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SNB Head Hildebrand Resigns Over Insider Trading Scandal, EURCHF Floor To Go Next?
Just one headline from Bloomberg, which says it all:
- HILDEBRAND RESIGNS
It is unclear which FX trading company he will join next. As expected, the entire politically charged campaign against Philipp was set to culminate with his departure. And now that the scapegoat is official, it may be time to revisit the EURCHF floor which will likely be the next to go.
EURCHF kneejerk:
Full release from SNB:
Swiss National Bank Chairman, Philipp Hildebrand, resigns with immediate effect
Effective immediately, Philipp Hildebrand is resigning from his office as Chairman of the Governing Board of the Swiss National Bank.
He will make a statement on his decision at 3.15 pm in the conference room of the Federal Parliament’s Media Centre, Bundesgasse 8, and will also make a number of documents available.
And Reuters with the recap:
Swiss central bank chief Philipp Hildebrand
resigned on Monday in the face of growing criticism of a controversial
currency trade made by his wife in August.
His resignation came
as he prepared to face Swiss parliamentarians in the aftermath of the
scandal, and as the bank employee sacked for leaking news of the trade
was reportedly committed to a psychiatric clinic after a suicide
attempt.
The Swiss franc rose as the Swiss National Bank
announced Hildebrand had gone. The SNB said Hildebrand would make a
statement at 1415 GMT and make available a number of documents.
"As we suggested last week his position was almost untenable and so it
has proved," said Tony Nyman of Informa Global Markets. "The Swiss franc
has actually gained on the news possibly due to hopes of increased
integrity ahead, but also market positioning too."
Hildebrand
has been fighting allegations of wrongdoing since details of the trade,
made just weeks before he capped the soaring franc, were leaked to a
political rival.
Hildebrand's wife Kashya, a former hedge fund
trader who now runs a Zurich art gallery, bought 400,000 Swiss francs
($418,000) worth of dollars on Aug. 15, three weeks before her husband
oversaw steps to cap the rise of the franc.
The scandal has
raised questions about transparency at the central bank, which initially
failed to publish its internal ethics codes, saying auditor
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) had investigated the trade and found there
had been no misuse of privileged information.
Hildebrand
had been due to appear before the a parliamentary committee in the
afternoon alongside the head of the SNB's supervisory council, Hansueli
Raggenbass, who is also under pressure over the affair, which has
tarnished the central bank's reputation.
"For me, the absolutely key question is whether the central bank is still credible and can keep the cap on the franc," said
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Yeah, because all the other Central Bankers are such noble and honourable knights.
the could become honorable US Congressmen and do all the insider trading they want legally! I mean, only the President needs to be US born, no one else running for office.
AMF
Ill be impressed when we see the cockroaches on this side of the pond resigning for insider trading!
If everyone in the us government resigned for insider trading we would have no government.
...he is no cockroache - but is enemies and their party (very right-wing) members are real cockroaches, they just wanted his resignation.
I watched the press conference and I have the feeling he has quite more honor than his counterpart. He wanted more regulations for the TBTF banks, that was not welcomed by the right-wingers. He offered to open his acoounts from 2003 on.
Is that you Hilde?
don't know if if it was right or left wing but it has Economic Hit job written all over it.....
"If everyone in the us government resigned for insider trading we would have no government."
You say that like its a bad thing.
Will there be fines?
Jailtime?
Clawbacks of the $50k?
Or does Hildebrand get a job at Goldman and a bonus 12 months from now?
Will there be fines? Jailtime? Clawbacks of the $50k?
answer: Obviously not because (unless things have dramatically changed) laws are for "little people".
how can u post a contribution , comment like this one below ?
