Margin Call Monologues

Follows the key people at an investment bank over a 24-hour period during the early stages of the 2008 financial crisis.

Thank you all for coming in a little early this morning. I know yesterday was pretty bad and I wish I could say that today is gonna be less so, but that isn't gonna be the case. Now I'm supposed to read this statement to you all here, but why don't you just read it on your own time and I'll just tell you what the fuck is going on here. I've been here all night… meeting with the Executive Committee. And the decision has been made to unwind a considerable position of the firm's holdings in several key asset classes. The crux of it is… in the firms thinking, the party's over as of this morning. There's gonna be considerable turmoil in the Markets for the foreseeable future. And they believe it is better that this turmoil begin with us. As a result, the firm has decided to liquidate its majority position of fixed income MBS… today. These are your packets, you will see what accounts you're responsible for, today. I'm sure it hasn't taken you long to understand the implications of this sale, on your relationships with your counter parties and as a result… on your careers. I have expressed this reality to the Executive Committee, and they understand. As a result, if you achieve a 93% sale of your assets, you will receive a 1.4 million dollar one-off bonus. If the floor as a whole achieves a 93% sale, you will get an additional 1.3 million dollars apiece. For those of you who've never been through this before, this is what the beginning of a fire sale looks like. I cannot begin to tell you how important the first hour and half is gonna be. I want you to hit every bite you can find: dealers, brokers, clients, your mother if she's buying. And… no swaps, it's outgoing only, today. Obviously this is not going down the way that any of us would have hoped, but… the ground is shifting below our feet, and apparently, there's no other way out.

That's true. And if I had, at least there'd be some holes in the ground to show for it.

Well, they won't exactly call it that. It'll be a mercy killing, really. You don't have to stand out here for me.

There are three ways to make a living in this business: be first, be smarter, or cheat.

Maybe you could tell me what is going on. And please, speak as you might to a young child. Or a golden retriever. It wasn't brains that brought me here; I assure you that.

So, what you're telling me, is that the music is about to stop, and we're going to be left holding the biggest bag of odorous excrement ever assembled in the history of capitalism.

Let me tell you something, Mr. Sullivan. Do you care to know why I'm in this chair with you all? I mean, why I earn the big bucks.

I'm here for one reason and one reason alone. I'm here to guess what the music might do a week, a month, a year from now. That's it. Nothing more. And standing here tonight, I'm afraid that I don't hear - a - thing. Just... silence.

So you think we might have put a few people out of business today. That its all for naught. You've been doing that everyday for almost forty years Sam. And if this is all for naught then so is everything out there. Its just money; its made up. Pieces of paper with pictures on it so we don't have to kill each other just to get something to eat. It's not wrong. And it's certainly no different today than its ever been. 1637, 1797, 1819, 37, 57, 84, 1901, 07, 29, 1937, 1974, 1987-Jesus, didn't that fuck up me up good-92, 97, 2000 and whatever we want to call this. It's all just the same thing over and over; we can't help ourselves. And you and I can't control it, or stop it, or even slow it. Or even ever-so-slightly alter it. We just react. And we make a lot money if we get it right. And we get left by the side of the side of the road if we get it wrong. And there have always been and there always will be the same percentage of winners and losers. Happy foxes and sad sacks. Fat cats and starving dogs in this world. Yeah, there may be more of us today than there's ever been. But the percentages-they stay exactly the same.

You're one of the luckiest guys in the world, Sam. You could been digging ditches all these years.

I must apologise for dragging you all here at such an uncommon hour, but from what I've been told this matter needs to be dealt with urgently. So urgently in fact probably should've been addressed weeks ago. But that is spilt milk under the bridge.

You know, the feeling that people experience when they stand on the edge like this isn't the fear of falling - it's the fear that they might jump.

Jesus, Seth. Listen, if you really wanna do this with your life you have to believe you're necessary and you are. People wanna live like this in their cars and big fuckin' houses they can't even pay for, then you're necessary. The only reason that they all get to continue living like kings is cause we got our fingers on the scales in their favor. I take my hand off and then the whole world gets really fuckin' fair really fuckin' quickly and nobody actually wants that. They say they do but they don't. They want what we have to give them but they also wanna, you know, play innocent and pretend they have no idea where it came from. Well, thats more hypocrisy than I'm willing to swallow, so fuck em. Fuck normal people. You know, the funny thing is, tomorrow if all of this goes tits up they're gonna crucify us for being too reckless but if we're wrong, and everything gets back on track? Well then, the same people are gonna laugh till they piss their pants cause we're gonna all look like the biggest pussies God ever let through the door.

It goes quite quickly. You know, you learn to spend what's in your pocket.

All right, let's see. So the taxman takes half up front, so you're left with one and a quarter. My mortgage takes another 300 grand. I send 150 home for my parents, you know, keep 'em going. So what's that?

Listen, nothing I'm gonna say is going to make you feel any better. It's just going to suck for a while and then you'll be fine.

Hey Eric? Don't beat yourself too much about this stuff, all right? Some people like driving the long way home. Who the fuck knows, right?

Listen. I just got the tap on my shoulder, and we've got some risk over here that we need to move. So today it looks like my loss is your gain.