The Essex Boys: how nine traders hit a gusher with negative oil
>Now the authorities must decide whether anyone at Vega breached market rules by joining forces to push down prices—or if they simply pulled off one of the greatest trades in history.<p>Couched in these terms, it's really difficult not to think of trading as a sort of game. What are these rules, why is breaking them a bad thing, who set them up, and why is foul play suspected and investigated with aplomb when relative small-timers make out like bandits but not when big establishment institutions drop the ball to the tune of "generalized economic ruin"?