What this cracked Goldman Sachs CEO can teach us

If you're holding stocks that you can't justify on their fundamentals, dump them, says Bengt Saelensminde. There's no point holding on to dud investments in the forlorn hope that they'll somehow turn themselves around.

Last week US brokerage firm MF Global blew up. And just like Belgian bank, Dexia, before it, the finger of blame is pointing directly at the European debt markets.

MF lost the lot gambling on peripheral European bonds. Worse, it's said that it's to be investigated to see if it used client money to trade its way out of the hole it found itself in.

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Bengt graduated from Reading University in 1994 and followed up with a master's degree in business economics.

 

He started stock market investing at the age of 13, and this eventually led to a job in the City of London in 1995. He started on a bond desk at Cantor Fitzgerald and ended up running a desk at stockbroker's Cazenove.

 

Bengt left the City in 2000 to start up his own import and beauty products business which he still runs today.