As someone who follows Wall Street and especially hedge funds for a living, I’ve long suspected, nay, known, that the secret to many a money manager’s success is a daily shimmy down the trading floor. However, and I think most of you will back me up on this, I figured the first time anyone would publicly admit to it would be attached to the name of a firm whose headquarters are located in Stamford, CT and whose founder could’ve been a dancer if he hadn’t gotten into stocks. Instead, it’s PIMCO, and it’s Bill Gross’s dancing feet.

Lately, [Gross] has been trying to loosen up a bit in the office, where he prefers to focus, in silence, for hours in front of his trading screens. To break the quiet he helps impose, the morning we meet he starts a new ritual: at 8 a.m., a song that someone recommends is blasted over the sound system. Mr. Gross kicks it off with Short Skirt/Long Jacket by the alt-rock band Cake. He even helps lead a conga line past rows of stunned-looking traders.

If you think this was just for the benefit of the reporter 1) I don’t want to hear about it and 2) think again! Gross has long been the guy the industry looks to when it needs someone to be brave, whether it’s about dancing or speaking out on the evils of the automatic flush. Now that he’s gone first, everyone else should feel confident enough to do the same. Is your trading floor equipped with disco balls that descend from the ceiling when they sense a certain level of hip gyrations, while the rest of the lights dim and house music starts blasting, like bham bham bhamb and boom boom boom? Is it not unusual to see a bunch of PMs shimmying down the aisle like gay chorus line circa 3PM? Is it okay and in fact encouraged for employees to “get low”? Share it with the group.

The Obsessive Life Of Bond Guru Bill Gross [Globe And Mail]

Related: Bill Gross Will Cut A Bitch For Speaking And/Or Audibly Breathing On The Floor
What Does Bill Gross Think About On The Can? He’s Happy You Asked

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Just an FYI for any potential investors on the fence about breaking themselves off a piece of this.

Greenberg Discusses Artificial Intelligence In Trading [Bloomberg]

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It’s no secret that there’s something about trading that just makes you want to dance your ass off. You’re sitting there, buying, selling, harassing a Bloomberg help desk associate when all of a sudden, you get that urge, that stirring, down in your plums. You try to suppress it but you can’t. It’s an itch you need to scratch. A little foot tapping and finger snapping isn’t enough. The only thing that will satisfy this craving is you, jumping up on your desk and shaking it.

At some of the tri-state area’s more cutting-edge firms, this biological need has not only been acknowledged but accepted and incorporated into the trading day. In fact, at one of the industry’s most successful hedge funds, the trading floor is equipped with disco balls that descend from the ceiling when they sense a certain level of hip gyrations, while the rest of the lights dim and house music starts blasting, like bham bham bhamb and boom boom boom. It’s also not unusual to see a bunch of traders shimmying down the floor like gay chorus line circa 3PM and while I shouldn’t tell you this, has long thought to be the secret to this firm’s success.

Having said all that, if dancing is not an institutionalized thing at your place of business, it can catch some employees off guard and not in a good way. Marcus Bolton knows what we’re talking about.

A British chief executive and his company are being sued for $20million (£12.8m) after a tango dance on the trading floor allegedly led to the sexual assault of a 27-year-old assistant. Marcus Bolton, 45, the head of Tullett Prebon Americas Corp, the leading New York brokers, is accused of manhandling Jessica Franqui, leaving her ‘violated’ and ‘humiliated’. The clerk claims she was grabbed by an ‘intoxicated’ Mr Bolton without her permission, who began spinning her around and dipped her so his face was close to his.

