalue name, so indeed this story does not apply to them (as is also obvious looking at the quoted P/L). The same is true for some VDM traders in Amsterdam. Your conclusion (and Jack’s statement) that no bonuses will be paid elsewhere seems hasty. Especially in light of the fact that they were profitable and similar rules apply to them. In the past Richard’s henchmen Egbert, Onno and Marco got their “management bonuses” from Curvalue, what about 2009??? Or did Marco already get his as part of his 300k golden handshake (a gift from Peter Zwart, arranged shortly before the VDM bankruptcy when Aespen was spun off. Peter Zwart in return was given a supervisory function at Aespen. “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”.)
Compliments to the traders for agreeing to divide the bonuses.
Yeah, especially the one who decided that his fair share equalled zero. Probably just couldn’t be bothered…
yah, its hard to divide .. ESX wud be most profitable .. that doesnt mean the trader there gets the bonus based on his proportianted P&L .. Optiver does the bonus division in a effective way .. dont know if there is even better method to it ..
what is ESX and why would that be most profitable?
what is the optiver method?
To dr. Corsten: How’s Miss dehlia & Co. doing?
LOL @1:12 pm
What is IMC’s method?
Does IMC and Optiver make profit after costs this year ?
ESX is short for eurostoxx 50 .. thats the most traded and consequently potentially most profitable/competitive/crowded index ..
Re: LOL @1:12 pm
u cud have answered the Q rather than indicating to us the size of ur enormously teeny tiny weener ..
Optiver doesnt distinguish on ur P&L .. it tries to rate u from 1 to 5 on ur team/company contribution .. nothing innovative and pretty standard everywhere these days.. but of course its subjective and based on whim of appraising manager .. but its the best way really, otherwise everyone wud want to be on ESX
@2:25 pm you could try using English instead of your moron-lingo.
guys – how do the big firms work out their bonus pools and subsequently work out distribution? As a hard % of profit / revenue / some other metric or on a totally discretionary basis?
optiver imc tibra susq- discretionary. most of the others %ge of pnl
Curvalue used to be a fixed % of the net profit for the total bonus pool, but the dividing it among the trades was discretionary.
yes, optiver is discretionary, problem is most of the bonuses are being taken by management who no longer trade
re: 7:23am
that is always the case 🙂
What kind of percentages(pnl) are we talking about?
At IMC the % of profits that went into the bonus pool varied between 45-55%, depending on the targets (absolute value of profits) that were reached. The distribution of the bonus pool was discretionary, which meant that the managers got their fair share and after that nothing was left.
> most of the bonuses are being taken by management
Bij All Options werden de bonussen VEEL eerlijker verdeeld 😉
Management are dead weight.
so how much actually goes to traders at imc then? ive heard 30% at liquid 40% at optiver and even more at tibra. heaps of the smaller shops like kyte will give you up to half too
Do you prefer 30% of 10 mil or 50% of 1 mil?
I’ll take 0% of -12m and expect a management bonus thank you very much.
Then I would even prefer 10% of 100 mil if you are so kind to ask me. Ask the ex-ESX traders from Liquid whether they got 30% on their enormous P&L in 2008 or whether they rather got 3%….
I would prefer 0.1% of all of the assets in the universe.
http://www.theinvestorcity.com/vig.php?pageid=02&a=A03010004T01T004
think i have been doing it wrong up to now…..
They got way more than 3%
what is this enormous p&l we are talking about?
As they were so content with their bonus payments at Liquid (in absolute terms and/or relative to their P&L contribution) they left. This makes a lot of sense. There is a reason why Liquid is called the “revolving door”.
They left because after their bonus payments they had enough capital to start out on their own. Same reason why a lot of other star traders go onto form their own hedge funds, firms etc. Why don’t you find some other channel to vent your frustrations…
this channel is just prrrrrima 😉
Sounds like bitterness to me, rejected from Liquid or fired perhaps?
