Funds Hub

from Reuters Investigates:

Financial cyber-bullying?

"They love a conspiracy theory on the boards," David Jones, chief market strategist at spread betting firm IG Index told UK correspondents Rosalba O'Brien and Matt Scuffham when they were reporting for "The stock, the web, the CEO and his lawyers" . It's a look at some of the shenanigans around highly speculative resource stocks when they are discussed on message boards like  ADVFN and iii. Late-night gossip and personal insults are par for the course: some suspect organised short-sellers may be behind the talk. Given the high volumes of online trading in the UK, we wonder how long it will be before regulator FSA is forced to take a closer look.

Day-trader John Douce is sceptical about the boards' impact on stock prices

Morning Line-up

Posted by: Chris Vellacott

Hedge fund stories from the past 24 hours from Reuters and elsewhere:

Lord Myners to face hedge fund grilling by Lords – City AM

EU report criticises own ‘vague and inadequate’ hedge fund directive Daily Telegraph

Hedge fund giant surfaces in trading probe – Wall Street Journal

Bear Stearns hedge fund execs face closing arguments – Crain’s NY Business

Morning line-up

Hedge fund stories from the past 24 hours from Reuters and elsewhere:

EU rules to send Hedge Funds overseas – FT

Friedberg reopens Global Macro Hedge Fund  - Hedge Funds Review

Hedge funds face detailed reporting standards – Reuters

Hedge Fund billionaire bankrolls Conservatives – The Times

Top trader launches hedge fund – The Telegraph

Who raised the risk budget?

There’s been much debate about recent prop trading profits at banks including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and others in the first half of the year, but one important question remains unasked.

How, just over half a year after some market observers pronounced prop trading perpetually and eternally dead, did the prop desk at these banks bounce back to life in a fashion that would have turned Lazarus green with envy?

After all, after taking huge writedowns on subprime securities, many of them directly attributable to their prop desks, throughout the financial crisis, a large number of the chastened banks slashed their prop desk staff and put strict risk limits on trading.

But while the financial crisis was still in full swing, someone raised the risk budget.