Jerome Kerviel stood accused by Société Générale of taking mass positions in DAX, CAC and Eurostoxx futures; positions which the bank later had to liquidate at a well publicised cost of €4.9bn over the end of January 2008.
However, in all the coverage generated there has been scant mention of the fact that Kerviel’s responsibilities on the Delta 1 desk included the trading of Socgen ETFs (as marketed under the Lyxor brand name). Or that Lyxor CAC, DAX and Euro Stoxx 50 ETFs were impacted disproportionally over the liquidation period.
Jerome’s CV, as published on FT Alphaville back in January 2008, for example noted his responsibilities as follows (our emphasis):
Societe Generale S.A., Paris, France Trader and Market Maker for Delta One Products March 2004
– Today Trading : Market making of Listed Delta One products Including open end and closed end Turbos (Single Stocks, Index, Forex and Rate Futures), ETFs and secondary market for Certificates ETFs structuration
– Management of the collateral with Lyxor Asset Management Development of managing tools (Excel VBA macro)
New Underlyings Study to develop the product range Participation to the specification for the implementation of turbos to the Clickoptions platform
And while an ETF association might be old news from Jerome Kerviel’s point of view now, we thought — given the increased focus on ETFs post-flash crash, due to their propensity for systemic style meltdowns — it was worth taking a closer look.
Of course, whether these inconsistencies are the direct result of liquidation attempts, part of Jerome’s original positions, or simply the result of the products’ vulnerability to chaos in their associated futures markets — we just do not know.
A compendium of relevant charts from the associated period, nevertheless, follows.
A reminder: suspicions about Jerome’s unauthorised positions were first aroused on January 18, liquidations began on January 21, and the fraud itself was announced on January 24.