The SocGen case is that the outlook was fundamentally changed by the financial crisis of 2007-08.
Indeed, all four speakers at the SocGen event used a chart of the cyclically adjusted ratio.
Some people wonder if SocGen would have blown the whistle at all had the bets been profitable.
SocGen was cut to Aa3 from Aa2 while Credit Agricole was taken down to Aa2 from Aa1.
FORBES: Stocks Mixed After Moody's Downgrades SocGen And Geithner Rejects Lehman-Moment
"I never believed that the baht was overvalued, " says Manu Bhaskaran of SocGen Crosby Securities in Singapore.
It helps, of course, that other banks are also suffering, which is where SocGen's luck comes in.
Rather, its bid for Paribas was a necessary corollary, given French takeover regulations, of bidding for SocGen.
"What is impressive is SocGen's capacity to cut its cost base, " said Yohan Salleron, fund manager at Mandarine Gestion.
This seems plausible, given that SocGen, after full access to Paribas's books and thorough study, hoped to save euro1 billion.
At SocGen the identity of the traders in question remains unclear and the probe appears to be at an earlier stage.
It wants lots of profitable retail business (which, together with SocGen, France's most efficient retail bank, it thinks it could create).
SocGen has retail banking and an investment-banking business dominated by high-tech wizardry.
Both BNP and SocGen also detailed manageable exposures to Greek government debt.
That burst of capital-raising looks prescient too: SocGen's Tier 1 ratio of 8% is in line with the new benchmark emerging at European banks.
Eurex, Europe's largest futures exchange, contacted SocGen about oddities in trading patterns in late 2007, which the Paris prosecutor says referred to Mr Kerviel's positions.
Clients seem willing to give SocGen the benefit of the doubt.
But Gan Kim Khoon of SocGen-Crosby does not think both offerings will be undersubscribed, so CIMB should not be stuck with excess Bakun shares on its books.
Andrew Lapthorne, SocGen's quantitative strategist, points out that buying equities when valuations are at current levels has delivered average historic real returns of just 1.4% a year.
Embarrassingly, it also included trades with other parts of SocGen.
And a report prepared by France's finance ministry criticised SocGen's procedures for monitoring its trades, adding to the pressure on Daniel Bouton, the bank's chairman, to step down.
One brokerage, SocGen-Crosby, suggests creating currency boards in Asian countries.
Meanwhile, it emerged that America's Securities and Exchange Commission was looking at a sale of shares by a member of SocGen's board made shortly before the scandal came to light.
The sheer size of Mr Kerviel's exposure, the losses on which tripled as SocGen frenetically unwound its positions between January 21st and 23rd, has caused most bafflement among veterans of the futures markets.
Daniel Bouton, SocGen's boss, has argued that Mr Kerviel could easily conceal the vast positions he took because he had previously worked in the back office, so was familiar with the system of controls.
"The weakness is far worse than expected and the news comes at a time when people were hoping that recovery in Japan would help Asia recover, " says Manu Bhaskaran of SocGen-Crosby Securities in Singapore.
Yet Daniel Bouton, SocGen's boss, thinks that the two banks have too many overlapping branches to make such returns possible: in regulated France, you cannot simply close branches and sack people, which is, in part, how banks in America and Britain have increased returns.
应用推荐