Yes, I’m Willing To Commit A Felony For Profit
2,500 Traders Surveyed On Their Likes and Dislikes
More than half of traders questioned in a recent survey said they would trade on illegal insider information if the deal allowed them to pocket a $10 million profit - provided there was zero chance they would be caught. If there was a 10% chance of getting cuffed by the Feds and perp-walked, then the percentage of traders willing to break the law drops from 58% to 28%. Only 7% of an obviously prison- averse trader community said they would do the crime if there were a 50% chance of an indictment. The survey, which polled 2,500 traders, was taken by Trader Monthly magazine. It is no surprise then that the do-the-crime-but-do-no-time traders said that the public figure they despise the most is Governor Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer is the former state Attorney General who made his mark during eight years in office by cracking down on Wall Street - specifically investment banks, mutual funds and insurance companies. 62% of traders in the survey cited Spitzer as being the most hated, far ahead of ex-New York Stock Exchange boss Dick Grasso, who finished second at 20%. While we’re talking about money, 21% of traders questioned said they didn’t donate any of their salary to charity.
Other topics addressed by the survey:
If you could swap lives for a year with one of the following traders, he would be . . .? Stevie Cohen, 42 percent; T. Boone Pickens, 27 percent; Paul Tudor Jones, 25 percent; and James Simons, 6 percent. If you could have one super power that you could use to trade, it would be . . .? Mind reading, so I could out-think everyone on the trading floor, 68 percent; Invisibility, so I could go around screwing other traders, like Patrick Swayze did in “Ghost,” 19 percent; and superhuman speed, so I could click my mouse faster, 13 percent.
