Conversely, bad luck can play a big role in making you poor. For example, Nick Leeson singlehandedly brought down the world's second oldest merchant bank, Bear

Conversely, bad luck can play a big role in making you poor. For example, Nick Leeson singlehandedly brought down the world's second oldest merchant bank, Bearings Bank which was founded in 1762. Lesson was working in Singapore in a bank that was purchased by Bearings and was allowed to do rogue trading because the bank's controls weren't yet put in place in the subsidiary. What brought everything down was Lesson placed a short straddle on the Tokyo and Singapore stock markets on January 16, 1995 betting there would not be significant market movement. The Kobe earthquake hit early in the morning the next day, Jan 17. That was the beginning of the end. Lesson did serve jail time, but published a book, Rogue Trader, and a major movie was made as well. Also a documentary.