UBS Rogue Trader Had Been "Reduced To Watching Fox News For Guidance"
This could probably explain a lot. According to the FT, which has managed to sneak a peek into Kweku Adoboli aka, the scourge of UBS, Facebook profile, in a July 31 update said: "Will they? Won’t they? Reduced to watching Fox News for guidance, it’s a grim affair". It appears that Adoboli should thus be commended - under those conditions we believe it is a miracle a person's loss can be confined to just $2 billion. FT continues with the cyberstalking: " That was followed a week later amid steep market falls, by an entry that read: “Can we shut down global markets for a week so everyone can just chill out?” It also appears that the Delta One'er (which is just a fancy name for "correlation desk" trader) enjoyed his downtime as well: "He came across as someone who worked quite hard to get where he was and played quite hard too," said the acquaintance. Yet by all counts it appears that the event that did ole' Kweku in was the Swiss intervention on September 6: "However, the final message left by the trader on his own Facebook page on September 6 simply read “need a miracle”." Odd: so does Tim Geithner and the Eurozone. Alas, as the latest "rogue trader" incarnation just found the hard way, those are in short supply these days.
From the FT:
According to entries on Facebook, Kweku Adoboli, a 31-year-old computer science graduate described as an “up and coming” trader by colleagues, had been following the recent market turmoil closely.
Mr Adoboli is thought to have been arrested on Thursday by City of London police on suspicion of fraud by abuse of position. He is currently being remanded in custody.
A 2003 graduate from Nottingham University, where he studied computer science, Mr Adoboli began working at UBS in London in 2006.
“There is a lot of shock, horror and disbelief,” the person said of his arrest. “He was incredibly straight and upstanding with very high integrity. He would definitely not be the first place you start looking.”
Which, ironically is the first place you start looking when trying to find a scapegoat for massive losses, and a reason to announce a global monetary intervention. Just recall how Jerome Kerviel's fun with ES was used by Bernanke as a smokescreen to cut the Fed Funds rate by 0.75% in an emergency announcement when futures were plunging on that cold day in January 2008....
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he was arrested at 3:30 am at a night club drinking vodka red bulls and getting pumped for today's trading?
I'm very curious to know what positions he had to close for a $2 bil loss.
Long Euro?
Swissie
Right. He prolly bought them for 1.06 ...
UBS just need a scapegoat for poorly managed funds.
How can a person so inexperienced become responsible for let's say 600 to 800 million hard equity and then get a margin call without anybody knowing the risk?
He's been working there only for 4 years or so... UBS truly must be quite a sh*thole!
And it comes to be that the circle of light at the end of your tunnel
Is just a freight train coming your way....
Green, couldn't agree more. Really hard to believe his superiors didn't know what he was doing. When trade went bad - needed to offer up a sacrifice. Reading between the lines, looks like UBS thought SNB was not going to back up their claim to devalue the Swissie with an intervention and went or stayed long. Ooops, that's gonna leave a mark.
Full disclosure - I was long the Swissie but sold about a month ago after it spiked. Not at the top unfortunately, but made a profit. I was in it as a safe haven, not speculation, just don't trust the FRN$. I thought the SNB was using a bully pulpit to scare people off but obviously their handlers wanted a stronger Euro. Wish I could be on the distribution list when they make this decision, guess I'm not in the "in" crowd.
Neither was UBS, surprising...!!!
I m quite convinced he was long S&P or Eurostoxx futures based on the debt ceiling deal will rally stocks to the moon blablabla... aka Barton Biggs etc... But unfortunately the opposite happened and he was probably doubling down...
Grim affair ? Mr. Adoboli must be low on vitamins.
http://www.freeadsonlineuk.com/_mm/_d/_ext2/35637/big_Liz%20Claman01.jpg
She is not wearing a bra!
