November 28th, 2011, 10:49 am by Ginger Szala
Tags: MF Global, sipc
Posted in General, MF Global, Markets | 1 Comment »
November 25th, 2011, 7:37 pm by Dan Collins
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. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: CFTC, Gary Gensler
Posted in MF Global, Regulatory/actions | 2 Comments »
November 20th, 2011, 11:36 pm by Dan Collins
It has been nearly three weeks since MF Global Holdings Ltd. filed for bankruptcy and its futures commission merchant and broker/dealer went into liquidation and more than three weeks since we learned that they were in distress, yet we seem further away from an explanation as to what happened. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: CFTC, CME Group, Gary Gensler
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
November 14th, 2011, 11:53 am by Michael McFarlin
Robert DeNiro has played a lot of villains and crooks in his time, just think of his performance of Al Capone in “The Untouchables.” Now, he’s ready to add another role to that list, that of Bernie Madoff, in an HBO production that has not received the green-light yet.
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Tags: Bernard Madoff, Ponzi scheme
Posted in General | No Comments »
October 31st, 2011, 4:19 pm by Dan Collins
There was a rumor going around — later confirmed by multiple sources — that during Jon Corzine’s initial conversation with MF Global’s vast network of brokers shortly after he took the helm of the large futures broker, he became perplexed with numerous references to MF Global’s IBs.
At one point he stopped and asked why all these references to Investment Banking? The joke at the time was that Corzine came in with a lot of experience operating an investment bank but was a neophyte in the world of futures and didn’t know he was addressing MF’s vast network of introducing brokers.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Corzine, MF Global
Posted in Buy outs, Mergers | No Comments »
October 31st, 2011, 12:03 am by Dan Collins
I had a strange feeling of deja vu as I left work on Friday. MF Global had dropped precipitously after a poor second quarter earnings report came out on Tuesday and there were numerous reports that they were looking to sell. Then on Friday word came out that ratings agency Fitch had downgraded their debt to junk status. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: bailout, Federal Reserve, Jon Corzine, MF Global
Posted in Buy outs, Mergers | 1 Comment »
October 25th, 2011, 2:59 pm by Ginger Szala
Tags: education, energy, oil, tulane
Posted in General | No Comments »
October 25th, 2011, 2:58 pm by Philip McBride Johnson
Among the have-your-cake-and- eat-it-too suggestions following enactment of the Dodd-Frank Act is to form a new type of “clearinghouse” that allows traders to opt-out of the mutualized risk pool so that their funds at the clearinghouse cannot be touched if someone else defaults. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: clearing, clearinghouse, dodd-frank, reform, regulation
Posted in Regulatory/actions | No Comments »
October 19th, 2011, 10:49 am by Dan Collins
There was a surreal exchange between Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Gary Gensler and Commissioner Michael Dunn during Tuesday’s open meeting of the Commission where final rules for position limits and Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO) core principles were approved. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: CFTC, Gary Gensler, regulation
Posted in Spec limits | 1 Comment »
October 10th, 2011, 6:52 pm by Dan Collins
When CME Group first announced that it would take a majority stake in Dow Jones Indexes a year ago my first thought was to ask if there would be any antitrust issues as CME Group has exclusive licenses with Standard & poor’s (a competitor to Dow Jones Indexes) to list futures products on its S&P 500 index as well as others. Neither Dow Jones Indexes nor CME Group seemed to worry it was an issue at the time. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: CME Group, Dow Jones Industrial Average, Mergers
Posted in Buy outs, Mergers | No Comments »
It’s time to wipe that smug smile off our face, the “our” meaning the futures industry. The bankruptcy of MF Global revealed a breakdown of an industry that has thrived knowing that customer margin was “safe” because of segregated fund protections. The sacrosanct institution of protecting margin at the exchange clearinghouse level while enforcing a strict segregation at the clearing firm has been tested throughout the years: Refco, Stotler, Lehman, et al. Sometimes it wasn’t as it should be: Volume Investors, Sentinel. But typically the funds were moved over with accounts and positions so clients would not have to worry about where their money was in addition to market risk. Read the rest of this entry »