By Christopher Elias
LONDON, Aug. 31, (Business Law Currents) - A series of stock market glitches has prompted regulators around the world to introduce new regulations to limit the impact of computer malfunctions on trading. Shielding markets from another Knight Capital disaster, the new rules seek to defend market participants from malicious machines and risky robots. (more…)
By Scott McCleskey, Complinet
The past year was a busy one for those interested in financial reform – you know, Dodd-Frank and all that. But the new year will be even more fateful in shaping the markets for decades to come. It is likely to be the most critical of the post-financial crisis period. The reason is that Dodd-Frank only gave the regulators their marching orders, and 2010 mostly saw just the preliminaries to the really tough regulation. It will be in 2011 that actual rules will be proposed, finalized and implemented – and all by mid-year, if deadlines are met. It will also be when the Republicans hit the beach in the House and attempt to moderate or reverse many of the reforms already underway.
There will be a tidal wave of Dodd-Frank work, and some areas of focus are already obvious. The launch and first steps of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will be one, and the rather iffy implementation of derivatives regulation will be another. These items have been and will continue to be covered by this organization and others. But there are other items largely outside the Dodd-Frank ecosystem which bear a close watch over the coming year – and there are also some receiving a lot of press lately which can be ignored. (more…)
By Scott McCleskey, Complinet
It took five months, a PhD in Physics, a Nobel Prize winner and a staff of quants, but the SEC and CFTC have now figured out what happened to the markets during the “flash crash” in May. Given the well-orchestrated string of sneak-peeks the SEC had given before the publication of the joint report, the findings weren’t particularly surprising. Nevertheless, they are enlightening both for what they tell us about the state of the markets and for what they tell us about the assumptions we have made when regulating them. The upshot: markets aren’t efficient, and rulemakers should stop acting as if they are.
By Herbert Lash
NEW YORK, Oct 12 (Reuters) – A new study about May’s “flash crash” casts doubt on two basic premises of high-frequency traders: that they help markets function properly by providing liquidity and that they smooth out price volatility.
High frequency traders have pointed with glee to the fact a mutual fund company, identified as Waddell & Reed Financial Inc, helped trigger the steep market plunge on May 6, as outlined by U.S. regulators in a report almost two weeks ago.
Yet the new study by staff of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to be unveiled on Tuesday not only gnaws at the service high-frequency traders claim to provide but says their response to that day’s slide sparked greater volatility. (more…)
By Jonathan Spicer
NEW YORK, July 2 (Reuters) – Abrupt halts in the trading of both Citigroup Inc and Washington Post Co shares over the last few weeks exposed some problems with new rules meant to avoid a repeat of the May “flash crash,” and may give traction to an alternative fix.
The halts came on separate days after erroneous trades were made in the shares, each time tripping new stock-specific circuit breakers that immediately stopped trading for five minutes.
