Jérôme Kerviel bank a profit of US$2 billion as of 2007. Managers for Société Générale have described some of the means Kerviel employed to avoid the bank's internal controls and escape detection. Its Executive Chairman Daniel Bouton describes the pattern as like "a mutating virus" in which hundreds of thousands of trades were hidden behind offsetting faked hedge trades. Officials say Kerviel was careful to close the trades in just two or three days, just before the trades' timed controls would trigger notice from the bank's internal control system, and Kerviel would then shift those older positions to newly initiated trades. City
Day trader trader but both types of traders can trade in the same markets. Previously seen as a niche market, or something for institutional speculators, the foreign exchange market (forex) by 2010 had increased exponentially to an average daily volume of about $4 trillion USD worldwide, with spot retail forex trades accounting for an estimated 10% of that volume. Possible reasons for the surge in retail forex trading include the now high margin requirements in individual U.S. equities (stocks) for day traders imposed after 2001, and apparent overt manipulation of commodities markets by banks, making commodity futures markets a less desirable market