“Best trading day in the history of Société Générale was September 11, 2001″
According to an article in The London Times today, Société Générale rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel profited enormously on the day of the 7/7 London bombings. He has also revealed how his company made huge profits on September 11th 2001, prompting some to return to questions over insider foreknowledge of both terrorist attacks.
The article states:
“The best trading day in the history of Société Générale was September 11, 2001,” he said. “At least, that’s what one of my managers told me. It seems that profits were colossal that day.
“I had a similar experience during the London attacks in July 2005.”
A few days earlier he had bet on a fall in the share price of Allianz, the German insurance giant, he told Le Parisien. Everyone was losing money when the 7/7 bombings sent the insurance sector into a downward spiral “except for me”, he said. “Thanks to the positions I had, I earned €500,000 in a few minutes. It was the jackpot. I was jubilant.”
After the celebrations Mr Kerviel said he paused for thought. “I understood that I was having fun when people had just been hit by the bombs. I ran to the toilet and I was sick. But the moment of weakness did not last long. I went back into the trading room and I returned to work.”
Kerviel was charged almost exactly one year ago in the Société Générale trading loss incident which cost the financial services company an estimated €4.9 billion.
Until the Bernard Madoff fraud incident last month, it was reported to be the largest fraud in banking history.
Société Générale claimed that Kerviel worked the trades alone, and without its authorization. Kerviel told investigators that such practices are widespread and that huge profits routinely give the upper echelons of financial institutions cause to turn a blind eye.
Many questions have been raised regarding massive trades that foreshadowed the events of 9/11, with put options placed in large quantities against American and United Airliners in the days immediately prior to the attacks.
The investigation as to who was responsible for authorizing the transactions led directly back to former CIA director Buzzy Krongard.
In the case of the London bombings, the pound fell 6 per cent against the dollar for no apparent reason in the days before the attack.
“Currencies of established countries simply do not fall that fast based upon any kind of economic or financial analysis,” said a 35 year veteran economist. “Somebody – somewhere – knew something. Or maybe I should say ’somebodies.’”
It is considered that such anomalous activity betrays prior knowledge of the incidents.
We have since seen other suspicious trading incidents dovetailing with foiled terror attacks. Specifically, in August 2006, surrounding the infamous “liquid bomb plot” and one year later in August 2007 with the so-called “Bin Laden trades” when a mystery trader placed 245,000 put options on the Dow Jones Eurostoxx 50 index.
