We at Toomre Capital Markets LLC have been stupefied since the recent news emerged that Amaranth Advisors lost more than $4 BILLION in little more than two weeks’ time due to the trading of its natural gas “superstar,” Mr. Brian Hunter. While there are conflicting reports of just how steep a loss Amaranth has incurred, it appears that this hedge fund manager’s assets declined from approximately $9.2 billion at the end of August 2006 to something close to $4.6 billion as of Monday, September 18th 2006. Doing some of the fancy quantitative mathematics that hedge funds and Wall Street types are well-known to dazzle other more mortal peons with, TCM calculates that the Amaranth loss was some $4.6 billion, give or takes a few nickels. Let us repeat this amazing number: $4+ billion in trading losses in little more than two weeks!!!! To put this in perspective, Long-Term Capital Management (“LTCM”) “only” lost approximately $4 billion back in the summer of 1998 during the Asian currency/debt crisis.

The post Being Brian Hunter on DealBreaker.com provides more information on this trading superstar, Mr. Brian Hunter. The Reuters story Man at eye of Amaranth storm avoided the limelight has further details on Mr. Hunter’s supposed skill with energy derivatives.