The fate of a single investor who nearly tanked the market is now in the hands of a New York jury

In lower Manhattan, a jury is now weighing a case against a little-known investor who made it big, lost everything, and briefly brought Wall Street to its knees.

In lower Manhattan, a jury is now weighing a case against a little-known investor who made it big, lost everything, and briefly brought Wall Street to its knees. But the story of Bill Hwang and his trading firm’s colossal failure is more than a rags-to-riches-to-rags tale — it is also a giant red flag about the vulnerabilities of the financial system that persist more than 15 years after Wall Street’s everyday dark arts ravaged the global economy. Here’s the deal: In March of 2021, as most of us were lining up for Covid vaccines, Bill Hwang’s so-called family office — an unregulated firm that works like a hedge fund — imploded in a matter of days, sparking a brief but acute freakout in financial markets. Seemingly without anyone noticing, Hwang had managed to amass huge positions in a handful of companies — including ViacomCBS, Tencent and Discovery (now Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s parent company). His positions were so large that when the stocks started falling, it had a seismic effect on the market. According to prosecutors, the collapse of Archegos (pronounced ar-KAY-gos) cost shareholders $100 billion and left major banks with $10 billion in losses. Hwang and his CFO, Patrick Halligan, were later charged with racketeering conspiracy and securities fraud. And on Tuesday, after a two-month trial in New York federal court, the case was handed over to a jury that will decide their fate.