Without raisin smugglers, where would we get our raisins? :>D
Muddy waters on Bloomturd Silvercorp may be another Chinese fraud. A day after Bloomturd was pumping Silvercorp. Ouch
Company came out swinging in defense. Opened their mine to anyone who wants a tour this month and opened their books and posted them on their website. The allegations were made in an anonymous letter by individuals who stated they had a short position. This is being investigated by RCMP, SEC and Canadian regulators. Watch for a massive short squeeze if they are cleared of wrong doing, currently 20 million shares sold short. Could be one for the ages. Pass the popcorn, gonna be fun to watch.
imho this is what got him into trouble, the Swissie ETF :)
http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/1452/captureqzg.png
[URL=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/8/captureqzg.png/][IMG]http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/1452/captureqzg.png[/IMG][/URL]
bahahahahah funyn stuff.. he should have been short NFLX
http://www.hedgeaccording.ly/2011/08/netflix-chart-update-3-to-300-to-21...
Got his investment info from Fox?
I guess my Magic 8 Ball doesn't look so stupid now, huh?
lol "need a miracle" facebook entry hahahaha.
I almost pissed my pants laughing
"...I need a woman 'bout twice my height!
Statuesque, really dressed, a Goddess of the night!
One more thing, I just got to say: I need a miracle, every day!..." -- Grateful Dead, "Miracle"
So what was the ETF?
They say he was naked short some Silver ETF,
But they seem to talk a lot about the SNB as well so maybe a curency Long CHF short USD
FXF
Who did he think he worked for, JP Morgan?
And what exactly is wrong with getting your world view from Fox News? If you are one with the machine there is only one place to receive your indoctrination and programming. That would be the nearest MSM outlet.
Plug me in and beam me up Scotty.
Trader should probably get bail or badge of honor from fight club.
Wish the damage could have been greater, but he did his part.
Project Mayhem.
His name was Kweku Adoboli.
Project Mayhem: A secret operation carried out by the Fight Club, led by Tyler Durden. :-)
Shame he never heard of ZH. :)
On the contrary, I would say he was well read on ZH and just took one for the team, he's now my hero!
Hedge funds often call into my company mistakenly looking for our services. We are confused with a company that has the same name and deals in the financial community exclusively. in any event, after I figure out they are a hedge fund I generally ask them a question about a headline I am readin on Zerohedge and then ask where I heard that from. I point them here regularly.
Touché.
exactly CD - pile up on poor ole Murdoch - its all his fault... we almost forgot about him heeee....
Just be thankful he did not depend on CNBC or 2 billion in losses would have been exponentially worse. Where do they get these guys. HA
Hell, all he had to do was read an article in the Wall Street Journal! It worked for battle ship hips Hillary in the 80s!
Not to get political, but the Hillary incident was an eye opener for me. It's my suspicion is that after ABSCAM, no congressman in his right mind would accept an envelope. They are exempt from insider trading rules for a reason. Big money buys them off with a simple stock tip and then ramps that stock. It's absolutely fool proof.
Yup, here's a recent ZH article about it:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/why-hedge-fund-comprised-junior-congres...
If he listened to Gartman and did the exact opposite he would have made $2 Billion.
as a black guy he was left out of the pre SNB news stream from internal memos.
i cant wait to find out how much gold has been dumped by the largest central banks in an effort to stave off a complete institutional bank run that wouldve otherwise landed in golds lap---must...........save.............fiat...............
Silly gnomes. "Ultimate responsibility"? Suck it.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:-fph3b_Vz9wJ:www.ub...
delta one strategies have nothing to do with correlation trading. they're just the lowest totem on the derivatives pole.
It's always a rogue trader. Nick Leeson would be proud.
Barings, ah the memories, back when losing 1.3 billion was losing real money.
Gosh, remember how that sounded like SO much money? At least it did to me.
Blame is never focused on the firms or banks of course. It's always a "rogue" individual's fault. har har
Was he wearing a red shirt?
yeah and he's only a "rogue" if he looses
if he wins he's getting a rise, promotion, bonus the whole shebang
I'd say he was under the same impression if a "miracle" trade would have cleared him of any wrong doing.
blame it all on the SNB..they did a surprise move and stymied the poor computer nerd dressed up by UBS as smart aleck trader...a cut n paste job à la Jerome Kerviel. Kerviel was a low level trader having been promoted from techy computer analysis and program maintenance to trading, the golden route!
