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Citadel Head Bond Trader (And TBAC Member) "Leaves" After Losing $1 Billion
It is almost too coincidental to be a coincidence: on the day Ben Bernanke, who until a year ago was the biggest fixed income portfolio manager in the world courtesy of the Fed's $4.5 trillion in assets, joins Citadel as an advisor, the massively levered "market-neutral" hedge fund which as we showed earlier has $176 billion in regulatory assets, "loses" its global head of fixed income, senior managing director Derek Kaufman. Well not exactly loses. The reason for his "voluntary" departure: according to Bloomberg Kaufman is leaving Citadel not because he is about to be replaced by the former Fed chairman but because last year he lost $1 billion "in a variety of trades."

Some more details on Derek from his Linkedin Profile:
Derek Kaufman is [ZH: was] Head of Global Fixed Income and a member of Citadel’s Portfolio Committee.
Prior to joining Citadel in 2008, Mr. Kaufman was a Managing Director at JPMorgan Chase, where he most recently served as Global Head of Fixed Income in the Proprietary Positioning Business. He started at J.P. Morgan in 1996.
Mr. Kaufman is a member of the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Investor Advisory Committee on Financial Markets. He is a member of the Economic Club of New York, on the Board of Trustees for Third Way, an innovative think-tank in Washington, D.C., and on the Leadership Council of Robin Hood.
Mr. Kaufman received a bachelor’s degree in Applied Math/Economics from Harvard College.
Bloomberg is sparse on the details but notes that Katie Spring, a spokeswoman for the Chicago-based firm founded by Ken Griffin, said Kaufman resigned two weeks ago and his portion of the portfolio has been liquidated, adding that the rest of his team is remaining. Calls to Kaufman weren’t answered. It is worth noting that Kaufman was happy to note that he won the 2013 award for Global Macro Fund of the Year from HedgeFund intelligence.
Citadel’s fixed-income operations are divided into 18 different portfolios that focus on specific regions of the world or various parts of the credit markets. Fourteen of these were profitable last year, but the $4 billion Global Fixed Income Fund ended the year up just 0.75 percent, said the person, who asked not to be named because the firm is private."
Citadel, which manages about $26 billion in assets, hired Kaufman from JPMorgan Chase & Co. in 2008, where he was a proprietary trader, to expand the fixed-income operation beyond its Kensington and Wellington funds, two of the biggest pools the hedge fund operates. Kaufman also managed money for Kensington and Wellington, said the person.
What is particularly curious is that Kaufman is, as he notes on his profile, a member of the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, or TBAC: the same committee which back in 2013 first rang the alarm bell over pervasive collateral and Treasury shorages.
One wonders if Kaufman's entire strategy was to be a part of the bandwagon that made up the second most crowded trade at the beginning of the year, i.e., shorting the 10 Year Treasury (the other most crowded trade of course being long the USD ahead of the Fed's "imminent" rate hike).
If so, it would explain some of the recent strength in the bond market, where billions in shorts had to be unwound, i.e., bought in the market. Also, one wonders how many other portfolio managers at other "market neutral" funds will follow in Kaufman's footsteps.
Ironically, with Bill Dudley recently admitting - according to Bank of America - not only that he would like stocks to keep rising, and US Treasurys to sell off (gradually) it would be simply poetic after Ben Bernanke is hired by Citadel, that Citadel's former head bond trader should be hired by that other massive hedge fund, the New York Fed for his Treasury shorting skills. It won't be difficult either: Kaufman already is a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Investor Advisory Committee on Financial Markets.
Because with traders (and advisors) like really needs to be worried about how the Fed will sell its $4.5 trillion in assets when the day finally comes?
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He looks like Bernanke’s Mini-Me. Is he two feet tall? ;-)
Looney
Kaufman-German name. Shalom Bernanke- is NOT a German name.
This guy looks like Bernanke in the past. May be they go in, lose billions and get thrown out younger.
He lost a billion dollars. I hate when that happens.
When I was a kid, a billion dollars was a lot of money. Today? Meh.....
Proof fiat is worthless. Debauched and used wrecklessly.
When is his "suicide" scheduled? He better stay away from tall buildings and nail guns.
Forward (over the cliff)!
He looks like a frigging bobblehead, but the again, so does helicopter Ben.....
and on the Leadership Council of Robin Hood
Kinda (actually REALLY) funny - he was on the board of an organization to prevent poverty!
https://www.robinhood.org/leadership-council
He did a good job of impoverishing some Citadel folks' money - -
NoVa
What he needs to do is be very, very careful around staple guns. Those things tend to fire errantly into the chests of bankers & hedge fund guys who have lost big $$$...
This guy is a jew too
who cares, but
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Kaufman#Early_life
The tribe won't let him experience any heartache. They take care of their own.
