Archive for the ‘Regulatory/actions’ Category
Wednesday, February 1st, 2012
A day after a source close to the MF Global investigation told the Wall Street Journal that client money may have vaporized, another unnamed source close to the investigation tells the New York Times that investigators know where the money went.
Actually the MF Global Inc. trustee’s report released earlier this month pinpointed where much of the money was stuck and the main question that needed to be asked is why is everyone still quoting the $1.2 billion figure when it simply doesn’t add up. I guess a simple math question is not as sexy as citing unnamed sources.
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Tags: CFTC, regulation
Posted in MF Global, Regulatory/actions | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 31st, 2012
French President Nicolas Sarkozy says he’s tired of waiting for the European Commission to act, so late last night he said he’d implement the Commission’s proposed transaction tax of 0.1% on equity transactions by August. It’s not clear if he’ll push through the 0.1% on derivatives that the Commission is proposing, but he did say that if the European Commission does implement the tax, France will synchronize it to the pan-European one. (more…)
Tags: European Union, france, germany, Transaction tax
Posted in International, Regulatory/actions, economy | No Comments »
Friday, November 25th, 2011
The MF Global bankruptcy and liquidation procedure is getting stranger by the day. As those involved in figuring it out looked to take a Thanksgiving break — though MFGI customers still are looking to be made whole — an odd series of seemingly contradictory news items came out.
The good news is that the trustee located and began to bring in $1.3 billion in customer segregated funds. This may have prompted CME Group to increase the guarantee it made to the trustee to $550 million from $250 million. This is not an allocation but a “good faith” attempt by CME Group to expedite allocation of customer funds by the trustee. This followed the shocking news that nearly three weeks after the bankruptcy filing the trustee stated that the shortfall in customer funds could be twice as much as previously believed. (more…)
Tags: CFTC, Gary Gensler
Posted in MF Global, Regulatory/actions | 2 Comments »
Monday, September 19th, 2011
Here I am, sitting on the trading desk or in the back office of a major bank or brokerage. I hear about the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s new “whistleblower” program that could pay me from 10% to 30% of any fines it collects if I am first to expose hanky-panky to the Feds. I know of an internal plot to manipulate the price of a commodity or its futures contract. (more…)
Tags: CFTC, enforcement, whistleblower
Posted in Regulatory/actions | No Comments »
Thursday, September 15th, 2011
The CFTC, which is facing snipers all around as it tries to do what our Congress (don’t get me started) wants, has just issued new regulations for “swap data repositories” as the Dodd-Frank Act requires. Nothing exceptional here, except that enforcement will be deferred until the agency finalizes what is a “swap.” That is the heart and soul of the whole D-F regime.
Imagine that we were mandated to follow a particular religion but not until the word “god” is defined. (more…)
Tags: CFTC, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Swaps
Posted in Regulatory/actions | 1 Comment »
Friday, July 29th, 2011
As we’ve said previously, Dodd-Frank is now one year old. Unfortunately, as we’ve also discussed, more and more of its provisions are being pushed further back in their implementation. The latest hold-up is the establishment of the Consumer Protection Bureau, that while it has opened its doors, still does not have a director. Others are starting to notice as well. Last night, Jon Stewart did a segment on The Daily Show detailing the progress the law has made over the last year. Hope you enjoy it in all its satirical goodness. (more…)
Tags: Dodd-Frank Act, Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, Jon Stewart
Posted in Regulatory/actions | No Comments »
Monday, July 25th, 2011
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has now adopted new rules - Regs. 180.1 and 180.2 – to implement the Dodd-Frank Act. They are intended to broaden the CFTC’s power over market manipulations involving trickery (Reg. 180.1) and the pure use of raw market power (Reg. 180.2).
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Tags: CFTC, fraud, manipulation
Posted in Regulatory/actions | 1 Comment »
It was circa 1987 and we were in Switzerland on a boat from Lucerne to Bürgenstock for the annual Swiss Commodities and Futures Association meeting. She said she wanted to show me something and unzipped her suitcase to pull out a picture of two dogs. The picture was in the actual frame — not just a wrinkled polaroid. “I always travel with a picture of them,” she said. As a dog person, I thought it was endearing. As a journalist, that memory always reminds me that regulators are human and have softer sides that typically we — or those they regulate — don’t see. The “she” was Mary Schapiro, now chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). At the time she was general counsel of the Futures Industry Association (FIA). We both were a lot younger then, but having watched Mary of the FIA move to the SEC to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) to now Chairman Schapiro at the SEC gives me a certain sense of pride of knowing her when. No doubt becoming the first female chair of the SEC was a more difficult road than the one we took to Bürgenstock. 