UBS’s Rogue Trader – Bad Boy, or Good Boy Caught?
I was reading Slashdot this morning when I came across this article on Reuters:
UBS $2 billion rogue trade suspect held in London
and I almost had to laugh. In this industry a lot of people think investing is legalized gambling, and hedging is throwing away your profits. They make fantastic returns until the day they are wrong, and then they make fantastic headlines.
This guy is no exception. Two Billion Dollars. That's a staggering sum of money, and certainly more than you should ever have un-hedged. But they play the game and hope that their role of the dice winds up in their favor. Too often, it doesn't. Now he's serving time with Carlos the Jackal.
Not my idea of fun.