MovieChat Forums > Margin Call (2011) Discussion > Problems- From a Finance Student

Problems- From a Finance Student

posted 13 years ago by t_may15
99 replies | jump to latest

So when I originally heard about this movie I was excited as I heard that IT WAS NOT POLITICAL. I was excited to see a movie on this subject that didn't have an agenda, that actually knew what it was talking about.

Now for the most part I enjoyed this movie. I thought it was superbly acted. The casting was great. The cinematography was wonderful.

The one big GLARING flaw. The one(there's a few other less obvious ones) thing that made me have to take this movie so much less seriously was this - They really wanted to show that the guys AT THE TOP were incompetent when it came to the actual business of trading. I don't want to watch through the movie and pick out the lines verbatim but there are at least 3, probably more, scenes where Will, Sam , and John either outright say that they don't understand or suggest it by saying something like " just speak plainly" or something to that effect. This is just so laughably ridiculous. The HEADS of a trading floor are going to understand the business, and probably better than anyone else..... It's no different than any other industry. Does the HEAD engineer understand engineering ? Does the head accountant understand accounting? Do the partners at a law firm know how to practice law?

In the finance business there is a designation called the CFA ( chartered financial analyst ). This is a brutally hard designation to achieve that require 4 years of graduate study. Failure rates exceed 40%. People in Will or Sam's position would most likely have this designation. And they certainly aren't going to have trouble understanding the models or reading the charts.......This one point to me gave away the writers slant and made them look like utter fools in this regard.

That is all.

[–] 8 years ago

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[–] somesunnyday 8 years ago

Coming from experience and an industry completely unrelated, I think you're a little naive in your cut and dry assumption that those at the top know the details of their trade. Quite often the skills or scruples required to get to the top have little to do with the details, it has to do with the ability to get the right people on board to feed you the information so you can make the cut throat decisions that need to be made to make money. This is a skill in itself that requires a certain level of sociopathic tendencies which most people at the top possess.

[–] kaskait 8 years ago

*shrug* I thought it was the most realistic part of the film.

The Wall Street firms hire young (very young) math whiz kids in order for them to "create" financial instruments that are so byzantine that only the creators can understand them. To a certain extent.

Most of these male math wizards do their best work before they are 30. Most of these creators aren't really over 40. So the top dogs are outclassed, but they are no longer in positions that require them to understand the ins and outs of what their kids are creating. Their jobs are to sell it, to make sure they are just on the side of legal and to manage the kids.

The fact that Stanley Tucci's character had a bit of a handle on what was going on actually reflected well on his business and math acumen. He was well past the age of BIG math.

[–] 8 years ago

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