It is about exposing crappy bonus deals – not more and not less. I had nothing to say about AO but certainly appreciated the memo and the comments about AO although, of course, every reader here has to make his own decision about what sounds true and what does not. But let´s get back to Liquid´s bad bonus deal. I have to admit that I do not know the current bonus deal and things might have changed (to the better from a performing trader´s perspective). So, dear Liquid guys, please elaborate on how much of the net result goes into the traders´bonus pool (I do not care about the money wasted on management) and how is it disbrituted amongst the traders (based solely on the respective trader´s P&L or discretionary or something in between with a distribution of x% based on P&L and 100%-x% discretionary?). Thank you in advance for providing facts to potential future applicants.
Liquid company culture is not as crap as the ones mentioned above.
Their traders have better things to do than come on this site and gossip.
THEY ACTUALLY HAVE A LIFE
You are somehow dodging the question.
Do those traders also have boni worthwhile mentioning or only a life?
They hired DOKTOR to head up their single stock options trading .. somehow that doesnt sound or smell right .. its slightly hard to go long on them based just on this …
liquid has the worst culture by far. hire and fire, a complete revolving door. ppl were just waiting to get the tap on the shoulder last year. but hey, the siepmans are good catholics and give to charity, so that must make them feel better about the shtty way they treat people…
Those traders have a better bonus than most of the companies mentioned. I heard they pay about 35%.
So if those guys (now Principal Trading) made 100 M, they probably walked with 35 M. And I don’t think they would care about a 500k overhead either.
Interesting question then considering anonymous October 14th, 2010 at 12:32 pm: Are there any successful spin offs from any of the MMs? IMC, AO, Optiver (->Tibra) etc.
Would indicate that they got paid decent bonusses at old companies and they are not stupid.
liquids a starting ground to move on to better things…nothing more. u can’t trust those guys one bit.
@anonymous October 14th, 2010 at 11:20 pm
did u sink 12 Mio in BP. That cud explain your frustration about having been fired
Funny… I found this website by accident last week and have been reading all the comments.
I think most of you should keep posting without a name since you are clearly uninformed children who work for crap (sorry I mean cheap) firms.
In the US you would not survive
wow, that’s bold of you to put ur name on it nate. ur really putting urself out there….douchebag
who cares? market making is dead anyway.
@ October 14th, 2010 at 11:34 pm:
From what I hear Chris threw in an additional 28 million for the EuroStoxx desk because he was so pleased with their results and he genuinely felt they deserved a bigger bonus. The total pay-out for the Elite guys was therefore 63 million. Then they stabbed him in the back and walked out on Liquid! Don’t believe the “3 percent” stories. Liquid pays extremely well. At the end of the day, there is hardly anything left for Chris and Gregg.
Move on to better things? Like what? Optiver? Rofl
Isn’t Optiver the best trading house at present?
if optiver is such a great trading house at the moment, why are so many partners and senior traders farking off, accompanied with the rumours of a very toxic culture and atmosphere?
what do you mean by toxic culture at Optiver?
Market making is absolutely not daed !
toxic culture specifically in asia – new management, massive turnover of the senior traders over the last 2 years – just what i am hearing (from multiple sources)
Gentlemen – can we please go back to insulting the DOKTOR instead of me and my brother?
Amen to that (no pun intended)
Stop pretending you r the Siepmanns, its embarrassing
Don’t be so sure. We know Chris reads this blog and he called the doktor into his office this morning. Ou la la.
Non sense. Chris is not in today…
He left early to post on this blog from home. As you know, use of this blog is not allowed on LCM premises. That applies to you as well 12:46pm!
who is ‘fashion victim’ ?