History will tell that Mr Hildebrand was not at all independent and lacked the right skills for good judgement. The proof is that his resignation became a big political fight with the current center left coalition siding with him cost what it cost. Hildebrand was clever enough to facilitate the appointment of a politically insignificant MP Frau Widmer Schlumpf, also called Chihuaha, in the key ministry of finance and to draw the left party close to him after losing the backing of the conservative right and the out of the game and disgraced Marcel Ospel . All the stories about a ploy of the big banks against Hildebrand are worthless because reform approval depends on the parliament, not by him. Hildebrand behaved like a high priest reiterating what was already in the air. Hildebrand himself rescued UBS with a spectacular bail out that angered market purists but made happy large banks as UBS. All of this shows his opportunist pedigree similar to a specialist in PR that eventually tries to play politics to side with new forces. As per the chf peg , it took him a long time to dare after insisting pressure from different fronts, above all trade unions and manufacturers and ultimately academic authoritative calls, in particular Prof. Bernholz the architect of chf dem peg in the 1970s. before this he was a lame duck bowing to market dogma of Economie Suisse and the income driven cantons that wanted to reap the annual dividend from the SNB. His policy was inconclusive with useless forex operations and inflation targets for the Swiss economy which triggered a rally on the chf given the rising interest spread with the rest of the world. Eventually his position proved to be wrong having Switzerland and the world economy fallen in a historical deflation.LAST BUT NOT LEAST, besides being naif in his dollar style life, I believe Hildebrand COULD HAVE a lot of things to hide, a bank account with his American wife undisclosed to the IRS and above all, his past stint with UBP promoting MADOFF fund . back in 2002 H. was their CFO and Risk Manager hedge fund specialist. The press questioned only once this link but was immediately silenced in the pure consensual Helvetic tradition of keeping scandals and odd questions at bay ( see http://www.ticinolibero.ch/?p=90359 and http://www.hebdo.c...madoff_39102_.html). In another country before his appointment as President of the SNB there would have a been a serious scrutiny of his past records. This did not happen for the same reason that him and his family could freely speculate in currencies. what a normal trader took a long time of averaging to make a small profit on the usdchf appreciation, it took few days for his wife, art gallerist and former trader Kashya .oddly enough, they never considered to unwind the trade, on the contrary they pocketed the profits.....IT TELLS A LOT ABT GREED WHEN U WORKED UNHINDERED IN THE GLORIOUS 90S AND KEep DOING IT IN THE SUPERB SWISS FINANCIAL PLATFORM.
how can u post a contribution , comment like this one below ?
History will tell that Mr Hildebrand was not at all independent and lacked the right skills for good judgement. The proof is that his resignation became a big political fight with the current center left coalition siding with him cost what it cost. Hildebrand was clever enough to facilitate the appointment of a politically insignificant MP Frau Widmer Schlumpf, also called Chihuaha, in the key ministry of finance and to draw the left party close to him after losing the backing of the conservative right and the out of the game and disgraced Marcel Ospel . All the stories about a ploy of the big banks against Hildebrand are worthless because reform approval depends on the parliament, not by him. Hildebrand behaved like a high priest reiterating what was already in the air. Hildebrand himself rescued UBS with a spectacular bail out that angered market purists but made happy large banks as UBS. All of this shows his opportunist pedigree similar to a specialist in PR that eventually tries to play politics to side with new forces. As per the chf peg , it took him a long time to dare after insisting pressure from different fronts, above all trade unions and manufacturers and ultimately academic authoritative calls, in particular Prof. Bernholz the architect of chf dem peg in the 1970s. before this he was a lame duck bowing to market dogma of Economie Suisse and the income driven cantons that wanted to reap the annual dividend from the SNB. His policy was inconclusive with useless forex operations and inflation targets for the Swiss economy which triggered a rally on the chf given the rising interest spread with the rest of the world. Eventually his position proved to be wrong having Switzerland and the world economy fallen in a historical deflation.LAST BUT NOT LEAST, besides being naif in his dollar style life, I believe Hildebrand COULD HAVE a lot of things to hide, a bank account with his American wife undisclosed to the IRS and above all, his past stint with UBP promoting MADOFF fund . back in 2002 H. was their CFO and Risk Manager hedge fund specialist. The press questioned only once this link but was immediately silenced in the pure consensual Helvetic tradition of keeping scandals and odd questions at bay ( see http://www.ticinolibero.ch/?p=90359 and http://www.hebdo.c...madoff_39102_.html). In another country before his appointment as President of the SNB there would have a been a serious scrutiny of his past records. This did not happen for the same reason that him and his family could freely speculate in currencies. what a normal trader took a long time of averaging to make a small profit on the usdchf appreciation, it took few days for his wife, art gallerist and former trader Kashya .oddly enough, they never considered to unwind the trade, on the contrary they pocketed the profits.....IT TELLS A LOT ABT GREED WHEN U WORKED UNHINDERED IN THE GLORIOUS 90S AND KEep DOING IT IN THE SUPERB SWISS FINANCIAL PLATFORM.
did the wife frontrun that too?
maybe she is "front running" divorce papers? or is it the other way around.
he might just be tired of going to the office.
he will still make the same amount of money.
so far he was making CHF 860'000 per year roughly USD820 PLUS his or her tax free trading profits.
This thing has a smell reminiscent of the DSK hotel maid.
-50K is a pretty small amount.
-Do you think no other bankers do this sort of stuff?
-She could have made so much more money selling the info to her trading friends and no one would be the wiser.
-A Swiss bank employee broke the law to rat her out. Why take the risk?
We know why DSK was ousted, did someone powerful want Hildebrand out? Why?
