e questo è il lato comico della faccenda SG
Yes, you guessed it: Société Générale.Awarded just this month by Risk magazine, SocGen bagged the gong for equity derivatives house of the year. While credit made headlines, said the mag, equity markets also had a rough ride, with the rise in correlation and volatility causing pain for some dealers.
With one of the largest exotics books on the Street, one would imagine that Société Générale Corporate and Investment Banking (SG CIB) would be licking its wounds and coping with hundreds of millions of euros in losses. There was some impact, but the losses have been relatively minor and entirely manageable, says Christophe Mianne, SG CIB’s head of market activities, covering equity, derivatives, fixed income, currency and commodities in Paris.
“We managed the existing book very well because we decided some time before the crisis to be long volatility and be less sensitive to correlation, so the losses were minimal. We suffered on our statistical arbitrage trading activity, but that was just for one month, and minimal compared to some hedge funds or other banks. Overall, our trading activities will be approximately flat compared to last year, which is a good performance,” remarks Mianne.
They were so busy managing the book for forthcoming volatility, that they failed to notice a trader building up “massive fraudulent directional positions,” resulting in the loss of €5bn.