Dan doe ik het veel beter. Ooit, toen omkoping, voorkennis, chantage en abonnementen op bordelen nog legaal was en toezicht op aandelenhandel defacto niet bestond (jaren ’70 en ’80) heb ik veel geld bijeengeruift. Daar hoef je echt de MULO niet voor afgemaakt te hebben; gezonde Cuypiaanse handelsgeest was genoeg. Daarna kwamen de jaren ’90… en die rare typemachines… hoe heet het; computers. Ook begonnen toezichthouders zich voorzichtig te organiseren. Nou, ik heb toen een kleine 50 miljoen kunnen pakken en ben met pensioen gegaan. Had ik dat maar zo gehouden, zeg. Ik weet niet wat me overkwam; ik bedacht ‘entrepreneur’ te worden; ik dacht dat ik kon ondernemen. Ja, soms ging het goed; bij het zinkende schip Van der Moolen heb ik nog drie, vier miljoen bijeen kunnen ‘verdienen’ als ‘ondernemer’ in de jaren 2007 – 2009 maar eigenlijk stroomde het geld er nog harder uit naar failliete ideeën. Ik was de kampioen in geld steken in de meest onhandige ondernemingen; van de muziekwereld tot aan nieuwe ‘handels ideeën’; ik kon er geen genoeg van krijgen. Ondertussen ben ik nog herstellende van een zware knieoperatie, kleine persoonlijke noot.
Inmiddels heb ik al mijn onroerend goed (en ook dat van mijn naaste familie) zwaar verpand en leef ik, ondanks een tonnetje of drie, vier aan inkomsten, zwaar op de pof. Het geld is bijna op en ik blijf maar denken dat ik een ondernemer ben. Ik weet niet of ik dit nog lang vol houd; mijn vrouw en mijn twee zoons, ik blijf ze maar sponsoren en eigenlijk heb ik geen rooie cent meer. Gelukkig is er altijd nog dat laatste idee. Dat gaat me echt geld opleveren. Heus. Nog even wat geld bijeen lenen en dan ben ik straks weer boven jan. nou, de groeten vanuit Monaco en ja, hier regent het ook. K.H.
Hans, kan je niet slapen? Last van je knie? Sterkte.
Hans, you can not sleep? Bothered by knee? Strength.
Dutch to English translation
Toxic Culture(as told by a young trader left Optiver in middle of 2010): Traders making money not rewarded as much as they should be; cocksuckers & golden girls : overpaid for doing nothing on their desks.
When good traders leave, their positions are replaced by next “senior” guy even if that stupid doesnt know anything.
The result is that no one wants to trade anymore. Everyone is eyeing management position and hence sitting on big bonuses for doing nothing in company. I suspect how long this model is going to work. Though, most of you might me knowing that they had pretty good years of 2008 and 2009
Compliance, Risk, support functions are paid quite high relatively.. their pay shud reflect the new realities .. otherwise, the low cash generation these days wud force the management’s hand soon anyways ..
Optiver was undoubtedly the greatest and best company to work for in the Netherlands. That has definitely changed in the last two years.
The root cause of the problem started when they moved to their new office. The traders were busy lost in their own world making money oblivious to the excessive hiring happening in the new building. These new recruits were ancilliary functions and mostly redundant.
It still has the best technology in Europe and Australia. But if the senior traders with experience leave and the fresh juniors take over, they will definitely not perform as well as experienced competition that exists in the market. Optiver still makes good revenues. Their fixed costs eat into the profits.
And for all you LOOSERS from VDM and AO who wish you could have worked for Optiver and retired early. GROW UP AND GET A LIFE.
@2:44 a.m.
source was not the one who was fired..He worked for more than a year….
Anyways, how IMC,Tibra,Optiver, All Options doing this year ?
shudnt be too different from results of 2009 ..
Good story Krans Hoon………hahaha
having worked for both Optiver and Curvalue, I must say that Optiver was clearly superior in: capital available, risk management, software, overall management… and what not. social culture however, was more pleasant at Curvalue, and bonus-payout was higher relative to performance.
True, Curvalue pays bonuses after bankruptcy. Kaemingk wouldn’t do that.
