sábado, novembro 01, 2008

Passagens sobre o casino ENRON

Passagens do livro “The smartest guys in the room” (publicado no Cinco Dias):

market participants could see prices on a screen (…) “It was free, it was easy, and it was addictive”, says a former ENRON executive” pag. 221.

Because market rewarded every new move they made, ENRON’s employees started to think they couldn’t make mistakes. One top executive says, “We got to the point where we thought we were bulletproof“. pag. 230

On August 23, 2000, ENRON’s stock closed at $90 - its all-time high (…) When people asked Skilling about the chances of the stock tumbling, he had a ready answer: “I can’t worry about comets hitting the building” pag. 244

Vince Kaminski, ENRON’s probability guru, used to warn Skilling that he shouldn’t have earnings expectations when it came to the trading business; in any given year, profits were as likely to go down as to go up. Skilling would respond that people always told him that, but the traders had always come through. And he assumed they’d keep coming through. So every year, trading was handed a budget that was substantially higher than the year before.” pag. 228.

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