The trader, his wife and the risk manager

During the August market turmoil, I found myself at a social function talking to the wife of a Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) prop trader. She told me how her husband had lost half his year's profit in a few days, and had been ordered to close out his positions. There was much gnashing of teeth at home about this intervention, she complained, now that an expected seven-figure bonus had been replaced with a six-figure one. But the trader's wife was relaxed as she recounted the experience. After all