George was showing everyone in the pit pictures of his pool, which no one could figure out how he paid for because he made errors all the time, and he owed a lot of money to the firm we work for -- which was probably the mob. While George was pointing out the monogrammed deck furniture, the Berlin Wall fell down. The pound dropped 60 points in six seconds. The whole bottom end of my deck needed filling. Amy told me to add up how many lots were buys and how many were sells and tell George all at once. Amy said, "George can't deal with a fast market."
There were so many runners bringing me orders that Amy yelled out, "We can only take market orders."
A runner asked, "What's the market now?"
Amy screamed, "No one fucking knows."
I gave a rough estimate of buys and sells: "Buy 550, sell 420," I yelled to George.
He froze. It was about five million dollars in trades.
"George!" Amy yelled. George didn't move. "George, MAX is selling 40. Buy 'em. Let's go. You're gonna' get hung if you don't get these trades." George didn't move. So Amy started buying and selling, and even though it was illegal for her to fill orders, all the brokers traded with her.
At the end of the day, George realized he had six orders in his pocket that he forgot to fill. It cost him $120,000. "Could have been worse than just the Wall," George said.