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HE WAS A WALL STREET DEMIGOD, BUT AFTER THE FALL OF AMARANTH, HE BECAME AMERICA'S CONSUMER ENEMY NO. 1. HERE'S THE EXCLUSIVE INSIDE STORY OF HOW A NICE CALGARY KID ENDED UP IN THE MESS OF A LIFETIME by Thomas Watson
Some people think they know Brian Hunter, the Canadian trader blamed for the world's largest hedge fund failure. They consider him an overconfident Street punk, a capitalist flash-inthe-pan who imploded Amaranth Advisors LLC in September 2006 simply because greedy fund managers allowed him to bet billions that bad weather would drive up energy prices. They applaud Lady Luck for inflating Hunter's ego to the point where he believed he could "model God," then unleashing the mild hurricane season that reportedly destroyed his reputation along with the Connecticut-based hedge fund. These folks claim to understand Hunter's values. They point to his winter car as if it says something bad about his DNA. The vehicle in question is rumoured to be a Bentley Arnage, which apparently handles slush better than the Calgary native's summer ride, a Ferrari F430 Spider.
But nice cars don't say a thing about what makes anyone tick. Hunter's critics are wrong on the other counts, too.
At best, the Bentley shows Hunter likes options, which is not noteworthy. Trading financial ones, after all, is how he used to make a respectable living. And while the employment options of Canada's highestprofile commodities speculator are now limited, the fall of Amaranth is not the root cause. It was actually the United States Senate that cut his career off at the knees last June, when it labelled him Consumer Enemy No. 1.
For the record, not everybody thinks Amaranth fell because Hunter is the most spectacular speculative screwball on the planet (a title he might cede anyway to the rogue French trader who was revealed in mid-January to have lost Société Générale SA US$7.2 billion). Inside hedge fund circles, many still consider the 33-year-old Canadian a market rainmaker, someone whose brain is hard-wired in such a way that it can slice and dice trading orders like an exchange computer. To this crowd, Hunter is more than just a good numbers guy who can predict migration trends of bulls and bears. He is also seen...