Would the Dukes have really been wiped out and ruined to the point of being homeless in their Coming to America cameo? If their brokerage firm was privately held with the brothers owning 50% apiece, couldn't they have sold a share, even a majority of the company, or used it to finance their trading debts? Was it just th margin call with the money being due right then and there that wiped them out?
shareI don't know anything about rules/laws that would apply, but as for the amount, it would depend on how many shares they were able to buy and how rich they were. It does seem crazy to think that anyone in real life would risk everything they had, but then again they believed it was a sure thing.
[deleted]
Yup, margin call. I know because it happened to me. I lost a lot smaller amount, but it would have been enough to retire early on with ease. In the end, I was faced to admit to myself that I was gambling with my future and lost, all because of greed.
But I will say this: the Dukes wouldn't have put ALL of their holdings into one commodity. Finance 101, spread your worth into three risks: safe, only slightly more risky, the rest in high risk. So I doubt that they would have been living in a refrigerator box on the street.
Be sure to proof your posts to see if you any words outshare
Someone did it with Silver on the commodities exchange before lol
shareWell, they had to pay for all the contracts they bought. Now maybe all their money was tied up in stuff so they had to liquidate their assets, as Alfred Drake's character orders. Also, they may not have been billionaires, just millionaires, and they had to pay 394 million dollars, which might've been too much for them.
shareThey didn't have 394 million dollars in *cash*. They probably had holdings worth more, which had to be sold at fire sale prices, so their real losses ended up being more than 394 million dollars.
shareYou forgot the most important part. Winthorpe & Valentine didn't buy any of the shares from the Dukes Brothers' trader. So at the end of the day, the Dukes were saddled with the high price shares in the end which were now worth pennies.
share
Would the Dukes have really been wiped out and ruined to the point of being homeless in their Coming to America cameo? If their brokerage firm was privately held with the brothers owning 50% apiece, couldn't they have sold a share, even a majority of the company, or used it to finance their trading debts? Was it just th margin call with the money being due right then and there that wiped them out?
Maybe not the whole ball of wax on one black day, but it's important to note the look on the Exchange president's face. He hates the Dukes. Everyone does, probably. It's just the Dukes had been so powerful for so many decades, nobody dared to challenge them. Once they showed up as a couple of crooks who got bamboozled, public sentiment might have turned against them. The entire business world smelt blood in the water and went for it in events subsequent to the movie. Maybe that's how the Dukes got as beaten down as they were in "Coming to America" four years later.
shareRead this, which is similar to what happens in the movie.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Thursday
Leverage is a powerful thing and futures you don't mess with, you can lose money FAST.
Oh, the Hunt Brothers, Billy and Bunky!
share