Then they will claim that Daniel Bouton makes $7b, lots of bonuses to come. When the war is won then they claim the general won, while when the war is lost then they blame the soldiers lost the war.
I live near the financial police where kerviel is arrested !! you can't imagine how many journalist are in the street waiting for nothing ......
In questioning so far, Marin said, Kerviel has been cooperative and has admitted exceeding his credit limit in order to make fraudulent transactions involving European index futures. "I exploded my credit line," Marin quoted Kerviel as saying. But Kerviel also defended himself, pointing out to police that in 2007, the bank felt he was doing such a good job that it offered him a 300,000 Euro ($440,000) bonus. The bank discovered Kerviel's fraud before paying the bonus. Kerviel told investigators that his actions were no different to those of other traders -- the only difference with him is that he was caught. Both Marin and Societe Generale (SCGL.Y) say they don't believe Kerviel profited from his alleged crime, but was merely playing with the markets and got in too deep. http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/28/news/international/socgen_charges/index.htm?postversion=2008012809 more bs every day.
What I don't understand is how did a guy who had a salary of something like a 100,00 euro have access to all of that capital.
Did you read the articles at all? You think they'd let every 100k junior handle $50bln worth of futures in a directional trade? The guy obviously found a workaround/hack to their security and risk analysis methodology making his trades 'invisible' to his supervisors... for a while. I love all the BS on the forums about this case. We know NOTHING yet every little odd lot trader has to reply how stupid SG is (duh!), how this is a conspiracy, how this is a coverup and how we shouldn't believe anything etc. etc. Just shut up and let them facts be released, stop reading tea leaves.
I'm curious to learn what they could have done better. a) Average down? b) Call around trading desks for a quote on 100,000 DAX future and 100,000 ESTX fut. option puts (oh boy that would have been sth)? c) Issue a press release "We're long to our necks in European futures and close to becoming illiquid and force liquidation. Please don't trade against us. Thank you."