Why Did Nick Kokonas Quit the Trading Floor?

Nick Kokonas quit the floor because the window was closing and he did not like who he had become. Every arbitrage shuts, fast or slow. After the huge year, older partners in New York took the money and left. The firm then tried to drop the same method onto other shops, including a distressed firm in Boston, where a man around 30 told people who had been there 40 years how the floor would run. That did not go well. They did not know how to build managers or an accounting layer. Around 2002, volumes fell. A man who made $50,000 when they met later made $2 million, then $800,000 two years after that, and got angry about it. Kokonas calls it rock-band syndrome. He was a bad manager, and he had stopped enjoying the job.

His father died in 2001. They were close. After September 11, the people who worked for the firm on Wall Street were okay, and he knew others who were not. He was not being a good parent or a good husband. Off the floor, the world felt slow. His wife's correction was a slap, and he says he had it coming. He called Keith Goggin and asked for six months off. Goggin told him he does not get six months off while still getting paid. Kokonas walked in, said it was his last week, and told them they would be paid out, with equity for some. He had a young son, and he did not want the retired-athlete version of what came next.