Is the Batman stock market heist possible?

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/134141-is-the-batman-stock-market-heist-possible?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=is-the-batman-stock-market-heist-possible

by maxko87 • 14 years ago

33 43 14 years ago

extremetech.com

cleverjake• 14 years ago

The NYSE can reverse erroneous trades. It may be possible to execute the trades, but none of the effects shown would happen.

dmishe• 14 years ago

Well in the movie the said that they can reverse transactions, but it will take time to prove

elemeno5• 14 years ago

They can be reversed in real life as well - it happens on occasion.

In the case of the film, it would be exceptionally unlikely that the trades would be honoured anyway.

ams6110• 14 years ago

It's been a long time since I worked in anything close to the financial industry, but when I did, trades could be reversed any time up until settlement date which IIRC was seven days after trade date. I think under some circumstances they could even be reversed after settlement.

Edit: I was wrong, settlement used to be five days, it's now three days (T+3) and has been for some time.

talmand2• 14 years ago

Spoilers:

In the context of the plot that would be fine. It only had to be an issue for Bruce for a day or two for them to move forward with their plan. Which was to show his incredibly bad decision making and to make him powerless to stop them from taking over his company. To reverse the outcome of all that would have been a far more difficult thing to accomplish than to reverse fraudulent stock trades.

I always felt he had his money back by the end of the movie.

elemeno5• 14 years ago

For the tl;dr - Some hyperbole plus proof that the author doesn't understand very much about how an exchange such the NYSE or LSE works, how the financial system around them works or physical security and thus he comes the conclusion that it would be possible.

In real life though, it just wouldn't be possible.

1) Cutting all the connections to the exchange wouldn't be so easy. You're going to have multiple connections with different physical routes out of the building to minimize the chance that the exchange goes down due to a misplaced backhoe.

2) Assuming you did cut the connections, that alone would almost certainly trip the exchange's circuit breakers and halt trading. Even if the servers located at the exchange itself didn't halt trading, all the outside entities would lose contact and so you wouldn't get any trade confirmations back.

3) Even if you could execute the trades (somehow) clearing firms would almost certainly refuse to honor the trades as being legit, and if no one else is accepting that a trade got made, then for all intents and purposes it didn't happen.

tl;dr for my bit - No.

mikeash• 14 years ago

One of the more amusing lines of the movie is when Alfred says that they may be able to eventually prove fraud and get the money back. The trade was executed in the middle of a televised hostage situation and subsequent high-speed chase... why would it take more than thirty seconds to convince someone it was not legitimate and reverse it?

Tycho2• 14 years ago

I suppose the implication was that the greedy counter parties would refuse to write-off the trades and the corrupt brokerages and regulators would let them stand.

Still, when you put it like that it sounds funny.

majormajor• 14 years ago

I assumed Bane had found the best hackers in the world with inside knowledge of the system, as a supervillian would, and had them write something that would obfuscate the origin of the trades in the "paper" trail. Basically anyone who lost money that day would blame the break-in, some of them probably did just as stupid stuff as it looked like Wayne did. So how would they know Wayne's complaint was legitimate?

What didn't make sense to me was that they were able to continue the program's execution after the outside connection was cut off—if they didn't need to physically be there the whole time, why'd they need to go in guns blazing? Heck, even if they need to be there, why not just slip the program to someone on the inside along with a hefty bribe or threat or both? Other than to give Batman someone to chase for plot purposes, that is...

I'm surprised how much more discussion that plot point generated than the magic identity eraser, though.

sausagefeet2• 14 years ago

Fox said that, not Alfred.

dave_sullivan• 14 years ago

Well... never let the truth get in the way of a good story...

anamax3• 14 years ago

> 1) Cutting all the connections to the exchange wouldn't be so easy.

Is "the exchange" in the same building as the trading floor?

I don't know either way, but would be surprised if the exchange and the trading floor were in the same building.

I'd be surprised because the trading floor must be in Manhattan for social reasons (because people go there) while the exhange can be "anywhere". Given the price of space in Manhattan....

trafficlight• 14 years ago

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9219668/In_fortified_...

This would suggest that the NYSE datacenter is not in the same building as the trading floor. And, I would assume that there are more than one of these such datacenters.

fragmede• 14 years ago

> Given the price of space in Manhattan....

...HFT guys pay very expensive colo rates to be in a datacenter that is milliseconds closer to wherever the time is stamped on a trade.

DennisP• 14 years ago

Damn, there goes my business model.

rexf• 14 years ago

The Atlantic covered this in July http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/07/banes-pl...

1. The exchange would likely reverse/cancel the trades 2. Puts protect the buyer (Bruce Wayne) against losses (resulting from prices lower than the strike price)

torus• 14 years ago

Bane coerces a trader ... to bet all of Wayne Enterprises’ stock on bad futures

Couldn't he just short the future himself?

Tycho2• 14 years ago

Futures are promises to deliver an asset at a certain price (on a certain date). Presumably Bane just offered futures at stupid prices.

Incidentally, being 'short' on a future means you are the one promising the delivery.

helipad• 14 years ago

Spoilers? Still in the theaters..

zacharycohn2• 14 years ago

... then don't read the article?

PhrosTT• 14 years ago

No this a huge plot point plastered on the frontpage. Not cool.

I guess Bain hijacks the stock market or something. Thanks for ruining that.

I've also learned some other points from irresponsible headlines.

AceJohnny2• 14 years ago

This just in! Spoiler aren't that bad: http://boingboing.net/2012/08/08/spoilers-are-actually-kind-...

shalmanese• 14 years ago

Another question: Would the market even be able to absorb so many out-of-market puts? One of the fundamentals of every exchange is that ever buyer needs to be connected with a seller. When you're that far out-of-market, would enough people have even been willing to trade with you that you could have completed the trades?

dreamdu5t• 14 years ago

It's sad that with all of the world's information accessible to everyone, the author has to write an article instead of just using Google to answer his basic questions.

fleitz• 14 years ago

Completely possible, but the method used is wrong, instead what you'd want to do is flood the market with sell orders for stock that doesn't exist. If you do it for a prolonged period of time it will destroy the value of the companies' stock.

Talk to the CEO of Overstock about how it works.

Alternatively, talk to the Porsche family about how to turn the tables and have the bank eat the losses instead of your stock.

andylei2• 14 years ago

> sell orders for stock that doesn't exist

naked shorting is only possible if you are a market maker. if you don't have a locate, you can't short the stock.

also, how are you going to put up the margin required to short that much stock?

> If you do it for a prolonged period of time it will destroy the value of the companies' stock

which is something that doesn't affect bruce wayne, because it doesn't matter if the market price of his equity has dropped, he still has the same percentage share of the company, which means he'd still retain ownership.

Is the Batman stock market heist possible?

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