Fresh from prosecuting and fining a range of foreign exchange brokers the CFTC have now started to fry some bigger fish. Referring to a by now familiar misuse of supposedly segregated funds, and using a by now familiar form of words, they just announced that they have:
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We've previously discussed a variety of academic and political views on the costs and/or benefits of high frequency trading here on the Trading Gurus blog. If that type of thing is of interest to you as well then you might want to wander over to The Economist, where a "virtual debate" is currently taking place on the topic of "This house believes that high-frequency trading contributes to the overall quality of markets".
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We reported at the beginning of November on the abrupt downfall of Jon Corzine. If you recall Mr. Corzine is an ex "Democratic" governor and senator, and now ex CEO of MF Global Inc. as well as an ex CEO of Goldman Sachs. He has just presided over the seventh largest bankruptcy in U.S. history. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, one of the regulators supposedly keeping an eye on dodgy dealings on Wall Street on behalf of U.S. taxpayers, has released a long statement about the affair. Amongst other things CFTC Commisioner Scott D. O’Malia has this to say:
More on The CFTC Finally Realize That MF Global "Has Shaken Public Confidence"!
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The global financial crisis took yet another turn for the worse on Monday. According to Yahoo! Finance:
MF Global's meltdown in less than a week made it the biggest U.S. casualty of Europe's debt crisis, and the seventh-largest bankruptcy by assets in U.S. history.
The chief executive of MF Global Holdings Ltd. is Jon Corzine. According to The Economist recently, Mr. Corzine is:
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At last we know the answer to the questions posed by FXCM themselves back in August following settlement of charges brought by the NFA, when they revealed that:
FXCM has set aside a $16 million reserve for the…. anticipated CFTC settlement.
Yet again the CFTC have simultaneously:
More on FXCM Settles CFTC Charges For More Than $14.2 Million
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Following on from last month's European attack on the City of London a new front has opened up in the war currently being waged to regulate away risk in the world's financial markets. However this time around Britain is fighting back in the courts! Bloomberg reports that:
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Fresh from agreeing a settlement with FXCM's UK subsidiary, the CFTC has stepped up its campaign in the courts against "unregistered" RFEDs by announcing that it is bringing civil actions against another 11 foreign currency firms. As in their first such sweep a number of those firms are based in far away places such as Belize, the British Virgin Islands and Cyprus. However two names stand out in the CFTC's blacklist of miscreants as being more "onshore" than the others, namely:
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My attention has recently been drawn to an academic research paper entitled High Frequency Trading and The New-Market Makers. The author, who is from the VU University in Amsterdam, investigates the connection between high frequency trading and the emergence of new exchanges here in Europe:
More on Are High Frequency Traders About to Destroy the City of London?
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Fresh from having their UK subsidiary fined by the CFTC earlier this month, FXCM have now been fined $2 million by the National Futures Association. Once again the complaint against FXCM and their CEO Drew Niv and details of the agreed settlement have been published simultaneously. Once again FXCM neither admit nor deny the allegations in the complaint, which concern FXCM's failure to pass on positive slippage from their liquidity providers to their customers, and lapses in their anti money laundering procedures. However this time around FXCM's customers do stand to benefit financially since one of the agreed sanctions states that:
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Last October we wondered what steps the CFTC would be able to take to enforce the new forex trading regulations that had just come into force, particularly when it came to pursuing offshore brokers in offshore courts. Back in January they sued a few brokers using the US courts. Now they have used a different approach, which still hasn't required the CFTC to state their case in a foreign jurisdiction. It seems all they need to do is to ask nicely for some money!
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