Archive for the ‘General’ Category
Wednesday, August 25th, 2010
The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that a review of drug-test data compiled by Sterling Infosystems, shows that cocaine is losing favor among investment professionals with marijuana and amphetamines picking up the slack.
The story compared the data compiled by Sterling Infosystems from 2009 to 2007, which showed that cocaine was present in 7% of positive tests at Wall Street firms in 2009 compared to 16% in 2007 and the prevalence of marijuana in failed tests jumped to 80% in 2009 from 64% in 2007. The percentage of amphetamines in failed tests grew to 10% in 2009 from 3% in 2007.
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Monday, August 16th, 2010
Markets are reacting today to the news that China has taken over Japan as the second largest economy and will surpass the United States as the world’s largest economy within 20 years. Jon Nadler pointed out in his metals update this morning that the U.S. dollar was lower and the euro gained, while gold was up a bit. He also said that Japan and China could flip-flop for the number two spot in the economy as seasons and metrics used to calculate GDP change. (more…)
Tags: China, economy
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Thursday, July 29th, 2010
With high frequency trading now one of the most buzzed-about issues in the industry, co-location, a technique used by many high frequency traders of placing trading servers near an exchange’s matching engine to reduce order message times, is now a hot topic too. The Futures Industry Association hosted a panel of experts yesterday in Chicago to discuss co-location: its growth, its advantages and challenges on the horizon. (more…)
Tags: co-location, Futures Industry Association, high frequency trading
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Wednesday, June 16th, 2010
With high frequency trading getting a lot of (mostly negative) attention these days from Washington lawmakers and the media, the Futures Industry Association (FIA) and a coalition of trading firms have formed a group to advocate for the interests of firms trading for their own capital. The FIA Principal Traders Group (PTG) is a forum for firms trading their own capital to identify and discuss issues confronting the principal traders community. PTG has appointed as its spokesperson industry veteran Jim Overdahl, former chief economist for the SEC and CFTC.
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Tags: Futures Industry Association, high frequency trading
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Tuesday, June 15th, 2010
Ever since the Chicago Mercantile Exchange’s (CME) initial public offering in 2002 —if not before — the writing was on the wall in terms of the direction of member-based financial exchanges.
Exchanges were looking to demutualize and access the capital markets by going public. And the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) being the preeminent U.S. based options exchange, with a hungry and innovative challenger in the International Securities Exchange (ISE) hot on its heels, was no different. However, CBOE had a legacy to overcome.
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Tags: CBOE IPO, CME Group, Mergers
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Thursday, June 3rd, 2010
Regulators and the exchanges are reacting to the May 6 “flash crash” with investigations and products designed to protect investors in today’s volatile markets. Yesterday, Nasdaq said in the third quarter of 2010 it will launch Nasdaq Volatility GuardSM, a single stock circuit breaker which will pause trading based on predetermined thresholds across all Nasdaq-listed securities.
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Tags: Nasdaq, SEC, stub quotes
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Tuesday, May 25th, 2010
It’s hard to keep up with so many dramas on the business front. I’m surprised Congress has time to do anything other than grill captains of industry and regulators about what happened, how did it go so wrong and what can be done to fix it. (more…)
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Friday, April 30th, 2010
Regulatory reform and growth in the options industry are two prevailing themes today at the annual Options Industry Conference in Phoenix. At a Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) media breakfast, talk of the exchange’s upcoming IPO efforts was kept firmly off the table, while regulatory issues were definitely on. (more…)
Tags: CBOE, CFTC, ISE, options, regulation, SEC
Posted in General, Regulatory/actions | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 27th, 2010
Looking for some drama to spice up your afternoon? Look no further than the Goldman Sachs Show. Specifically, today’s Senate subcommittee hearing investigating Goldman’s role in the financial crisis, in the wake of the SEC charging Goldman with fraud on April 16. New York Times is live-blogging the hearing. Here are some of the juiciest items from the Times blog:
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Tags: Goldman Sachs, Senate, U.S. Senate Investigations
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