Female Trouble
This recent story inspired me to think what might happen if you took the movie, “Wall Street” and spliced it with “Farewell, My Concubine.” In “Wall Street” the master trader corrupts a young man. In “Farewell, My Concubine,” a relationship between two men in the Peking Opera plays out against the backdrop of famous drama, “The King and the Concubine.” In the opera the concubine ends up killing herself to save the king. This time, it’s payback.
Here’s the salacious tale…
A boss at one of the world’s richest and most secretive hedge funds told one of his traders to swallow female hormones to trade better, a lawsuit claims. The firm, SAC Capital, a powerful $10 billion hedge fund, is run by superstar trader Steven A. Cohen, one of Wall Street’s most prolific players who regularly takes home $500 million a year.
A junior trader, Andrew Z. Tong, 37, claimed that his boss, Ping Jiang, a key producer at the big hedge fund, demanded that the young trader take female hormone pills to help erase his aggressive male ways so he could be more effeminate in his trading style.
Eventually, the hormones caused the junior trader to start wearing dresses, avoid his wife’s touches altogether and begin a sexual relationship with his boss, the trader claims.
Details of the case, disclosed by Charlie Gasparino on CNBC, claimed that the Jiang bragged he had developed a successful trading method based on being effeminate and that other traders ought to start using it, too. Jiang is listed by Trader Monthly magazine as one of Wall Street’s top 100 traders, with estimated income of $100 million a year.
Andrew Tong filed a sexual harassment case against his Jiang, reported CNBC. The case claimed the hormone pills wrecked his life, and also made him impotent with his wife, who wanted to have a baby.
According to a court filing, Tong and Jiang met in 1998 as traders at Lehman Brothers. Tong left after three years but stayed in touch.
SAC Capital and Jiang both denied the charges. Sources close to the firm said Tong was fired for cause, but others claimed he was forced out of the firm.
What would anyone do anything as weird as this?
– Ambition?
– Unable to resist bullying by a superior?
– Victim of a “do anything” corporate culture to make money?
– Provided a convenient explanation for having sex with another man, wearing dresses, and avoiding sex with his wife?
– Love and desire?
We’ll never know.
