WORST analogy in history. Let's break that down. 1) You think Dahmer was hot? 2) Uh, Dahmer was gay. 3) You were friends with Dahmer? Metaphor? Simile? WTF? Karen did NOT "overcome" the losses. She's now illegally managing OPM.
That's an awful analogy quite frankly. If your friend's malfeasance has a direct and material detriment to your own livelihood and professional reputation you at least publicly distance yourself from him. Tom Sosnoff holds himself out as a trading visionary and an icon. He has a trading industry Company, and is actively launching what would be a regulated trading exchange. You don't hitch your wagon to someone who recently admitted to investment fraud and has a Federal Judgement against her for the same. That's just insanity. Karen Bruton at this point is a detriment to Sosnoff's bonafides and reputation. You can't defend the indefensible. That's not the hill you want to make your last stand and die on.
Oh I can understand it too, I just don't accept it. Look, Karen was the biggest star in the TT stable, Tom believes her videos generated 1 billion dollars worth of business for TDA. Let's not argue about the exact amount, we can agree on that her interviews were highly effective in driving business for TDA. Now of course he is not going to turn on their fallen star. But he could be more objective and instead of a knee jerk kill the messenger reaction, he could take a look at the charts and trying to figure out what went wrong?? Interestingly, he hasn't been interested in that. And again, losing money is one thing, but pretending to make money while you are just arbing for fees, that part is pretty indefensible. But who knows, maybe there is still a positive outcome at the end of this story?
Karen is clearly a winner. She has been making money for years and when she lost money and defrauded her investors, she got away with a fine, not to mention she didn't lose her investors. Now that is what I call success!! But if I were her, I wouldn't go around giving interviews...
Analogous to calling the Madoff situation a thin line. There is a clear distinction between pulling your account after Einhorn loses 30% and some mofo fraudulently rolling 99% of the account, indefinitely. Factually, the only trading activity was rolling the losses.
Isn't this what guys who sell premium do ... rolling and waiting for mean reversion to kick in? Isn't it a part of the strategy? I don't know the truth, but I doubt Madoff woke up one day and decide to screw everyone he knew, including family. Most likely he gradually got himself in the exact same situation as the above clip shows. BTW, there were numerous complaints about him to the SEC for long time, but they did not dare touch him ... I assume they gave him as much time as possible to recover. We had an unprecedented black swan event. I would assume that Karen's fame would easily allow her to get the needed injection and the whole thing could've been avoided. As was mentioned, here name generates more return than her strategy. Does it make it right? No! Is her case unusual for the industry? I think not. Is she the worst example of abuse? I don't think so. I am simply trying to put things in proper perspective, not defending this kind of activity.
Sossy and his crew's latest and greatest insight into option trading 'made easy' is ... that there's an arb where calls / puts at the same strike are shown at different vols !! Genius eh ! ps upside call flies attractive with high vol