The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street: Feb. 29

4. Citi Traders' High Water Mark

Any trader with a malfunctioning intellect and a snoozing risk manager can lose $100 million in one single day. But it's not just any trader that can lose $100 million for well nigh the biblical benchmark of 40 (remember all that rain?), and when that happens, well we here at Five Dumbest are obliged to salute you.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Wrong Way Corrigans who trade in Citigroup'sC, investment bank division. These knights of the pits lost at least $100 million on 15 separate trading days in 2007. Come out and take a bow, fellas, but well, based on your record, watch out for the orchestra pit.

In any case, despite the crafty accomplishment of this group that could probably turn water into ... less water after spilling some, they are surprisingly modest. Why, Citigroup did not disclose the august accomplishment until its annual report, just released, and boy was the news needlessly buried.

Forget the biblical proportions of this skein, let's look at where this streak falls out in the earthly realm. From Lou Gehrig's streak of consecutive games to Hank Aaron's home run record, benchmarks are set only to be assumed unreachable and then eventually broken.

But this? Fifteen days of losing $100 million. It's almost impossible to envision someone doing 16 days.

This one might just stand for the ages.

After all, there are only so many hours in the trading day. The accomplishment of the boys and girls at Citigroup boils down to just shy of $20 million in losses per hour of the standard trading day, which takes a level of concentration over the long haul that puts in on par with Joe DiMaggio's streak of hits in 56 straight games, still unbroken.

Dumb-o-meter score: 80. An analyst was quoted in The Wall Street Journal with a one-word appraisal of the losses that proved the best economy of words since: "And there was light." He said: "Ouch."