FICTITIOUS TRADES, FALSIFIED RECORDS, AND OPTION SALES
TO RAISE FUNDS
The need to make margin deposits was a thorn in Leeson’s side. He did not
want to alert London by asking for too many wire transfers, yet he needed
funds to keep buying futures contracts. Only by having enormous futures
positions could he recover his losses when the market bounced in the right
direction.
The need for cash to meet margin calls drove Leeson to desperation. He
began to record fictitious trades, falsify internal transfer records, and sell
straddles on the Nikkei index. All of these actions were clearly and explicitly
outside his authority to transact. The purpose of the first two activities was
to reduce the size of his margin calls by lowering his exposures. The purpose
of the third activity (i.e., selling straddles) was to generate funds in
order to finance his margin calls.
Leeson’s fictitious trades were blatant and illegal deceptions. He got away
with them for as long as he did, because the trades were usually taken late
in the day and then reversed early the next morning. Similarly, his falsification
of records was a financial shell game, in which he pretended to transfer
and trade large blocks of stocks between the accounts of the various Barings
affiliates and the 88888 Account. In this way, Leeson gave the impression
that his net exposures were small and his profits were high. As well, he
duped exchanges into charging him less margin than he should have paid.
All of these shenanigans had the effect of buying Leeson a stream of oneday
stays of execution. Meanwhile, he hoped for full exoneration by unwinding
his positions at a profit.
One way to better understand the corner into which Leeson painted himself
is by diagramming the profit-and-loss profile of his combined positions.
The graphic explanation in the next section is a must for anyone interested
in what really went wrong at Barings.
LEESON’S TRADING POSITION: THE NET PROFIT-AND-LOSS
PROFILE OF HIS EXPOSURES
Leeson’s Sales of Short Straddles
Leeson earned revenues to pay his margin calls by selling short straddles. As
Exhibit 7.4 shows, a short straddle is the derivative hybrid created when a
short put option and a short call option with the same strike prices are simultaneously
combined. The only way a short straddle can earn profits is if