Q. How many rogue traders does it take to change a light bulb? A. The answer is none - they always keep everyone in the dark.
TRADERS TERMINOLOGY- Trader's delight: joie de thieve! Trader's dream: ménage à trois billions. Trader motif: les big bucks, bébé! Rogue trader: nouveau riche! Destroying the evidence: papier-mâché Plus ça change: grab the spare change. Savoir-faire: Jérome's done this before! Sobriquet: No booze until we're done! Tour de force: try to crack the safe. Vis-à-vis: where's my passport? Cause célèbre: pass the champagne! Negligee: You forgot the bonds! Pièce de résistance: gimme the gun! Voir dire: what the eye don't see...
STOP PRESS: French financial police searching Jerome Kerviel’s Parisian apartment have de-encrypted a top secret email on the traders personal lap top….. Apparently…. if he can do the same again in Q2, he is virtually guaranteed a place on the board of Northern Rock.
STOP PRESS2 - It will be hard to follow the "T"shirts for sale in Singapore after the Nick Leeson episode..... "All Balls and no Barings..."
POSSIBLE REASONS WHY IT WAS SIMPLE TO HAPPEN:p This a mistake that anyone could have made...feel his pain:
1) He accidentally hit the "0" button 3 more times than he wanted, and by the time he tried to stop the trade it was executed.
2) He was given the trade in English, not his native tongue, and he thought that the word in English was "million" not "billion."
3) He was assured that the trade was insured against any loss.
4) The devil made him do it.
5) He thought he was shorting gold futures on behalf of the French central bank
6) He claims it is a Jewish conspiracy directed from the Elders of Zion.
7) It was only $7 billion, not $7 trillion. Hey, what's the big deal?
8) He said he heard Jim Cramer rant that it was a riskless trade.
Now, can't you see how this could have easily happened?
Newsflash: Jerome Kerviel Found - After hiding for two days in his mother's wine cellar, Mon. Kerviel has given himself himself up to authorities. The gendarme who took him into custody, Mon. Inspector Clouseau, said " His mother was a hamster and his dog was not his dog..."
A FRIEND OF JeromeKervial.com REPORTS : " Ex- colleagues of Jerome Kervial at SocGen yesterday lay the blame for the € 4.9 billion losses squarely at the feet of Senior Management , for inflicting punishing 30hour plus working weeks on traders already under immense pressure. One ex-colleague stated ' Jerome was often known to begin work as early as 9AM in the mornings, and still be at his trading desk at 5PM, or even 5.30! He often took just one hour thirty minutes for l'lunch'. Another friend also suggested that Monsieur Kerviel was indeed a workaholic, stating 'I have a beautiful family, and beautiful mistress, and so I limit my time at the office, and leave at 2.30PM latest, unless of course we are on strike. Mai, Monsieur Kerviel was always at his computer screens.' "