Mooi verhaal, Krans. Typisch geval 12 ambachten, 13 ongelukken. Zo heeft HK ook bv zijn geluk beproefd met de verkoop van spijkerbroeken (om Gaby K. bezig te houden), een zeperdje van zo’n 2 miljoen. Is bij lange na niet het enige mislukte avontuur van de “rasondernemer”. Had ie misschien toch beter eerst de MULO eens kunnen afmaken.
http://www.pesman.nl/downloads/Salvador_Retail_BV_1e_verslag.pdf
Next topic?
That’s 2 months ago at ABR…old news….next topic please.
Aha… That explains a lot. Walter didn’t want to say anything to us about the whole deal. He did however mention he had to talk to AFM and DNB about this. Any idea what he does now?
old news indeed. he is working with solid: http://www.solid-fx.com
also some consulting for regulators and banks… whatever
How many traders are working at ABR now ? Saw they have a few CMM places in the new ELPS.
sjakie was so kind to censor the interesting comment on ABR and Ben. May the original poster please re-post it taking into account the censorship rules which have prevailed for some time now. Thanks in advance.
How much did ABR lose on that trade?
9mio euro
thats seem rather much for a 3 man shop
cud we pls have less censorship .. this feels like communist china now ..
Optiver vs CFTC hearing tomorrow morning, methinks an out of court settlement is nigh. Once the defendants enter a plea (November 15th) it might be past the point of no return.
Does anyone know why its taking so long? They were meant to enter their pleas back in May 2009. It just keeps getting pushed back.
So what’s happened to ABR? What kind of position has cost Eur 9mio?
Sounds like a story. If ABR lost 9 mio they’re a goner, Russians or no Russians.
Optiver case takes so long because it takes place in the USA. A country with by far most lawyers per capita. A country where B- actors and some stupid cowboy father and son can become presidents. A country where it is a felony to buy a beer when your 20, but where you can buy a gun with no questions asked. Despite all that a great country to spend a holiday btw.
ABR messed with the Technicolour rights issue. Traded 2-by-1 instead of 1-by-2 (or vice versa). Costly affair.
see; http://www.technicolor.com/uploads/inforegregroupementactions280610va.pdf
Hmm, that sounds like a not-so-smart thing to do….
explain the 1×2 cock up?
i meant the logistics of it, i trade indices, not stocks, can u explain it?
i meant the logistics of it, i trade indices, not stocks, can u explain it?
Most traders suffer the ” I make/WE lost” syndrome.
Isn’t Ben ex VDM? That would explain a lot. I figured he had already retired a long time ago … he must be 50+ by now ?!?
For all the old traders out there:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP2EhXS7fB0
ex VDM, ex IMC, ex ABR….
@ ABR:
if you tcheat russian inveztors out of money … they will CRUSH you!
Ben is an OK trader. Loves trading (anything). Problem is he often does not know exactly what he is/was trading.
But for all you wannabe traders out here with all those comments on others: put your money where your mouth is! and start trading with your own money. Quite easy to do through Alex, Lynx etc. Pay no tax on earnings (except for 1.2 % asset tax above whatever it is these days; roughly 40K).
If not shut up and continue staring at your screens, watching the premium getting in or out of your sheet and just wait for your salary every month.
Ben is an OK trader. Loves trading (anything). Problem is he often does not know exactly what he is/was trading.
But for all you wannabe traders out here with all those comments on others: put your money where your mouth is! and start trading with your own money. Quite easy to do through Alex, Lynx etc. Pay no tax on earnings (except for 1.2 % asset tax above whatever it is these days; roughly 40K).
If not shut up and continue staring at your screens, watching the premium getting in or out of your sheet and just wait for your salary every month.
yeah, you’re right.
Ben was also trading with his own money in Box3.
oh, no, wait a minute
Waiting for nearly 30 minutes now!
Is ABR a VDM spin-off? When was the start of this company?
waiting for what?
for you to make some money?!
keep on waiting dude 😉
@ 3:04
ABR is/was not a VDM spin off. You might know your greeks, but if you do not know who and what is out there trading with/against you, get another job (heard KFC is hiring).
