First, I am not surprised that the size of the loss has turned out to be 15% greater than UBS first estimated - because selling or hedging big trading positions in a hurry, as UBS had to do on Friday, is always expensive.
It had one employee too many to be considered a retail customer, so it is not clear whether in future Barclays would be banned from selling this hedging product to the likes of Adcocks or whether the owner Paul Adcock will be able to escape from the financially crippling contract.
The Dow is up 11% this year its best first quarter in 15 years and some money managers have been selling stocks or hedging positions for fear that stocks are overdue for a pullback.