[jb775]

> There are also rules that forbid trading with the goal of deliberately affecting the settlement [price]

> Vega’s jackpot involved about a dozen traders aggressively selling oil in unison before the May West Texas Intermediate contract settled at 2:30 p.m.

I think it's safe to say the traders deliberately affected the settlement price. Granted they took on a lot of risk, it was still deliberate. Now the question is can that be proven, and was it deliberate enough?

[Traster]

The funny thing about these stories is that it probably can be proven, and the reason for that is that there's quite likely a text or an e-mail from some cocky idiot saying "We could make a tonne if we push the price down" or "Man I can't beleive we managed to push the price to -37, we're going to make a killing".

[dageshi]

I get the impression traders very deliberately don't put things like that in email explicitly so it can't be proven.

There's a scene in one of my favourite movies Margin Call

"I'm well aware of the fucking time Sam, I'm telling you, you need to see this"

"See What? Email it to me"

"I don't think... that that would be a good idea...."

"I'm on my way"

https://youtu.be/W7Jqwpnw9Lo?t=23

[Traster]

Yeah, that's the smart hollywood impression of what would happen if people were thinking, but often it looks more like this:

>Senior RBS Yen Trader: its just amazing how libor fixing can make you that much money

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21358362

And these messages weren't using some burner phones found in a raid, these were messages through their bloomberg terminals.

[jb775]

Great movie