Post by pim on Oct 7, 2012 23:53:56 GMT 10
Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon are the big names in the movie but what does "Arbitrage" mean?
Firstly the pronunciation: it's a French loan word and it's pronounced the French way: "ah - bit - rahj" with the final sound being like a "zh" which is a voiced "sh".
Now the meaning, and that's the hard bit. It's a term of high finance in American English so we don't tend to use the term much in AusE. It's what you do when you trade commodities in different markets with different pricing structures, and make a profit for zero outlay. Hedge funds do this sort of stuff and so do financial traders. You'd have to be on the ball and calculating, always calculating.
In the movie, Richard Gere plays the hedge fund guy who deals in billions. Susan Sarandon plays the wife. There's a mistress in the picture too and she dies in an accident that must have been inspired by the Chappaquiddick thing with Ted Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne. I'll STFU about the plot after that and say that what won me over with the movie was the way the Richard Gere character's practice of "Arbitrage" was not just in his financial dealings but in his relationships and the moral choices that he makes. And the way the movie leaves the audience asking themselves moral questions about the choices the various characters in the movie make.
I've tried not to ruin the movie for you. See it.
Firstly the pronunciation: it's a French loan word and it's pronounced the French way: "ah - bit - rahj" with the final sound being like a "zh" which is a voiced "sh".
Now the meaning, and that's the hard bit. It's a term of high finance in American English so we don't tend to use the term much in AusE. It's what you do when you trade commodities in different markets with different pricing structures, and make a profit for zero outlay. Hedge funds do this sort of stuff and so do financial traders. You'd have to be on the ball and calculating, always calculating.
In the movie, Richard Gere plays the hedge fund guy who deals in billions. Susan Sarandon plays the wife. There's a mistress in the picture too and she dies in an accident that must have been inspired by the Chappaquiddick thing with Ted Kennedy and Mary Jo Kopechne. I'll STFU about the plot after that and say that what won me over with the movie was the way the Richard Gere character's practice of "Arbitrage" was not just in his financial dealings but in his relationships and the moral choices that he makes. And the way the movie leaves the audience asking themselves moral questions about the choices the various characters in the movie make.
I've tried not to ruin the movie for you. See it.