When Is A Fine Not A Fine?
Jerome Kerviel has just been convicted and sentenced in Paris. Mr Kerviel was the trader at the centre of the Societe Generale wobble in January 2008. This was the event that provided the first hints that things going wrong in the US might hit Europe. Of course, it was completely unrelated, but we didn’t know [...]
Financial Education For The Masses, A Movie, Or Both?
Last night I was fortunate enough to put my waiting to an end and go to the movies to see the new Wall Street film - Money Never Sleeps.
Clearly, I am a financial buff, so loved the original and frankly, I enjoyed this follow up as well. It may not turn out to have quite [...]
Financial Transaction Reforms Explained
Earlier this week, I was able to interview one of the key players and thinkers on the European Commission team for financial reform as a part of the ‘day job’.
As mentioned here, David Wright, Deputy Director of DG Internal Market and Services, is one of the most public voices right now on the direction [...]
Too Big To Fail Is A Thing Of The Past!
Your author was able to attend the 8th Annual European Financial Services Conference in Brussels earlier this week. There were certainly some interesting panelists and contributors, including European Commissioner Michel Barnier.
There were many different perspectives discussed, but as you may imagine, financial services regulations were high on the list.
In the main, these regulations [...]
Breaking News: Confidence In Wall Street ‘On The Line’
This story from CNN shows just what denail the United States is in when it comes to Wall Street, financial services, money and reputation.
According to the story, it seems that confidence in Wall Street is ‘on the line’. Which line would that be?
Perhaps it is the final line that an economy will not [...]
FSA Makes Insider Trading Arrests
In my post of last week, I argued that we don’t need more financial regulations, but instead need better enforcement of the existing regulations.
As if immediately demanded, arrests have been made in an insider trading ‘ring’ by the FSA and SOCA. The BBC reports here. It seems that the staff of three major firms [...]
Do We Need More Financial And Stock Market Regulations?
Over the last few days, the regulation of various types of financial operator and market have come in for attention. Everyone seems to agree, we need more financial regulations.
When I say everyone, I mean everyone in politics…
It is clear that when billions - many hundreds of them - have been used to ‘bail out’ major [...]
The “Madoff” Effect
As if life as a financial planner wasn’t hard enough - and trust me, unless you have a scad of multi-millionaires as clients, life if hard enough - it seems that the efforts of Bernie Madoff have made things even tougher.
This article on CNN explains how clients are now demanding ever more accountability and separation [...]
Just How Dangerous Is High-Frequency Trading?
In a story on the BBC today, Lord Myners, Minister in the Treasury (UK), warns that HFT (otherwise known as high-frequency trading) could put large corporations at the mercy of automated speculators.
He is probably right.
Much of the blame for the stock market drop in 1987 lies at the door of automated trading programs. At the [...]
How Correlated Are Stock Markets?
A recent trip on the Eurostar had me in possession of a copy of The Spectator. It isn’t a magazing that I tend to read more than once per year - it is a little too Central London centric for my tastes…
In it, was an article by Matthew Lynn titled, “We’re all Shanghai gamblers now”. [...]