50K is nothing..., don't think that in the middle of the CHF strengthening he had time to think let's put my job on Jeopardy for 50K.
The wife is US passport holder as well, nothing more normal to buy USD to pay her taxes and as diversification.
The strange things are on the "other side".
Seems that the IT guy consulted his friend lawyer Lei of the SVP party for advice. This guy forwarded the information to newspaper and Blocher. but only 1 month after receiving the information.
So now we have a lawyer that could loose his licence and risk jail and Blocher to risk jail as well. What do you do? Just put the guy into psychiatric care cause he may kill himself. No better way let this guy look crazy....
Who want Hildebrand out? Some banks because he insisted on the hardest capital rule? SVP cause of the CHF floor?...
Probably we will never know, but I am very convinced that Hildebrand was not speculating in FX (nor his wife), they could have leveraged better....
They needed to Brush this quickly under the Carpet lest the Spotlight might fall on other bankers and their trades, they could not have this linger in the press for much longer
Quick, install more Squid operatives! The sheep are too docile to care. Rape, pillage, and plunder at will.
They are not docile. They do plenty of violence to each other.
Really? After all the shady dealings, this is what causes a central banker to resign?
It is unclear which FX trading company he will join next.
LOL!
Easy come, easy GO!
is this the one with the wife's fx?
I'm hearing DSK is available.
DSK available...that is too funny!
DSK is in a posh hotel trying to rape a maid. Please do not disturb!
Won't be missed.
An Olympic swimmer unable to tread water?
First head to fall in 2012. Next please.
A prosecution is most likely.
I don't think so. Mission accomplished for the politicos that wanted him out.
You think they're in it for "justice"? LOL
Maybe you want to point to a law (or an article about one) that was broken, and on which he could be prosecuted.
Most commentators were in agreement that no law was broken, but some code of conduct was used as a doormat.
Question is: Will the peg remain after he is gone?
The question for me is what happens if/when the franc comes under attack. I've been watching the franc almost daily even though I don't do forex because the peg seems such an unnatural creature. I suspect that a strong attack on the franc will produce a lot of collateral damage on other markets. I imagine if one were smarter and more knowledgable than I am one would be able to predict some of those market effects. Bruce or anyone want to share some free insight on how this plays out? Can't hurt to ask.
Strangely, now that Hildebrand is gone, I can imagine a EUR/CHF of 1.5 even sooner then before.
More then anything else Hildebrand was overall very hesitant to step it and prevent further CHF strengthening.
It had to nearly touch parity for him to give in to the screaming swiss export demands to print CHF (and buy EUR).
Hildebrand's replacement will probably have no resctrictions against buying even more EUR.
Conclusion: Enter the next pro-european technocrat!
I wouldn’t be surprised if Kashya was up all night shorting the shit out of it. Legal defense costs big money in Switzerland too, ya know.
but there are insurances for legal assitance in Switerland...
I'd like to see where he chooses to live now.
When you rig your countries currency so your wife can make a few thousand dollars, you deserve to be shot. But that is basicl y what we are doing too. Rigging things so the in crowd here can make a few more bucks at the expense of the economy and everyone else.
Central banking without the limits imposed by a gold standard is just plain ridiculous. There is no way an economy can survive this kind of constant yanking.
Keeping one bleary eye on NYMEX wholesale gasoline. Holding firm to $2.75/gallon despite this USD pop. $3.00 wholesale results in bad things at the pump for Average Joe and Jane. Which in turn leads to bad things for the US economy and folks who get blamed for 'bad things'.
elite people = riches of the world
The Ponzi looked strong....until it took an arrow in the knee.
Over/Under on days until the peg is gone?
I wondered what that plunge was about. I guessed it was a hotel maid somewhere but was wrong. Or did the wife once work in a hotel? Betting on the franc going up is a two-fer- you win if the peg breaks and you win if there's a euro short squeeze.
The board should hire someone who can drop the floor even lower,quickly and forcefully, perhaps use some of the EUR to keep Hungary out of the Jaws of Brussels and the IMF until their attentions inevitably move melsewhere.
He who debases first, debases best.
Bankers are like sharks, adept at smelling blood in the water, the SNB needs to bloody the CHF specs more.
And FOR GOD'S SAKE - stop standing in the way of more gold flowing into the Swiss economy.
Some release. Keep it short and sweet. Here's what I'm pissed about; even though I've accepted the fact that Mittens Romney is the choice of TPTB for the nomination, would someone please tell me how the hell a guy who got 1% in Iowa has managed to tie the guy who has been a solid and strong second place for the last almost week in NH? Please? Who the fuck is Huntsman? As soon as I saw the boston globe (small case) endorse Huntsman I wondered how much they got payed for that. Might as well get used to it because it's going to be a long spring primary season for us Ron Paul supporters.
http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/01/ppp-romney-at-perce...
