Jerome Kerviel, a 31-year-old finance trader, was dismissed ofter fraud resulting in the loss of €5 billion.
$8b rogue trader 'not on the run'
The French bank Societe Generale has blamed trader, Jerome Kerviel, for the loss of 4.9 billion euros, in one of the world's biggest ever fraud cases.
Mr Kerviel worked in the investment bank division, moving from the middle office, which checked deals, to the front office or trading desk in 2005, a bank source added.
"He's made some extremely bad decisions. I suppose there's a degree of compulsion as well.
"He's believed that he's right, that eventually the position is going to turn around, and unfortunately, that hasn't happened."
3 comments:
No, Societe Generale is bot blaming Jérome Kerviel. At least, not publicly. They did not say whether or not the rogue trader is Jérome Kerviel.
thats what happens when non-traders manage traders. they have no frame of reference to go by.
Basketball practice with Coach Bouton!
I took the afternoon off from work and went to pick my 9 year old daughter up at basketball practice. As I sat down on the bench to watch, I was intrigued by the excercise that "Coach Bouton" was proposing. Each girl was given a jersey and was to tuck it in the back of her shorts, leaving a tail. The objective of the game was to run around and grab as many jersey's as possible over a period of time. As you grabbed more, you only needed to keep one hanging out as a tail and you could hold the others in your hand but as soon as your tail was taken you had to put another back out as a tail.
It was amazing to watch the different techniques used by the little girls! I found myself in the trading room of the Societe Generale! There were those that played the game fairly, getting their tail taken, grabbing another, getting it taken again. There were those that just weren't any good at the game, lazy, not very good runners or grabbers. There were also those whose objective was to finish with at least one. These girls stayed somewhat near the sidelines and took plenty of time to position their tail, standing there readjusting the tail as defense to avoid the others. All of this was perfectly normal. But what was not normal was the last group that "Coach Bouton" did not even notice as he was busy doing something on his computer!
What he did not see was the few little "jerome"ina's that had all kinds of tricky techniques from tucking the tail almost completely in their shorts so that only a little bit of color stood out making it impossible for the other girls to even attempt to get it out. As they ran around with no risk at all of having someone get their tail all they had to do was grab the other tails or if not better try to grab the ones in the hands of the other girls to acquire a quantity quicker.
When coach "Bouton" blew the whistle and divided the girls up by numbers of acquired jerseys, announced the winner and then sent them off for another round I could not help but suggest to him loudy that for the next round he should divide them up by "who played honestly" and "who didn't"! "Coach Bouton" realized immediately what had happened and even though he went back to his computer, he followed my lead and as he blew the whistle after round two, yelling out to the winner, that she had not really won as she had cheated. He was right. She had cheated. I had seen her. She had even improved her score by watching the others in the first round!
As I work in the financial markets, what I witnessed is proof that if you put even little girls in a competitive situation with no referees, there will be those that play tricks to win. In basketball practice, like in a trading room, all fingers point to "Coach Bouton"!
signed,
the only controler.
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