Apparently, even though the "Bin Laden" option trades went flat 6 months
ago, that huge (paper) loss did not deter a planned second-chance effort
to recoup the initial loss, and create havoc in the Western economies.
From a Blogger:
http://11amdesign.com/wordpress/?p=285
"The Federal Reserve's biggest emergency interest rate cut in more than
two decades is sparking debate as to why they slashed interest rates...
the first cut between regularly scheduled meetings since September 2001."
Possible Rationale (still trying to verify the details below):
Well, following hot on the footsteps of the SocGen announcement is the
newly discovered warning -- from other sources than SocGen -- that a
massive level of put option contracts had been placed recently. This
time it was done differently than last Fall, so as to avoid early
detection, as happened 6 months ago.
These options are betting that the US stock markets will crash by March
21st. Reportedly, these are not NYSE but instead NASDAQ-100 index
options placed through (QQQQ) contracts. However, crashing the smaller
exchange would likely have a domino effect on the NYSE.
This seems to be, for all purposes, somewhat of a renewed continuation
of the so-called 'Bin Laden' trades of last Fall. Iran may be involved
this time. There are SocGen links to Iran.
However, apparently the Fed/SEC is wise to this scheme, and will step in
again if necessary. (we hope)
This is being called attempted "financial terrorism".
How they got a well-known bank involved in the first place, is anyone's
guess. It will be interesting to find out if Kerviel has Arab (or
Iranian) contacts, or has recently converted to Islam.
Currently, the March (out of the money) put contacts (100 shares each)
is 645,250 and outweigh the March (in the money) call contacts by
559,343 contacts, well over half a million contract or 56 billion shares
worth ... signaling a huge imbalance, which was estimated to be able to
crash the NASDAQ market by 30% to 40% from it current level, unless a
deep-pocket rescue effort steps-in fist. How many of these came through
SocGen is not known.
This may very well represent (possibly) part of an expected profit that
the Kerviel conspiracy would have reaped, had not they not been caught
ahead of time. The havoc that followed would be difficult to estimate.
This story is far from over, and until March 21 when these put options
expire, the economies of the USA and Europe are still at great risk.
The good news is that if the US SEC decides to meet the risk head-on,
that kind of intervention will finally bankrupt the Bin Laden family
empire, and that of participating Arab enemies, who must have been
partners in this kind of massively coordinated financial terrorism.
Jones