A long primary season is the best your boy could possibly do.
Has anyone got a link to a live video of the press conference he's about to have?
P.s. Link is here: http://www.snb.ch/en/ifor/media/webtv/id/webtv but no vid :( - yet
http://www.tagesschau.sf.tv/sfvideo/live/c49c1c20-2400-0001-f626-12d7143012e8
Reporter says he did it to avert a testimony before parliament.
Hildebrand cannot deny with 100% certainty that his wife Kash-ya did not have any forknowledge.
Fucking douchebag, he simply waited for 2012 to resign to get his 2011 bonus for wasting billions of chiffs.
I thought 20 Minuten wrote that Hildebrand could affirm with 100% certainty that he didn't know his own wife had taken all the procedes from selling one of their homes and going to the FX Casino to play...
So Kash-ya Kashed-In.
The wife's trades are merely the tip of the iceberg.
Hildebrande or Brünnhilde ? (Wagner's ring cycle)
"Brünnhilde is the warrior daughter of Woton, and a Valkyrie. She is originally ordered by Woton to defend Siegmund, but is forced to change sides when Fricka reminds Woton that he is required to defend Hunding’s marriage vows. She defies her father’s orders, and losses her immortality as punishment.She eventually marries Siegfried, who gives her the ring after killing Fafner with the reconstructed sword. Brünnhilde’s sister, Waltraute, warns her that their father Woton says the gods are doomed to destruction unless she gives the ring back to the Rhinemaidens, but Brünnhilde's new love for Siegfried is more important to her than concern for the gods. She refuses to give up the ring, and Waltraute rides off in despair.
Siegfried returns to Brünnhilde, transformed by the Tarnhelm into Gunther's form. He tears steals the ring and claims her as Gunther's Bride. Later, at Siegfried’s apparent deception and treachery (she was unaware he was under the power of a magic potion), she reveals Siegfried’s weak spot – a spear thrust into his back would be fatal. Hagen, of course, takes advantage of this knowledge and murders him.
When her husband is killed, Brünnhilde considers the gods responsible for Siegfried’s death, regains possession of the ring, and swears it will once again belong to the Rhinemaidens. She puts it on, sets Siegfried’s funeral pyre on fire, and jumps into the flames (but not before she orders her father’s ravens to tell Loge to go Valhalla for the downfall of the gods). The world burns down, the gods are destroyed, and the Rhinemaidens once again posses their gold."
Quick someone write an opera.
My take: she did know, she didn't tell him, she's his beard, but not for long.
I'm guessing that Frau Hildebrand's escapades go far deeper than just an FX trade. There's got to be other shit here that is being covered up and must not see daylight. Nobody resigns over an FX trade.
http://vegasxau.blogspot.com
Bruce Krasting and ilene good on both of you for the great heads-up on this; more validation that these things just expose, the hubris mentality of the elite in the world.
Thanks,
Twice a Day
Poor Mr. Hildebrand. He is a victim. His wife screwed up. He never did anything wrong. He is very sad. Believe me he is a victim. I believe everything he said.
Durden ==> (O_0) Hildebrand
gg bytches!!!!!
Hildbrand says he is coming directly from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in Basel.
Maybe they told him to step down.
Bruce Krasting picked his bets well. He said she would sing her hubby out of power into the cubby hole. Maybe the CHF will repeg lower and we will all drink swiss Pinot Perle for cheap. Dream on...
politically charged campaign against Philipp
Tyler, you make it sound as if he was the good guy.
tant pis and fuck you asshole
no hotel rapes this time? what a boring takedown.
i read : "american and british banker scums make swiss banker scum resign."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0YDuSLXcX8
Getting interesting at the top in 2012.
My 2 cents about the subject:
this is perhaps the most euro bearish news. Why? Becouse perhaps the expulsion of Hildebrandt is the attempt to restore the Swiss safe heaven status. In other words europe elites need a safe harbour where to park their wealth, far from the tsunami forming in the euro area.
Time to short again eurchf
Time to short the remains of swiss main street producers
Maybe in Swiss the recession will hit harder than in Greece.
Maybe Swiss will become usa 1929 redux.
Maybe Karl Denninger and other 1929 adventists will move to Swiss.
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...or maybe not ... the ghost of Hildebrandt will come back and will start the printing press....
After all chf gold pair 5y return is only 102% compared to
eur gold 172%
usd gold 162%
Right Tyler ?
Tyler, if yuo're there, knock once