9 million seems a stretch for ABR … their equity is (was) half of that … cheaper to pull the plug and leave their clearer (KBC) with another dead-beat client
probably against me
resulted in a €9mln profit in my sheet
@ 3:39pm:
even if it were true (only in your dreams) then you should be fired for having a massively unhedged position … didn’t think of that when you posted did you?
@ 3:48pm:
hedging is for pussies
and how can you fire yourself when you’re in charge?
@ 3:48
onder curatele stelling
@ 3:29
Just answer the question or not and don’t try to look cool it is pathetic. Why on earth should I get an other job if I don’t know every trading company by name. I know for sure that you are not aware of every trading company in Amsterdam.
You are probably working in sales and glorifying the number of contacts you’ve got on linkedin…..just shut up next time
If you are are as good as you think, start making money with your own money. I totally agree with Long Time Ago Insider.
Used to work on the floor as MM, later screenbased. After making some decent bonusses decided to go solo years ago. From home (no tax; great) I can recommend that to any trader. Just be diciplined and only trade stuff you know. Run the profits with adjusting stop losses and cut losses with stop losses. Great life! And if your not succesful there always KFC.
Noticed it already 17:45 your probably waiting for your boss to go home , so you can go as well.
Thought I should interfere in the ABR discussion as it is getting a bit out of hand. The ABR cock up hardly cost anything maybe 200-300K and shouldn’t have had to cost anything, but the risk was more than 2 million during more than 2 weeks. That’s all.
“why senior traders & partners are leaving Optiver” : The reason is that they know they were good when Optiver was a small firm…Now, Kaeming being on hiring run since 3-4 years..Optiver has got some decent, young and much more knowledgeable traders. Those “partners” and “team leads/floor heads” now stand nowhere in front of young guns..Only shameless bastards are sitting on senior positions who know that they are worth nothing if got out of Optiver…
Hold on guys, let me get some beer and chips first before you continue. Are these verified accounts btw?
No, not at all….why…whats up ?
sounds like a ‘young gun’ got a small bonus this year….
Can we talk about Liquid some more?
How about the Optiver trader who defected to Liquid and then walked out in disgust just days later.
“WTF ? You mean the system can’t even calculate black scholes for me ?”
. Nice1
pertinent clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6Cfw3JQIYE
or that ‘reactor’ only recently got counterparty viewing? which IT was given kudos for doing a good job…um, hello, orc has had that since about 1996.
14 years behind the game. Welcome to the 21st century.
Yo Dude! – we don’t need to write tickets anymore. We have this doo-hicky which uses electrons to do the hard work for us. We should celebrate…
I know! Let’s hire some more clerks.
It’s true what ”long time ago insider” old-timer was saying – different when it’s your own money on the table. Play with other people’s first, but don’t start complaining about management, most of the time it’s their capital you’re messin’with, and they have the right to ride yer ass.
@8:40
Word!
@8:40
Hey, I’m not that old! 😉 “Only” 40!
@ 8.40 am
What companies do you have in mind when you say that management’s capital is at stake? How many managers do you know at All Options, Optiver, IMC, VDM, Tibra, Timber Hill, etc. who have a significant equity stake in the company? Most of them don’t (a rare few do), certainly none of the managers I dealt with did. And with my bonus accrual on the line, I would say it’s my money as well. You sound like you’ve been brainwashed.
so, afterall, what was ABR’s loss?
300k – 9mln is a hell of a bandwith
Hiep Hiep Hoi…
@9:14
200-300k. And some internal warfare and a lost director. Latter is heavy in a 4 men shop.
Am curious who is this optiver trader that joined liquid
After leaving Liquid he joined Tibra and was so disgusted with software that had been stolen he walked straight out the door in disgust a few days later.