Wow! these banks never learn.
still pretty tame compared to Kerviel who blew 4.9 Bio EUR
Be a hoot if UBS is the new Lehmans.
Black is the new black for 2011.
UBS' chief risk officer was formerly the chief risk officer for Lehman.
Wherever she shows up next, short it with every dollar you've got.
At Barings, both Ash Lewis and Brenda Granger missed Leeson's trades. At SocGen, Kerviel's trades were overlooked by Claire Dumas. Whenever empowered ladies show up, short their employers.
Jack K @ 16:04
O will appoint them as Geithners and his deputies replacements.
Seiously, we should put them in charge of enforcement at Justice. Like Liz Warren.
Each gender has its strenghts ;)
If only we could deal with rogue central bankers the same way..
Yeah. I'll phone up City of London Police.
London Police have been "too bizzy" harrying teenagers not to form groups of more than 3 on street corners and dishing out dozens of petty fines to milk innnocent motorists
...meanwhile the golaposts have been left wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide open for every financial criminal (banker, crony businessmen and politician) to commit national fraud, theft and create ponzi schemes unhindered
Climate Change anyone?
We form gangs. You all be lone wolfs. Or else this won't work.
Oh Yes individualism is the key ..everyone, individually, stop paying your taxes ...it'll unlock freedom faster than any other method to stop this rot ...and so simple too
Zero Tax = Zero Govt
Bernanke would just print even more.
MsCreant - Benny would have no authority to print more money if Govt were gone... Govt is the key to this whole Western (and Eastern) sham. Govt props up all the garbage institutions, particuarly corporate monopolies (Big Oil, Big Pharma, Big Healthcare) and of course that big monopoly of money, The Fed
take away Govt and the biggest protection racket in history, funded by you the taxpayer, gets taken away from this global scum... enter right the Free Market and what fears all Big Monopolists, competition from small business... the Big Dinosaur institutions would be toast in a matter of years from the free markets constant battering of these big slow bloated old farts
Zero Tax = Zero Govt
...and a whole lot more 'Zeros' put to the sword too (Blankfein, Dimon, Rothchild et al)
Your heart is in the right place, but I believe you are wrong. We stop paying, they have a shortfall, Benny prints and it looks like the govt. is not failing. I am not saying this is sustainable (hell what is happening now is not sustainable) but we would not know for a long time that no one was paying taxes. He'd print, services would continue, and my bet is the dollar will fail before the government would.
I wish you were right. We would all have to know that each of us was not paying taxes to stand a chance of having that work.
The fucker is going to print until no one believes in the dollar any more. I'm banking on it, literally. This shit show goes on for a while longer.
MsCreant - Benny would have no authority to print more money
As long as the ATF agents and police they send round to shoot up your house and kill your entire family right there on the front lawn on 10 o'clock news (as an example) to others take bennies money, then there is authority.
Hell - A lot of the guys coming back from Iraq and Afgahistan to menial jobs, no money and everlasting boredom would probably kill people for Free - just to get that olde andrenaline going. No wonder bummah don't want to bring them soldiers back home.
fyi, London does not = the City of London.
City of London police is different from the Metropolital police. City of London police are just inside the square mile.
interesting that they have their own force.
He LOST money, so he's arrested for fraud...however anyone with a fund going UP is never suspected of fraud.
Ponzi on, bitchez.
That's what I though, SheepDog-One. 'tis like getting arrested for dropping a chinese ming vase at an auction house.
Oopps UBS!!! Another $2Billion slips through the Risk Managers fingers found yet again asleep at the wheel (worthless crones)... much like every Law and Regulator in every country in history has been a complete unremitting unrelenting failure....
Priceless
...well $2bn to be exact!
