Sacked Traders !

here we go again ! saw this on CNN

-National Australia Bank
purges staff over forex loss

The bank sacked four currency options traders Friday, along with the head of its foreign exchange markets division. Three senior managers were also asked to resign.

The $270 million in trading losses was revealed in January only after whistleblowers told senior management at the bank.

Auditors report released Friday, said that since 2001, the traders had been concealing actual results by using incorrectly recorded trades or false trades.

It said the traders "appear to have been motivated, at least in part, to protect their bonuses". Their bonuses last year ranged from A$120,000 to A$265,000.-

 

It never ceases to amaze me that in today's world of computers, "incorrectly recorded trades" can even be possible... yet at one of the largest banks in Australia.

 

$270 million in trading losses for a bonus 1/1000ths of that. nice. what the hell were they thinking?

-m.o.

 

How bout "$270M ain't my money, but $265K is!"

 

Cash has it on the button. One has to ask about the risk managers who are suppposed to be monitoring these traders. How complacent do you have to be (or how stupid) not to be monitoring the daily totals, and backchecking with a second source, after all the "Barings Bank" incident was supposed to have taught the banking industry a lesson.

 

Same exact mentality in today's CEOs decisions. They do not care about the actual well being of the company or shareholders, as far as it can be shown on paper that whatever they are doing is good and cost saving, their bonus will be larger and larger.

 

Any financial instituion that doesn't have their head up their *** has completely automated compliance systems. People simply cant do these type of things without bells and whistles going off all the way up to the chairman.

It is probably some foolish CFO type that decided that the cost of implementing such systems was too expensive - a fraction of the loss incurred.

Probably the executive(s) in charge of nixing a robust compliance system that could have prevented such internal fraud should be jailed..... I certainly would like to see more prison time being handed out to the financial executives who through negligence cause such investor losses ......

 

corporations have to stop flooding ceos with stock options. thats the core of the problem.

-m.o.

 

What amazes me is that these kind of news rarely appear in medias during bullish period but during plunging period.

 

the media is strange like that. sometimes when i watch the msnbc, so much comes out as just plain assinine blather.

-m.o.