Are you sure he is not in IT? Lol
Back to ABR….so W. H. fires a trader and then the board fires him????
can confirm the optiver trader walking out on liquid in sydney….quite possible they hire clerks to celebrate…32 clerks hired in the last twelve months, 3 remain. not to mention the ‘quantitative trading group’ hires that have been ditched.
Hoe gaan de zaken eigenlijk bij het goudfonds “De Gouden Eeuw” van ex-VDM bestuurder Caspar Rondeltap? Ik zie dat ze een obligatie uitschrijven om geld op te halen.
http://www.belegger.nl/nieuws/94331/rode_vlaggen_bij_obligatie_de_gouden_eeuw
http://www.depers.nl/economie/356934/Vluchten-in-vulgair-goud.html
over 12 ambachten gesproken … alles wat rondeltap aanraakt verandert in … geen goud in ieder geval
sounds like a Ponzi scheme to me
@ 1:55
Except for his own P/L. ” You can say what you want” ( Dutch saying 😉 ), but Casper had a great carreer. Nobody knows how he managed to end up in a super position with VDM USA after having a surfshop in the 80’s. His main job was fly around the globe to meet up with all the big stars of corporate America and he was getting paid really well for that. Respect!
@ Long Time Ago Insider:
What you are saying is that he was underqualified for jobs that were overpaid, right? Many here know similar cases. But I think the comment that you were referring to meant to question his skill set / competence level, which remains questionable irrespective of his financial compensation. He sucked as a “hoekman” (specialist) – I witnessed it first hand – he failed in VDM management (leading up to the bankruptcy) he was clueless about modern trading, and now he’s trying to lure investors into his gold trap?
http://www.degoudeneeuw.nl
October 20th, 2010 at 1:07 pm
Can you you confirm: I heard Liquid has a clerk for each strike.
True/False?
True. Gets confusing when it’s a butterly or anything with more than one strike.
And guess what, they pick them up every working day in a stretch limo with free champagne.
Honestly, it seems everybody has to start a wilder rumour just for the sake of a rumour.
At least the VDM headquarter had that kind of service considering their annual taxi bill for just going from Keizersgracht to Schiphol. And they must have had some interesting escort in there as well unless they took the little detour via Eindhoven. Otherwise that bill does not make any sense…..
Yeh the problem is a lot of things being said aren’t rumours. some of course are taking the pss, such as the one above, but there is a lot of truth in this forum.
What about when they tried hacking out of clerks and then got too short the clerks and had to scramble the other way and offer 5 of them their old jobs back.
Then the clerks pulled their offers and the traders had to go get their own damn coffee.
hilarious. actually a lot of decent people at liquid, outside of management. well, apart from that old prck on the nikkei who is about the worst human being you will ever come across, and on top of that he’s french.
putain de merde
harsh words
confirmed the optiver guy who went to liquid (after 12 month gardening leave) and then walked out after 8 days (into another 3 months gardening leave)
who has the best training program? (no i’m not a grad looking for a job)
http://www.fondsnieuws.nl/nieuws/headlines/artikelen/7868-veb-hekelt-obligatielening-gouden-eeuw-bv.html
life as a clerk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVE60zwXx1k
At least the frog doesn’t get discarded.
funny, u actually type…liquid…capital…clerk..into youtube and that’s what comes up!
putain de merde clerke! (throws book at clerks head)
putain de system de merde!
@ 4:20
Best training program?
I’ll advise you to buy the DVD ” fit in just one month” from Carl Nooten 😉
Tai Bow with Tatjana is also OK.
no, that will not work:
the DVD from Carl Nooten was specially made for children 😉
But now back again to ABR:
I think the loss was much higher then the 300k. which was mentioned before.
nobody gets fired for such a (relatively) small loss!
+ it’s not worth a plane-ticket to Moscow to say how sorry you are.
I heard Pavarotti is the best trainer hands down. Solid foundation for your equity derivatives career.
