Buy The Rumor Sell The Fact

Forex: Leveraging free speech

Ginger Szala — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:00:42 +0000

When the proposed rule release hit the airwaves back in January, the shock was deafening. This would be the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) proposal: Regulation of Off-Exchange Retail Foreign Exchange Transactions. The industry was well aware new regulations were in the works, it just wasn’t so sure of the details. And as they say, [...]

Forex rule pushback

Daniel P. Collins — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 20:37:44 +0000

One of our contacts in the forex industry forwarded me a note with a link to the comment letters on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission rule proposal limiting leverage for retail forex traders to 10-1. There are nearly 5,000 comments and from the couple of dozen I saw, people are hopping mad. No one likes being preached [...]

From Washington: Get ready, new regs coming

Christine Birkner — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:41:48 +0000

Yesterday, we spoke with CFTC and Congress about how new regulation coming out of Washington would affect traders. We also sat down with former CFTC Chair Sharon Brown-Hruska, now a vice president in NERA’s securities and finance practice. Brown-Hruska says that while it’s justified for the CFTC to crack down on illegal forex operations, the agency’s [...]

From Washington: Futures goes to Congress, CFTC

Christine Birkner — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 23:23:23 +0000

With regulatory reform in Washington THE issue affecting the futures industry right now, Futures magazine is in D.C. this week to talk with Congress and the CFTC about what’s ahead. House Agriculture CommitteeChairman Collin Peterson (D-MN), whose Peterson-Frank Amendment to HR 4173, passed by the House in December, established a central clearing requirement for OTC derivatives, says, “the [...]

Pay to play part infinity

Daniel P. Collins — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:05:25 +0000

The Washington Post reported today that commercial banks and investment institutions are shifting their political donations towards Republicans. Apparently Democrats were garnering two-thirds of those donations as recently as the beginning of 2009 and now that is shifting to an even split despite the Democratic majority. This can sarcastically be placed under “shocking news” of the [...]

Party crasher

Daniel P. Collins — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 15:42:13 +0000

A couple of weeks ago I went down to Key Biscayne, Florida for the Managed Funds Association (MFA) conference. To be more precise, I went down to Florida to meet with and interview several commodity trading advisors who managed to earn positive returns in a difficult year. The reason for this is that the MFA officially [...]

And you wonder why?

Daniel P. Collins — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 18:56:11 +0000

This week I saw a story about how a college intern at Lehman Brothers in 2006 was trading a $150 million proprietary trading book for the firm. It was a revealing anecdote about the nature of risk management at the time from a recently released book by former Lehman prop trader Lawrence McDonald. It reminded me [...]

Fun with indexes

Christine Birkner — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:14:44 +0000

CME Group is in talks to buy Dow Jones Indexes, according to The Financial Times, which reports that a deal would cost CME Group $700 million. This Wall Street Journal story cites the advantages of the deal, including cost cutting (as CME Group now pays Dow Jones licensing fees) and protecting the CME Group’s existing business lines. It’s unclear [...]

CFTC forex proposal: Your chance to comment

Christine Birkner — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 20:06:41 +0000

Forex dealers are not taking the latest rogue regulatory action – CFTC’s proposal to limit leverage in OTC forex - lying down. Last week, the Forex Dealers Coalition (FXDC), a group of the nine largest firms in the industry, sent a letter to the CFTC saying its proposal to limit leverage to 10-1 would “be a [...]

Say that again, you must be joking

Daniel P. Collins — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 02:12:25 +0000

Back in March we wrote about the report “Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America,” published by Essential Information and the Consumer Education Foundation. The report stated that $5 billion in political influence purchasing in Washington over the past decade had led to our current economic collapse. The report was anything but shocking as [...]