by David

The US Senate continues to debate the financial reform bill and make adjustments along the way. On Thursday, May 13, 2010, the Senate accepted several amendments relating to regulation of credit rating agencies, commonly referred to as Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations (NRSROs). The original bill included a significant increase in the oversight of NRSROs [...]

by Jürgen

Since MM’s last update on algorithmic and high-frequency trading, the market has evolved, not at the least because of the increased mediatisation on the subject, and because of the new rule the SEC wanted to impose on this kind of trading, despite providers of high-frequency trading and sponsored access solutions reporting continued global expansion…

by Dino

 As we pick up the pieces after the implosion of financial markets in 2008, it is important to understand what went wrong. Among the defendants are financial derivatives – especially credit default swaps, asset backed securities and other securitized financial products, and more broadly financial engineering and financial innovation. Nobel economist Paul Krugman calls them [...]

by Dino

The weekend of September 13-14 brought some of the most dramatic news of this credit crisis: Lehman Brothers had filed for bankruptcy, Merrill Lynch had been sold to Bank of America, and AIG needed a rescue by the Federal Reserve. Yet in the following two weeks the S&P 500 stock index was down just 3%. [...]

by Dino

Remember excessive leverage and its role in the collapse of the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund, a collapse that threatened the stability of the entire financial system?Remember Enron, misleading accounting and the crisis in corporate governance? Well, a lot of people on Wall Street, including SEC secretary Christopher Cox, have forgotten all about it. As Ben [...]

by Dino

(The SEC short selling ban expires at midnight today)

by Dino

Investors fear not! The rocket scientists at the SEC have carried out a rigorous and methodical analysis of the facts and, based on their findings, “acting in concert with the U.K. Financial Services Authority, took temporary emergency action to prohibit short selling in financial companies to protect the integrity and quality of the securities market [...]

by Dino

On July 17, angry Pakistani investors stoned the Karachi Stock Exchange, smashed windows and cursed regulators after the benchmark index fell for a 15th straight day, the worst losing streak in 18 years. US and UK regulators must have been thinking of these spiteful reactions when they decided to take the matter of falling share [...]