Long-Term faxed the confidential letter on September 2, but one of the investors leaked it to Bloomberg, the financial news service, which published it even before the last investor had gotten his copy. This dollop of unwanted publicity hit the partners like a splash of ice water. The Wall Street Journal gave top billing to Long-Term’s losses in a broader story on financial distress,² and James Cramer, an on-line financial columnist, stingingly observed that perhaps the term “genius” should be reserved for Mozart and not for arbitrageurs.