@ 10:45
Do you actually understand trading? If your company is run correctly, it is not the actual loss you suffer, but the potential loss you might suffer. As Walter stated this was 2 mio at some point. I don’t know the working capital and position limits of ABR but if this is much higher than agreed, you should have a problem or better formulated management should have a problem with you.
risk management is for eunuchs!
so Allard Jakobs is certainly not a eunuch 😉
May be, but proved to be necessary for all those ego traders who cannot control themselves. Soc Gen and Barings faced a bit of a problem as a result of failling riskmanagement.
Heard Allard replaced his balls long time ago for steel ones. So in a way he is a eunuch;)
Looks more like a muppet to me btw.
Heard Allard replaced his balls long time ago for steel ones. So in a way he is a eunuch;)
Looks more like a muppet to me btw.
It seems that ABR is not dead. They made a couple of trades on OMX. Poor volume as usual but at least a sign of life. 🙂
Zelfs de AFM waarschuwt inmiddels voor de goudobligatie van Casper Rondeltaps Gouden Eeuw, dan moet je het wel heel erg bont hebben gemaakt!
http://www.fondsnieuws.nl/nieuws/headlines/artikelen/7892-afm-waarschuwt-voor-goudbeleggingen.html
Groeten aan alle oud VDM collega’s, het ga jullie goed.
Prem
Prem….ook zo’n naam…die zat ook bij VDM voor een godsvermogen dat was onze security manager, maar hij had geen fuck te vertellen tegen Richard die almachtig was daar. Dat Prem goed zijn zakken vulde voor zijn mondje dichthouden was duidelijk maar door zulke gasten met een mega salaris is Moolen wel gemold.
Maar geef hem ongelijk iedereen heeft geld nodig !, benieuwd wat hij nu doet.
Het is niet zo dat Prem alleen z’n mond hield. In de eerste plaats werd ie betaald (15 ruggen in de maand) om de andere kant op te kijken en de schijn op te houden dat de compliance bij VDM in orde was. Het was echt een farce. Het bedrijf werd leeggestolen door het management en Prem maar vragen stellen of alle pennen en potloden wel werden geteld, want stel je voor dat iemand er eentje mee naar huis zou nemen! Hij heeft zich na VDM binnengeluld bij een pensioenfonds waar ie Audit Manager is. Hij was ook erg handtastelijk (bij sommige MANNELIJKE collega’s) … daar waren Onno en Eva niets bij (zij het dat het bij Prem eenrichtingsverkeer was)!
film is een kwartiertje bezig en ik ben dat belgische accent van die Ivan nu al zat… Halina Rein bieden daarentegen.
oh dus zo doe je dat
ja inderdaad,
half uurtje na NFP binnen komen lopen, en p/l-swings van een paar miljoen er op na houden.
whahahaha, die online-gokhulpverlening is werkelijk hilarisch!
zit je met vriendin op de bank zoadt ze eindelijk eens kan zien wat je nu precies doet ….. krijg je een maniakale belg te zien die met miljoenen loopt te smijten
wat een lul:
Halina Rein naakt in z’n appartement en er dan niks mee doen.
janken op de plee schiet daarna ook niet echt op.
en nog overbieden om ‘m te behouden ook!
kansloze film, zelfs WS2 was beter.
van -12mio naar +18mio… masterlijk!
mooie risico-management … die gozer heeft idd een dagje meegelopen bij AO 😉
haha , welke idioot heeft deze film in godsnaam gemaakt ??
Nu staat ie in z´n blote reet te stofzuigen ….
Jezus zeg, wat een totaal onrealistische k.. film zeg. En ik de komende maanden uitleggen wat traden nou WEL is. Komt ie 5 minuten van de ??? afdeling af, koopt meneer meteen 1 mio premie zonder te overleggen???? Is vervolgens binnen een paar dagen senior??? Koreaan met waarschuwing (kleine limieten) koopt opeens voor een paar mio premie? Deze film moet gemaakt zijn door een of andere linkse rakker die de leegheid van het financiele systeem wil aantonen. “geld maakt niet gelukkig”. “Financiele market gaan alleen over korte termijn winst”, dat soort onzin. En de media en politiek straks maar verwijzen naar deze film vanwege haar ‘realiteitsgehalte’ !!! Jammer, jammer, jammer, gemiste kans….
this win/win movie what a crap.. and what about the timeframe.. he is watching lehman personnel cleaning out their desks .. next shot he gets a question from his senior what do youdo with this dec08 C’s .. and not much latr he is 24 and born in 1986 so that must b 201o then .. what a bullshit..
