A Goldman Sachs trading game at the Trade Tech Equities conference in Paris this April was billed as "five hours to make a million."
Unfortunately the closest anyone came was $45,000.
Competing senior traders from JP Morgan Fleming, Scottish Widows, Principal Global Investors, Henderson Global Investors, Sate Street Global Advisors and F&C went head to head using Goldman's direct market access product, RediPlus, for the chance to win a place on the WBR yacht, a competition yacht sponsored by the conference organisers.
Competitors were allowed to put up to a maximum of $10 million long and $10 million short on any stocks that can be traded on RediPlus. Individual positions were not allowed to exceed $10 million and the maximum order size was 100,000 shares.
Joe Kassel of Principal Global Investors led the pack until the last five minutes when he was undone by his short position in French semiconductor maker ST Microsystems.
Brian Heller of Scottish Widows scooped first prize although Carl Jones, of Henderson Global Investors got a special commendation from Goldman for generating the most commissions.