But it had happened to long term not quite four years after Meriwether had written to the firm's investors,confidently endorsing Merton and Scholes's so finely tuned assumptions about the fund;s risks.Alas,in the partners'lingo,the "correlations (among the trades) had gone to one . "Every bet was losing simultaneously. The dice were not being thrown at random,or at least they seemed as if tossed by the same malevolent hand.