.. says to his broker long calls , short puts .. never heard such an order bfore
To the complainers on Win/Win – it’s not a documentary. It’s fiction, and yeah the story and the numbers are exaggerated. That’s cinema. Happens all the time.
never heard of a risky? or a synthetic?
how much did the market makers make in Asia this year? What was the most productive desk on the street?
optiver kospi desk $25m. Top result for asia
that’s presumptuous… have you run around all the other mms and checked their kospi net liqs?
lol well I’m not sure that is correct re optiver
a) we have made more than that on the kospi this year already and b) I have been told that there are at least 2 OTHER desks that are up 60mio and 85mio usd on the kospi year-to-date
optiver not so great after all huh?
aha,
25m/60m/80m just with simple marketmaking (being some kind of CMM/PMM)?
or by taking the right delta’s in the beginning of some movement, and just let them run??
so who are the others?
yes, 25m korean won !!
heard tibra kospi on track for $20m
I heard the Liquid training program is really well run. A couple of very successful (now retired) traders have built it from scratch. I also heard that they have a very strict ‘no cheating’ policy in the training program and that if you are in fact caught cheating, you will be found a position in risk.
yawn…
so who has made the most money this year?
the brokers
The strangle sellers
cue random all options post.
ur mum
random all options post is actually the board of directors talking…
what about liquid nky desk? those guys reckon they are good for $40m a year
yen
whose kospi desk is up 85 mio? i call bullshit on that one…
yesterday I paid 300k won for a pair of shoes. I guess 85 mio doesn’t get you far…
85 mil sold
60 mil sold
I bet some guys didn’t even see those numbers in 2008
SOOOOOOOOOOLD
markets on the worst Kospi pnl please.
LC’s Kospi desk is lucky to break even. Sold.
sold break even. how can other desks make 30-40-50 mil and they can’t crack even a mil?
credit bid
sold
Octeg and Jane St …….
oh and sorry i forgot SIG too
and citadel and evolution
and you might wanna check drw and wolverine too
and itg
wow, just read through the comments, obv the markets are quiet but LC must have really pssed some people off. plenty of dirty laundry being aired. it’s good stuff, but jesus isn’t that how tibra started, optiver and imc ppl just being shafted and they’d had enough of it.
It’s one big ponzi scheme, people at the bottom get screwed and complain, then when they get to the top they screw everyone below them…
sounds like most of the mm’s?
ponzi, good word.
no ponzi scheme, sounds to me more like capitalism, where the entrepreneur takes the bulk of the proceeds of capital and labour says thank you very much
what about my bonus?
i’m frank!!!!!!
don’t agree, the MM ponzi is not what capitalism is about…
will frank get a boni?
MM is not ponzi at all – it is just a business where the guys who own the business take the bulk of the profits. How is that different to any other business??
I’m up $50m USD this year playing bingo.
I like bingo… BINGO!
Bingo is awesome. They give you free peanuts. Heavily salted.
VDM / Frank Vogel weer eens in het nieuws:
http://www.fd.nl/artikel/20625613/gsfs-claimt-miljoenen-failliet-v-d-moolen
Gaat eindelijk de vuile was buiten gehangen worden door middel van een rechtzaak.
85,000,000 Korean Won = 75,000 USD
Untuk kalian yang Remaja, lebih mantab dan baik sekali dibantu perkembangan Hormone dengan Emilay
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Good replies in return of this issue with genuine
arguments and describing everything regarding that.