Its been quite a while since I have read any magazine. In fact I have stopped reading magazines for no reason. Thought I will resume this activity and at least read a couple of them on a regular basis.

trading

Jan-2012 issue of Advanced Trading covers the following aspects:

  • Risk Management Takes Center Stage After MF Global Collapse

    • Broker dealers who have prop desks are posing a big problem on Wall Street. 

    • Failure of MF Global is a classic case of the failure to take seriously, counter-party risk( the same story as Lehman’s but in a different context)

    • Sadly risk management costs money and hence traders, pension houses,etc are not showing as much of interest they need to be showing.

  • Does TCA Really Work?

    • TCA is becoming more important. Real time TCA is the need of the hour.

  • Navigating Market Volatility

    • Some general write up on volatility. Probably this is the reason I don’t like reading magazines. They are no good for reflecting seriously on issues.

  • Sifting through the ashes of MF Global

    • Story of how various firms who dealt with MF Global had to shut shop / are currently near the brink of closing their operations

    • MF Global had 5.5 Billion USD in managed accounts and estimated firm value of was 40 B USD. It declared bankruptcy on Oct 31 2011

    • 1.2 B USD of customer money went missing

    • MF Global accounted for 28% of the futures trading volume on CME

    • Corzine , the resigned CEO seems to be have known it all, despite his statement that he wasn’t aware of the risks in the portfolio

    • MF Global took a bet on sovereign debt from five countries: Belgium, Italy, Spain, Ireland and Portugal. They took this bet using the money from customer’s managed accounts.

  • Need for the buy side to get data management operations in place.

  • Buy-side traders are demanding stronger trading tools to navigate the increasingly volatile markets. They are showing a lot of interest in the next generation algos. Such algorithms include adaptations of high-frequency-trading algorithms, alpha generating or venue-analytical algorithms, and those that effectively bob and weave in the market so as to be undetectable by sniffer programs. 

  • Buy-side traders are calling for stronger, sharper tools, but they still want to own and control the toolbox.