An amateur share trader from France who racked up a €10m (£8.8m) profit using a British brokerage’s platform he initially thought was a training system is suing the company after it seized his earnings.
Harouna Traoré had opened a €20,000 account with Valbury Capital last summer after using a simulation of its trading software to practise dealing in equity futures, according to the Financial Times.
While practising at home several weeks later, on what he believed to be the simulation programme, Traoré placed €1bn of orders for securities, realising he had been using a genuine platform only after racking up a €1m loss on his position.
He continued trading in an effort to recoup his losses, which he eventually turned into a €10m profit after building up a position in US equity futures worth €5bn.
When he called Valbury a few days later to tell them what had happened, he was told he had breached the terms of his contract with the company and that all of his positions were “void and cancelled”.
For more read the full of article at The Guardian
