Friday, October 17, 2008

Another Trader Commits Suicide - Shades of 1929

It's beginning to look more and more like 1929. Another trader, this time on the Chicago Mercantile wrote a note to his wife and killed himself after losing on trades in the S&P 500.

The man, Joseph Anthony Luizzi, 44, of Oak Brook was a 20 year veteran of trading. He was found dead of self inflicted gunshot wounds in front of a fire station near his second home in Berwyn, Illinois.

Mr. Luizzi’s death came hours after a plunge in the stock market. The S&P 500 posted its biggest gain since the 1930s on Monday before plunging the most since the crash of 1987 on Wednesday.

There have been several other such deaths reported both in England and in the US. Similar events occurred after the 1929 crash but not as an immediate result of it. Stories of stock brokers leaping from windows were mostly urban legends. Unfortunately, today that seems not to be the case.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

First of all, he was not a "stock Trader" He was a futures trader. If you know how the futures markets work, you could figure out what happend to him. Your copy / paste blog is as deep as a wading pool.

Hardy Haberman said...

Thanks for the correction. As far as cut & paste, occasionally I do use clips with attribution or links. Now here in this wading pool I prefer people to use their names for their catty opinions. Next time use your name. For a deeper blog, my other work is at Flagging Left. Bring your rubber duck!

Anonymous said...

Hardy, the anonymous poster that "corrected" your post to clarify "stock trader" versus "futures trader" is an anal idiot. While there is nothing inherently wrong with correcting oness mistake, to be pompous about it shows that the individual making the comment has serious issues from his early childhood that will likely never resolve. His need to hatefully attack others for minor mistakes clearly shows that this man has problems.

Bottom line: nothing wrong with correcting other. In fact, constructive critisism is healthy, and your response shows you to be a mature person whoe looks beyond idiots like that poster. You were much more generous that I would be, and while I think you should be commended for not responding to him in kind, in some way, I feel that is the problem with our society today. I feel that people that that poster should be publicly humiliated for being anal like that, as this are the types of people that are causing our society to go down the toilet.

At any rate, you are a better man for not blasting him for being a childish fool.