Jérôme Kerviel

Jérôme Kerviel (French pronunciation: ​[ʒeʁom kɛʁvjɛl]; born 11 January 1977) is a French trader who was convicted in the 2008 Société Générale trading loss for breach of trust, forgery and unauthorized use of the bank's computers, resulting in losses valued at €4.9 billion. Société Générale characterizes Kerviel as a rogue trader and claims Kerviel worked these trades alone and without its authorization. These assertions have been met with skepticism by some of Kerviel's former colleagues and acquaintances, as well as by some members of the news media. Kerviel had told investigators that his trading behavior was widespread at the company and that making a profit made the hierarchy turn a blind eye. Kerviel published a book in May 2010, L'engrenage: Mémoires d’un Trader (Downward spiral: Memoirs of a Trader), in which he alleges that his superiors knew of his trading activities, and that the practice was very common.

Early life

Jérôme Kerviel grew up in Pont-l'Abbé, Brittany. His mother, Marie-Josée, is a retired hairdresser, and his father, Charles, who died in 2006, was a blacksmith. Kerviel has an older brother, Olivier. Kerviel is married, but he and his wife separated in 2008.

Société Générale

Société Générale S.A. is a French multinational banking and financial services company headquartered in Paris. The company is a universal bank and has divisions supporting French Networks, Global Transaction Banking, International Retail Banking, Financial services, Corporate and Investment Banking, Private Banking, Asset Management and Securities Services.

Société Générale is France's third largest bank by total assets, seventh largest in Europe or seventeenth by market capitalization.

Société Générale is one of the oldest banks in France. Founded in 1864 its original name was Société Générale pour favoriser le développement du commerce et de l'industrie en France (English: General Company to Support the Development of Commerce and Industry in France). The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 stock market index.

History

1864–1893

The bank was founded by a group of industrialists and financiers during the second empire, on May 4, 1864, to support the development of commerce and industry in France. The bank's first chairman was the prominent industrialist Eugène Schneider (1805–1875) followed by Edward Blount, a Scotsman.

1414 Jérôme

1414 Jérôme, provisional designation 1937 CE, is a somewhat eccentric, carbonaceous asteroid from the outer region of the asteroid belt, about 17 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 12 February 1937 by French astronomer Louis Boyer at Algiers Observatory, Algeria, in northern Africa.

The dark C-type asteroid, classified as a Ch-subtype in the SMASS classification scheme, which have a typical absorption feature in the visible red light, orbits the Sun at a distance of 2.3–3.2 AU once every 4 years and 8 months (1,697 days). Its orbit shows an eccentricity of 0.16 and is tilted by 9 degrees to the plane of the ecliptic. It has an albedo of 0.065. Although the body's diameter and albedo were measured by four observations made by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite, IRAS, little is known about the asteroid, with its rotation period remaining unknown, despite having a well-observed orbit with the lowest possible uncertainty, or condition code, of 0 and an observation arc that spans over a period of almost 80 years.

Wall Street

Wall Street is a 0.7-mile-long (1.1 km) street running eight blocks, roughly northwest to southeast, from Broadway to South Street on the East River in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan, New York City. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, the American financial sector (even if financial firms are not physically located there), or signifying New York-based financial interests.

Anchored by Wall Street, New York City has been called both the most economically powerful city and the leading financial center of the world, and the city is home to the world's two largest stock exchanges by total market capitalization, the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. Several other major exchanges have or had headquarters in the Wall Street area, including the New York Mercantile Exchange, the New York Board of Trade, and the former American Stock Exchange.

History

Early years

There are varying accounts about how the Dutch-named "de Waal Straat" got its name. A generally accepted version is that the name of the street was derived from an earthen wall on the northern boundary of the New Amsterdam settlement, perhaps to protect against English colonial encroachment or incursions by Native Americans. A conflicting explanation is that Wall Street was named after Walloons— the Dutch name for a Walloon is Waal. Among the first settlers that embarked on the ship "Nieu Nederlandt" in 1624 were 30 Walloon families. The Dutch word "wal" can be translated as "rampart". However, even some English maps show the name as Waal Straat, and not as Wal Straat.

Street Stories

Street Stories is the seventh studio album by Houston rapper Lil' Keke. It was released on July 22, 2003. It features a guest called 1da Boy, Slim Thug and the group Boyz In Blue.

Track listing