Testosterone rears its ugly head on floor of NYSE
Stephan Mara, a NYSE floor broker whose family owns part of the New York Giants, was suspended for two weeks following an outburst of unbridled testosterone-fueled rage.
According (subscription required) to The Wall Street Journal, "His infraction: pinning another broker to a trading post for several seconds in December after the victim chided him after a Giants loss."
Classy. You have to wonder about the role that testosterone plays in business, and whether it has a negative influence. In his interesting book Testosterone Inc.: Tales of CEOs Gone Wild, Christopher Byron makes the case that Jack Welch, Dennis Kozlowski, Ronald Perelman and Al Dunlap weren't really bad people: Just victims of their own excessive testosterone.
Perhaps Mr. Mara could have plead temporary insanity and called in Byron as an expert witness. How else do you explain pinning someone to a trading post over a football score?
According (subscription required) to The Wall Street Journal, "His infraction: pinning another broker to a trading post for several seconds in December after the victim chided him after a Giants loss."
Classy. You have to wonder about the role that testosterone plays in business, and whether it has a negative influence. In his interesting book Testosterone Inc.: Tales of CEOs Gone Wild, Christopher Byron makes the case that Jack Welch, Dennis Kozlowski, Ronald Perelman and Al Dunlap weren't really bad people: Just victims of their own excessive testosterone.
Perhaps Mr. Mara could have plead temporary insanity and called in Byron as an expert witness. How else do you explain pinning someone to a trading post over a football score?











Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-12-2007 @ 3:38PM
Dan Barnett said...
Zac, I think we should congratulate Mr. Mara on his restraint. After all George Stinebrenner punched out a couple of guys in an LA elevator for dissing the Yankees.
10-12-2007 @ 3:38PM
ccld23 said...
I wish Mr.Mara, and more like him had my orders. The drive and spirit of men and women doing the best job for there customers is what made this country great.Knowing someone was accountable,made everyone work harder. Now they just hide in the shadows, and take no respossibility. Let the customer be damned!
10-12-2007 @ 2:18PM
bp said...
That's not even the best testosterone trading story today!!!
TWO IN THE SAC
FEDS PROBING HEDGE FUND HORMONE CHARGES
By PAUL THARP and JANA WINTER
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October 12, 2007 -- The dirty little scandal at Wall Street's richest hedge fund apparently isn't going away - feds are now investigating allegations that a trader was forced to gulp female hormones to do his job better.
According to court papers filed yesterday, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has a case underway to get to the bottom of tawdry accusations rattling powerful hedge fund SAC Capital, run by billionaire Steve Cohen.
The scandal erupted publicly Wednesday after a trader there claimed in a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit that his boss forced him to take female hormones - and also to wear articles of women's clothing at work - all of which eventually led to an alleged sexual relationship between the men, one of whom is married.
The bizarre behavior was ordered by the boss, it was alleged, to eliminate the trader's aggressive male attitude so he could become a more obedient and detail-oriented player in the $2 trillion hedge fund world.
Now new details have surfaced about the pair and how they climbed to the top.
The trader, Andrew Tong, 37, had studied for his doctorate in computer science at Columbia University, and his boss, Ping Jiang, 41, also was a computer brainiac who pioneered the use of computer-run "macro trading," which hedge funds wield to move global markets in just seconds.
They met nine years ago as young traders at Lehman Brothers, and moved on to other top firms over the years, all the while remaining friendly and occasionally socializing. They reunited a year ago at SAC.
Tong, who was fired from SAC after his allegations were filed, remained in seclusion with his wife in their swank condo tower in Newport Center in Jersey City.
Jiang still runs SAC's computer trading at its Madison Avenue offices where he supervises a half-dozen others. Jiang is said to be the second-most successful producer and earns as much as $150 million a year.
Those who know Jiang say they're stunned.
"He was a very bright, quiet loner," said a former Lehman executive now at a rival hedge fund, describing him as "an aggressive trader who liked to take big positions." Another ex-Lehman exec who worked closely with Jiang said he had "never seen any [behavior] from Jiang that could possibly be related" to the claims.
"I think Jiang is a great trader and a bright guy whose strategy might have rubbed [Tong] the wrong way, but the most successful people in hedge funds are intense and single-minded."
Colleagues milling outside SAC's sprawling headquarters campus in Stamford Conn., were puzzled by the tale.
One said it didn't make sense to hand out female hormones to enhance skills. "If taking female hormones actually helped you do your job, they would simply hire women here," the employee said. "But they don't. They don't think women are aggressive enough."
They said SAC brass were furious about the allegations, first reported on CNBC.
"The big bosses were livid. They went desk to desk to try and find out who leaked it. It was like a witch hunt," said one employee.
Lawyers for SAC and Jiang called the allegations "salacious and false," while Tong's lawyer say the allegations are "neither salacious nor false."