MarketWatch: RiskMetrics Soars in Stock-Market Debut. In markets, like comedy, timing is all-important. So it was highly fortuitous for RiskMetrics Group Inc., a provider of risk-management and corporate-governance products and research, to make its stock-market debut one day after Societe Generale, France’s second-largest bank, stunned the financial world with the revelation of its $7.1 billion trading loss at the hands of a single rogue employee.
I’m not a believer in rogue traders. If an employee managed a series of trades that netted $7.1 billion, no one will be calling that person a rogue trader. The lesson is that you are only a rogue trader if you bet incorrectly. Funny how we don’t apply that derogatory term to other professions, even when they stumble as badly or worse. We don’t talk about a rogue politician that has led our country into war that has resulted in a $488 billion loss. Anyways, RiskMetrics Group Inc. contracts are online.