Friday morning, right here at Market Movers:
If I had to guess, I’d say that when Kerviel’s position was discovered, he was maybe 1.5 billion or so euros underwater; the rest of SocGen’s losses are just as much the bank’s fault as they are Kerviel’s.
Saturday morning, on the front page of the Financial Times:
A rival investment banking executive said Mr Kerviel, did not lose €4.9bn by trading futures on European share indices, as SocGen claims, but only €1.5bn – the deficit his trading had accumulated by the time he was caught.
“The board of SocGen lost the other €3.4bn,” said the rival banker. But the bank defended its actions, saying it could not risk keeping the positions open.