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....