Once a piece of shit jew, .............
If Citadel lost one billion dollars on shorting Treasury bonds, that means the counterparties at the other end all together made one billion dollars. Hopefully, Nazi George Soros wasn't one of the wolves who feasted on Kaufman's idiotic gamble.
maybe ben can lose the rest of their capital, get a golden parachute and another sucker to employ him.
I'm surprised he is still breathing. Best trader ever.
I'm making over $7k a month working part time. I kept hearing other people tell me how much money they can make online so I decided to look into it. Well, it was all true and has totally changed my life. This is what I do... www.globe-report.com
Losing that first billion is always the hardest and most fulfilling.
you mean, like, that its lost to your wife's shoe collection ?
your thinking of paul mcartney
that forehead of his presents a large target for flying nails
He must be Cramers biggest fan... actually his only fan...
Wait...if debt is money... didn't he make them a billion...
For somebody.....
This guy is working at McD's. Lost a billion bucks lol
Wait a minute.
How is it even possible for these assholes to lose that kind of money????
Can we just call these guys, "gamblers" instead of "hedge fund managers"? That's essentially what they are.
Well, in his defense, Kaufman didnt have a printing press.
I wonder if he's going to be the victim of an unfortunate home improvement catastrophe or an inexplicable boating accident.
bill dudley can "like" in one hand and shit in the other and see which fills up faster.
Bad day at the casino.
Something tells me he'll still end up with a 7 figure job.
And still end up being double stuffed with circimcised cock at those Eyes Wide Shut parties in Westchester...
derek dell boy kaufman A
not as funny as chemotherapy andy
but just as jewish.
i have contacted the simon weasel spielberg centre for hate crimes in the media and we will be calling this out as anti semeticks needing money compensations and a donation in gold bars to the adl
already
He was at the Morgue before Citadel.
"Citadel is expanding the fixed-income operation it started after hiring former JPMorgan Chase & Co. proprietary trader Derek Kaufman in 2008 to widen its range of funds beyond Kensington and Wellington, "
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-02-10/two-goldman-sachs-trad...
He needs to talk to H&R Block and get that billion back.
Keep this guy out of the nail gun section at Lowe's and Home Depot
He might have lost $1B of other peoples money last year but I'm sure that he has made money for someone else.
Did you say that he is not living under the overpass?
Well, he can join Team Clinton and work for the Everyday Peeples.
I'm sure he'll land on his feet. I've known many a trader to blowout and a few weeks later they were back trading with someone else's money.
What's a billion dollars today? I'm starting to feel like Dr. Evil only wanting $2-3 million to get by for the rest of my life. In another 20 to 30 years 2 million will be like $200,000 today and that ain't shit.
Really....a measly billion?
Come on, that can't be the reason.
a new guy is showing up and they need to clean up all the mismarked positions - overmarked by a billion - so how much was he paid to be the fall guy?
What's 9 Zeros in the Grand Scheme of Things?
How come you never hear from the folks who's money, gold and wealth has been disappeared?
Will Batman foil the Joker?
Does the Pope shit on little boys in the woods?
Did they say how much he made in a variety of other trades?
He looks like a father raper.
They wasted a lot of money on this guy. I would've taken that job for $40K and lost that billion twice as fast as he did.
i'm pretty good!
What! He didn't follow the rules? BTFATH!
Stupidity personified...
Nothing like an opinion to get your ass in trouble with "other people's money" [OPM]; nice going there Derek, I like that nice round number of 1 large for a stop loss.
www.traderzoo.mobi
'Looks' like a number 1 draft pick for the Fed......
Yes, we can't have any losses on the books. 100% winners is all that's accepted!
I'm going out on a limb here, but I predict that in a few years time following Bennie's advice will have cost more than a billion.
Citadel will make it up on Fed sponsored HFT volume (sorry, HFT liquidity).
The really sad fact is that Kaufman will get hired again somewhere. Wall Street and the financial industry are rife with traders like him who have lost tons of money, only to be fired and rehired by a competing firm. Failing is bad, unless you do it large enough, then it becomes like a badge of honor or something.
Derek Kaufman is [ZH: was] [a] Head . . . .
Yes he is! A DICKHEAD!!!
When are they going to get the guys from TV texas holdem poker on the NY FED? It is astounding the FED is just made up of gamblers(known as Prop traders). Where can you bet on the end of the financial system...it is so full retard...I give it two years...and a bit of bloodshed....as the bailouting of criminals need to stop!
Sounds like he got gobsmacked by FedSpeak
He'll get a nice consulting gig. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cyvmF7GD8o
Hey Citadel -'if you're hiring - I'll take $100k and not trade a thing puts you up -uh uh uh - fuk you do the math