I don't buy the UBS/intervention theory - I think it's 11.09.15, Lehman +3. UBS's case perhaps comes at close of accounts on the 15 th, mid-month. The intervention's case is sustained by Wednesday's downgrades of French banks after the SocGen CEO conference on Tuesday: even after proven liquidity, and loss absorption concerns eased, SocGen was downgraded.
As known, SocGen par with other French banks hold assets plenty to serve as liquidity providers to the Eurozone and were suffering from USD liquidity concerns: it is clear now USD liquidity would be remanded.
Furthermore, the 6-pack was approved yesterday: it is a clear sign fiscal growth is not growth by fiscal.
Finally, Sec. Geithner is in town - brought cash widdim, waz the problem?
There's never a problem ...... until there's a problem
LOL
Guess we won't be seeing RobotTrader much anymore. We should start a pool so we can send him a box of cookies in the big house.
or a box of condoms....
cigarettes
How the fuck does a Delta 1 trader get into a position to lose $2B? Also, wouldn't he not be at fault since the SNB performed an intervention instead of letting the market work, causing the $2B loss. Lastly, where did UBS get money to actually invest?
C'mon, a D1 trader has $ limits on trades. So far all we've seen is the tip of the iceberg.
I find it amazing that people still get amazed at what the world can churn up.
How does a community organizer and summer intern get to be the POTUS?
Where there is a will there is a way!
his own Facebook page on September 6 simply read “need a miracle”." Odd: so does Tim Geithner and the Eurozone.
LMAO! Hysterical. They really are getting desperate at this point... seems paper solutions don't have the same bang-effect they used too. With all of this central-bank-created volatility, the end of the quarter is going to look very painful for many a trading desk across the buy and sell side of the Street. The central banks are shooting themselves in the foot with the same tools they are using to fix the problems. Awesome.
Hey G-Pap, grow a set and show us why Greece is the cradle of democracy.
John Adams 2nd American President
We are very sadistic here in Mordor anyway.... besides, I'll take it over any of the alternatives every time.
You would think the SNB would tip off their own guys.
Like Ben and Tim.
I find it ironic that the supposed trade that did him in was CHF. Probably doing some quant shit with eurchf. You would think UBS would have had some kind of inside skinny on the swiss intervention that was about to happen.
Message to Kweku: While you are in prison, read Taleb's book on black swans.
Maybe UBS management just decided that the best, most face-saving, way to unwind their losing trades was to stick them in Kweku's account?
If this is the case, they will not want Kweku to testify too much in court. A settlement will/has to be made - or maybe the UBS are also cheapskates and poor Kweku will have a fatal accident in prison.
I know of someone being offered to take 4-6 years in the slammer (with possibility of doing half the time for good behaviour) for fraud - in return for a nice retirement account in a tax shelter. He did not exactly trust the person making the offer so we never found out if it was genuine.
Don’t go to bed with no shorts on your head
Don’t do it
Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time
Keep your eye on the sparrow
When the ir spread gets narrow
Don’t roll the dice if you can’t pay the price
Don’t do it
Don’t run your feet down a dead end street
Don’t do jpm dirt or you’re gonna get hurt
Don’t do it
Don’t run away ‘til you hear what I say
Ain’t gonna fight with no squid in the night
Won’t do it
How high can it fly with the volume so low?
I’m gonna go where the cold FX wind don’t blow
classic.
LOL. And you can take that to the bank my friend.
Which probably sums up the foresight of any trading desk jockey around the world.
Everything is binary in the world of central bank intervention.
Sounds like Robot Trader has officially been unmasked..we know your true identity Robot, sorry about the stint in jail bro
He never learned his Leeson. lolololol
I am kinda struggling to see why UBS thought it was a good idea to hire a computer science grad from Nottingham uni in 2006 and put him on a trading desk. No wonder the lad ended up watching Fox news for help. In these dark times, you need a backstop of hard experience, a core grasp of history, a keen political nose, a good relationship with Johnny the Shoeshine Guy, and probably the ability to play the tuba.
UBS needed a fall guy. nuff said