TRADER: SAC MADE ME TAKE FEMALE HORMONES

By PAUL THARP and RODDY BOYD October 11, 2007 One of the world's richest and most secretive hedge funds is telling its traders to swallow female hormones to trade better, a lawsuit claims. The bizarre twist on how to get wealthy fast swept across Wall Street's trading desks amid ribald laughter and groans after revelations yesterday of the shocking claims involving SAC Capital. The firm, a powerful $10 billion hedge fund, is run by superstar trader Steven A. Cohen, one of Wall Street's most prolific players who regularly takes home $500 million a year. It was alleged that one of Cohen's top bosses at SAC chided traders for being too aggressive - and that they must use a soft feminine touch to score in their trading pitches. One junior trader claimed that the boss, Ping Jiang, a key producer at the big hedge fund, demanded that the young trader take female hormone pills to help erase his aggressive male ways so he could be more effeminate in his trading style. Eventually, the hormones caused the junior trader to start wearing dresses, avoid his wife's touches altogether and allegedly begin a sexual relationship with his boss, the trader claims. Details of the case, disclosed yesterday by Charlie Gasparino on CNBC, claimed that the boss bragged he had developed a successful trading method based on being effeminate and that other traders ought to start using it, too. The method apparently worked for Jiang, who's listed by Trader Monthly magazine as one of Wall Street's top 100 traders, with estimated income of $100 million a year. The junior trader, identified as Andrew Z. Tong, 37, filed a sexual harassment case against his boss, said CNBC. The case claimed the hormone pills wrecked his life, and also made him impotent with his wife, who wanted to have a baby. Tong said that when he was instructed by Jiang to start taking an unspecified dosage of the pills to improve his trading, Tong had to search the illegal black market to find his hormone pills, the report said. According to a court filing, Tong and Jiang met in 1998 as traders at Lehman Brothers. Tong left after three years but stayed in touch. Although Tong sued his boss in New York State Supreme Court hoping to get publicity, a judge sealed the papers and transferred the weird tale to arbitration where both sides would slug it out privately, the report said. Tong was hired at a base salary of $250,000. The judge also canceled oral arguments that had been set for today after Tong's lawyers appealed for a gag on any public discussion of the case. The judge agreed that the weird tale was too salacious for the public to hear. CNBC didn't say how it obtained the allegations in the case. SAC Capital and Jiang both denied the charges. "SAC conducted a thorough investigation and found these scurrilous accusations to be false," they said in a statement. "We will vigorously defend ourselves and are confident that these claims will be swiftly rejected in arbitration. The CNBC report said Tong was terminated by SAC in April 2006 after working there for a year. Sources close to the firm said he was fired for cause, but others claimed Tong was forced out of the firm after his complaints. paul.tharp@nypost.com