The decision taken by management to close a losing fraudulent position asap was the right thing to do. Now you can debate as much as you want about the method used to unwind the positions, but there is no doubt that it had to be closed as soon as the market was to open to cut short the potentialy lethal market exposure. This type of racial/national/ethnic stereotypes has no place on this board, and nowhere else for that matters. Next, you'll tell us that german people are all nazis, black people are inferior, etc... leave that narrow minded comments to kids. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism Assuming that an institution that ranks in the top 10 Nyse PT Volume had not thought through the potential market impact caused by the unwinding of such a large position in these circumstances makes you look stupid. As explained above, their #1 priority was to close it immediately and, even in hindisght, it was the right move. The bottom line is that whoever is responsible for this fraud (middle-office risk control, management, Kerviel, etc..) has brought disgrace on a trading community that had already bad press.
Usually when you unwind a position in the morning in Europe, America is "sleeping"...LOL... But I agree they should have waited one day to get more counterparts. The guy who unwinded the position (which was supposed to be socgen best trader )should also have anticipated his market impact and bought some puts/ volatility before...