According to a writ filed by lawyers acting for Miss Franqui, as she tried to struggle free, Mr Bolton let go of her hands and she fell to the floor, he then restrained her and allegedly stood forcefully on her right breast. Miss Franqui, the only woman on the trading floor at the time of the incident, claims it was with ‘force enough to cause significant pain and shortness of breath’. She then alleges she got to her feet and said:’I can’t believe you were standing on my chest.’ The writ then claims: ‘In a dismissive tone, Bolton, replied words to the effect of, “Oh, come on now, it’s alright, they [her breasts] are big and you probably didn’t even feel it [his foot]”.’ It is claimed the ‘intentional, wrongful and offensive bodily contact’ with Miss Franqui, an administrative clerk in the foreign exchange team, amounted to ‘sexual battery’ and his conduct was ‘so vile and shocking that it warrants an award of punitive damages’. He is also accused of being ‘sexually motivated, hostile, humiliating towards women in general‘. It also claims on previous occasions Mr Bolton ‘exhibited propensities to become intoxicated while at work; harass, sexually assault and/or assault others; and/or engage in inappropriate behavior at the workplace’.

Oh, and apparently the dancing and dipping was all captured on tape.

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The delicate flowers at JPMorgan may have canceled their daily note but you can’t hold down Vikram’s little soldiers.

“Despite working and living conditions becoming more repressive by the day in Moscow,” Citigroup’s trading and sales staff is “on ground in full effect,” John Heisel, an equity sales trader at Citigroup Inc. in Moscow, said by phone yesterday.

Moscow Fires Curb Bond Trading as Alfa, JPMorgan Bankers Escape [Bloomberg]

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“Don’t go expecting a movie that will give you some great intellectual or emotional insights into the Wall Street crisis. Sure, there are the obligatory “life on the trading floor” scenes and quasi-faithful recreations of arguments between Treasury and Wall Street at the oak-paneled New York Fed. And there are lots of cameos of CNBC anchors and Nouriel Roubini (as “Dr. Hashimi”) to give the movie “authenticity.” But the authenticity is as phony as Bernie Madoff’s investment returns. How many Fordham-educated prop traders with the last name “Moore” speak fluent Mandarin?” [WSJ via BI]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

$$$ How Morgan Stanley Bucked A Trend In Trading [Dealbook]

$$$ Bernanke Sees No Quick End to High Rate of Joblessness [NYT]

$$$ Wall Street’s Wrist Slap [NYO]

$$$ Matthew Simmons: “We’ve now killed the Gulf of Mexico” [Bloomberg]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

Put it on the trading floor, or better yet, the lobby and that’ll send a message (“This is how it’s gonna be. You have been warned, so don’t come crying to us when your PM busts out a collar.”).

The art in Aibel (Sender’s curator)’s office at Exis Capital veers into the risque. A photograph by German artist Thomas Ruff depicts a blurry woman in lingerie towering over a man on a leash crawling beside her. Aibel joined Sender in 2006, working alongside curator Todd Levin, who spearheaded Sender’s collection from 1998 to 2008.

Adam Sender Dresses Up Hedge Fund Rooms With Ruscha, Dan Flavin [Bloomberg via BI]

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$$$ Del Mar Sues Trader, White Bay Claiming Misappropriation of Trading Models [Bloomberg]

$$$ Wall Street Critic Becomes Defendant [WSJ]

$$$ To Catch A Ponzi Schemer [Consumerist]

$$$ Goldman Told To Pay Bayou Fund Creditors [WSJ]

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker

$$$ Greece Puts Its Islands Up For Sale To Save Economy [Guardian]

$$$ Money Manager Ken Heebner: A Hot Touch Gone Cold [BW]

$$$ Score one for Skilling [MarketWatch]

$$$ “[The World Cup] doesn’t come even close in importance to Tiger Woods’ [tell-all] press conference,” said Craig Peckham, equity strategist on the trading floor at Jefferies in New York. “People are mindful but not zeroed in on it.”

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Was that wrong? Should he not have done that?

Under questioning by Judge Dominique Pauthe, Kerviel said he began making larger bets in 2005 and started falsifying transactions indicating he had covered his bets. Kerviel said he continued to exceed the 125 million-euro trading limit set for the Delta One trading desk where he worked in the years after 2005. “Seventy percent of the time, limits were exceeded,” Kerviel said when a prosecutor said he was the only one who exceeded limits. He said that the controls on his computer were “deactivated,” allowing him to fake transactions. The head of his trading desk knew as early as April 2007 that Kerviel was making fictitious transactions, Kerviel said.

Article courtesy of Dealbreaker