What is failure?, what do you imagine when you visualize failure in your life, do you even see it coming, do you see it coming like a storm gathering in the distance, giving you enough time to prepare yourself. When something goes wrong, there must always be someone to blame, Right? a mistake that can easily be identified, right?, a decision that could have been avoided, right?, but sometimes failure is much more complicated than that.
Sara had always believed that the stock market was about numbers, she believed that it was predictable, she exuded confidence when talking about the market. Numbers going up, numbers coming down, profits, losses, charts and all. She had spent years studying them, learning how markets behaved and preparing herself for the day she would finally sit behind a real trading desk and make decisions involving real money and as a finance graduate that day finally came when she resumed work at one of the country's biggest financial firms.
She was excited, but nervous. It was her first major assignment, and the client was not some small investor. They had entrusted the firm with millions of dollars, and Sara had been given responsibility for executing part of the client's trading strategy. Her supervisor reminded her of something she had heard many times before. "Don't chase the market. Let the market come to you." Sara nodded positively.
That morning, everything seemed to be going perfectly.
She bought shares in a major technology company just after the market opened. Within minutes, the stock began climbing rapidly. Her position moved from a small gain to tens of thousands of dollars. Then the number appeared, +$80,000. Sara stared at the screen, for a few seconds, she felt like she had just discovered the secret to the entire financial world. Her first major trade and she was already sitting on an $80,000 profit. She could close the position, at that time she knew she should, but the stock was still climbing. Just a little more, she thought.
She could make another twenty thousand. Then another alert appeared on her computer. At almost the same time, her phone vibrated. It was a message concerning an urgent matter at home. Sara looked away from the trading screen for only a few seconds. When she looked back, the stock had begun to fall. Not so much but just enough to make her believe it would recover.
She waited, the price dropped further, sara moved her hand toward the mouse. Then stopped, "It will come back". she told herself but it didn't. Within minutes, her $80,000 profit had disappeared. Then the position moved into a loss.
$20,000.
$50,000.
$100,000.
Sara's breathing became faster, She attempted to close the position but it spelt out bold on her screen "Order rejected". She tried again but it said the same thing "Rejected". The price continued falling. By the time the trade was finally closed, Sara was staring at a loss of nearly $200,000. She sat completely still, she felt as if the ground should open up and swallow her full. Her first major trade and she had just lost nearly two hundred thousand dollars.
She expected shouting and she expected her supervisor to ask her what she had been thinking. Instead, Daniel, her supervisor walked over quietly and looked at the screen.
"What happened?" he asked Sara
"I don't know," Sara said. "I had an $80,000 profit. I thought it would recover, but it didnt" Daniel didn't answer immediately and those few seconds before he spoke felt like an eternity for Sara, she has readied her mind for the worst, already thinking of how she was going to repay the lost money, but Daniel looked at the transaction history, then his expression changed.
"Sara, don't touch your computer." Daniel Said
"What?"
"Just leave everything exactly as it is."
Within minutes, people from the firm's risk, compliance and technology departments were standing around her desk. Sara didn't understand what was going on. She had made a mistake but everyone seemed to be investigating something much bigger than her. Then the head of compliance finally explained what was happening. The stock had not simply fallen. Someone had been manipulating the market.
Thousands of unusual orders had entered the system within fractions of a second. Automated trades had created artificial buying pressure, pushing the price upward and attracting investors. Then, almost simultaneously, those positions had been reversed, this didnt only happen to her alone but dozens of others also in the firm. The sudden collapse had been engineered. Even the rejected orders had a reason. The firm's security systems had detected unusual activity and temporarily restricted certain transactions while they investigated.
Sara leaned back in her chair. "So I didn't lose the money because I got distracted?"Daniel looked at her and said "You did make a mistake but that wasn't the whole story." and also Daniel said " We didn't give you a real account with real funds, this was a test from the firm, as it was your first day." For the first time that day, Sara's head felt light and she breathed a sigh of relief. She had spent the entire afternoon blaming herself for what had happened. She had thought the story was simple, an inexperienced trader saw a profit, became greedy, got distracted, failed to act, and lost money.
But behind the scenes, algorithms were moving. People were making decisions she couldn't see and that was what actually mattered in Finance, she thought to herself. While Sara was watching one screen, an entirely different battle was taking place somewhere beyond her view.
The investigation continued for weeks, eventually, regulators identified a network of accounts connected to the manipulation but she never forgot that day.
IMAGES ARE A.I GENERATED
