Posts Tagged ‘SEC’
Wednesday, September 7th, 2011
I usually check my wallet when the word “reform” is used. But I have an idea that just might break the political logjam in the nation’s capitol. It is inspired by this blog and by the fact that communication, including decision making, is dominated today by electronic media. (We have no Macy’s here in northeast Florida, but we continue to buy through the website; this message was delivered by e-mail; we pay our bank and utility bills on-line).
Why must politicians journey to D.C. to conduct business? Is it that they cannot master the laptop? Do they need to use sign language to communicate. (more…)
Tags: CFTC, politicians, politics, SEC, technology
Posted in General | No Comments »
Friday, May 6th, 2011
A lot already has been written about today being the one year anniversary of the “Flash crash.” Most of the articles out there are throwing out a couple numbers and giving a perspective of whether changes made since then are having any sort of effect to prevent another “incident.” That’s fine, but sometimes it’s important to just go back and remember why this was a big deal. (more…)
Tags: CFTC, Financial Regulatory Reform, Flash crash, May 6, May 6 Flash crash, SEC, Stock market
Posted in Markets, Regulatory/actions | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011
My, the editorials abound these days about the wacko Dodd-Frank Act and how it will bring ruin to all of us. Now we “learn” that derivatives will move abroad if the governing boards of exchanges and clearinghouses are not controlled by their customers, i.e., if the Commodity Futures Trading Commission goes ahead and requires (as the Securities and Exchange Commission already does!) that a majority of sitting directors should be unaffiliated with the market’s brokers and traders.
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Tags: CFTC, clearing, clearing houses, dodd-frank, SEC
Posted in Regulatory/actions | No Comments »
Friday, February 4th, 2011
The New York Times article disclosing court documents that indicated that J.P. Morgan was skeptical of Bernie Madoff’s “profits” sheds light on the worst kept secret on Wall Street. Hell, all of Wall Street seemed to know something was off in Madoffland, even the Securities and Exchange Commission. For J.P. Morgan, it seemed according to this story, it became the epic battle of fighting for big revenue opportunities and protecting the firm’s exposure to risk. As we learned from the financial debacle, avoiding risk typically loses in that battle. When the Madoff ponzi scheme was brought to light, a fund manager told me: “We had money with [Madoff]for a year long time ago and finally pulled it out. We never could figure out how he was making the returns he divulged. That was the only red flag we needed.” Apparently J.P. Morgan needed more….
Tags: J.P. Morgan, Madoff, SEC
Posted in Regulatory/actions | No Comments »
Friday, November 19th, 2010
Not since the Warren Commission Report was released in 1964 has a governmental report been received with such skepticism as the report on the May 6 flash crash by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).
At least a half dozen industry leaders have volunteered opinions on that report during my interviews for our Top 50 Brokers story and during public panels at the Futures Industry Association’s Futures & Options Expo recently held in Chicago. All of them doubted the conclusions of the report that placed the blame on a lone E-mini S&P trade by a mutual fund.
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Tags: CFTC, May 6 Flash crash, SEC
Posted in Markets, Regulatory/actions | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 19th, 2010
Earlier this month the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released their report detailing the events of May 6. While that report points to a single sell order by a large mutual fund, identified by media sources as Waddell & Reed, as the culprit that caused the “flash crash,” that conclusion quietly has been called suspect by many. Now one data processing firm, Nanex, has come forward with an interpretation of the day’s events which recasts the fund and other players of the day. (more…)
Tags: CFTC, Flash crash, May 6, nanex, SEC
Posted in Markets | No Comments »
Friday, October 8th, 2010
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chairman Gary Gensler and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chair Mary Schapiro begin an op ed piece in the USA Today with the following: “The missions of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission are to protect investors and ensure our derivatives and securities markets are as fair, transparent and efficient as possible.”
That line has past CFTC Chairman Philip McBride Johnson a little worried because it suggests that the two agencies are in the same business when they exist for quite different purposes and could reprise efforts to merge the two.
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Tags: CFTC, Flash crash, regulation, SEC, speculators
Posted in Regulatory/actions | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, September 15th, 2010
The financial landscape has become an alphabet soup of regulators, exchanges and registration categories that range from APs to USD. With the passage of the Dodd-Frank bill we have seen even more added, including some that we don’t even know what they will do or what they will look like yet. Two that we are still figuring out are swap exchange facilities and security-based swap exchange facilities, aptly shortened to SEFs and SB SEFs. To be fair, there has been talk for years about moving swaps to exchanges and clearinghouses. Until Lehman Brothers’ collapse, though, that’s all it really was – talk. Now with a government mandate, the clock is ticking before SEFs are expected to be up and running.
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Tags: bailout, CFTC, Congress, economy, Financial Regulatory Reform, futures exchanges, Gary Gensler, OTC, regulation, SEC
Posted in Markets, Regulatory/actions | No Comments »
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. 