Sympathy for the Trader

One sometimes wonders what the mission of the magazine Trader Monthly is - it appears to be part luxury catalog, part social register, and part unapologetic celebration of the trader's earn-and-burn lifestyle.

The New York Post on Monday highlighted a survey of 2,500 traders published in the magazine's September issue, which paints Wall Street's legion of slick-haired, Gucci-soled brethren in a particularly sociopathic light.

A couple highlights:

58 percent of traders priced their souls at $10 million - given no chance of being caught, that's a profit that would drive them to trade on illegal insider information.

Yet traders are odds men, and the only stripes they're willing to wear better be on a Brioni suit. If the chance of getting nabbed by the Feds rose to 10 percent, a little over a quarter would still do it; once the odds were upped to 50/50, only 7 percent of respondents would still risk it.

September's survey also found that 21 percent of traders questioned said they didn't donate any of their salary to charity.

"Morality can't be a big part of the job," explained Trader Monthly's editor, Ty Wenger.

Well, in that case.

Liz Gunnison