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Ear to the Ground

The Man Who Lost $7.2 Billion

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Posted on Jan 25, 2008
Kerviel
Societe Generale

Jerome Kerviel made a huge bet that European stock markets would rise in January. Instead, they fell sharply.

How did a 31-year-old low-level bank trader with limited access lose five times as much money as the worst rogue trader ever? That’s the question European authorities and Societe Generale, France’s second-largest bank, are trying to answer.

Los Angeles Times:

Bank officials said during a conference call Thursday in Paris that they had unwound all the transactions from Monday to Wednesday before publicly disclosing the alleged fraud. They added that the bank suffered an “enormous loss” because of unfavorable market conditions but that there was no evidence [Jerome] Kerviel personally profited from the scheme.

The timing and nature of Societe Generale’s sales were unclear, however, as was their effect on European exchanges. Those markets plummeted more than 5% on Monday on the heels of a steep sell-off in Asian markets.

The Fed announced its rate cut early the next morning. A Fed official said the central bank was unaware of the Societe Generale situation when it took action, according to the Reuters news agency. The Fed maintained Tuesday that it dropped rates in response to “a weakening of the economic outlook” and deteriorating conditions in the financial markets.

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By Stephen Smoliar, January 30 at 6:09 pm #

I believe investigations by the FBI have gotten under way, so you may get your wish!

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By Andy_James, January 30 at 5:13 pm #

This guy has nothing on those criminals running the lending banks behind the mortgage crisis.

How come we don’t view those executives as equal criminals?

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By zeitgeist, January 28 at 10:12 am #

nrobi, you are absolutely correct in your analysis.

Are we to assume the CEO’s, sitting atop of these towering egos, had absolutely NO idea of what mechanisms were in play, flowing into and filling up their bathtubs?

Do not think for a moment these folks weren’t hatching a psychological escape plan, for public consumption, as they scrutinized the collapse of Enron, which, by the way, appears to have been one of the biggest drug money, laundry tools to have seen the light of day.

Now that someone has tripped over bathtub’s plug, and whoooosh, billions flushed down the drain, they’re all weeping crocodile tears, madly flailing their arms before the corporate lens, wondering what the hell happened; and out comes their bogus ‘flow chart’ of plausible deniability.

Peace, Best Wishes and Hope

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By nrobi, January 27 at 3:38 pm #

What a great mind this man has! Even though a “low-level” employee, he singlehandedly lost 7.2 billion dollars in bank money. Then after the bank fires him, he set a scheme to help the bank liquidate the assets needed, and hedge the bank against any more losses.  He should not have been fired but made the president of the European Central Bank for figuring out a way to protect the bank from the losses he created in the first place.

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By Novista, January 26 at 11:41 pm #

The Fed had their all-night meeting and not a single Bloomberg terminal anywhere in sight. Uh huh, now about that bridge ...

According to the news yesterday, Jerome was down only 2.2 billion when SG recovered from the coma. So it took them 3 days of closing positions to lose a lot more.

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By C Quil, January 26 at 3:47 pm #

Apparently he had access to about ten times more money than he lost, which was about six or seven times the amount of money the bank had control of.

They have custody of him now.

Instead of locking him up, they should hire him to beef up the bank’s security systems.

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By zeitgeist, January 26 at 11:10 am #

Remember the Martha Stewart ‘Camp Cupcake’ production; Michael Milken, the fiend of junk bonds?

Well, this is simply another episode devised by the corporate oligarch’s, public relations firms, meant to steer focus away from Johnny - over there - with is finger in the dike, massively fissured, ready to blow.

Peace, Best Wishes and Hope

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By weather, January 26 at 9:30 am #
(Unregistered commenter)

exactly - Patrick Henry, you don’t miss a beat.

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By zeitgeist, January 26 at 8:41 am #

When ever you see a crowd gather, look the other way to see what the real cause for it is.

Peace, Best Wishes and Hope

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By PatrickHenry, January 26 at 7:06 am #

He has proven he can follow in the footsteps of Dov.

He is young but given time can loose a couple of trillion.

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By Stephen Smoliar, January 25 at 5:47 pm #

I decided that my Chutzpah of the Week award should not go to Kerviel but to Jean-Pierre Mustier, head of the bank, for his response to the crisis; details at:

http://therehearsalstudio.blogspot.com/2008/01/bankers -chutzpah.html

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