Last week, regulators released their joint report on the Oct. 15, 2014, Treasury Flash Crash. One of the hot topics of discussion has been the prominent role of “PTFs” in the report. So what is a PTF? TABB Group founder and CEO Larry Tabb and George Bollenbacher, partner, Capital Markets Advisors, examine the report, including the definition of a PTF, or a principal trading firm, and how they impact the… Read More »
Thursday, July 23rd, 2015 by GEORGE BOLLENBACHER Much has been written about the impact of regulation on the fixed income and derivatives markets, but market forces also are transforming the space. How are the fixed income and derivatives markets evolving, what is driving the changes, and how can the buy side cope? Ever since the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act and EMIR, and with the looming implementation of MiFIR/MiFID, there… Read More »
Friday, July 10th, 2015 by GEORGE BOLLENBACHER With the impending capital requirements of Basel III in most jurisdictions, banks throughout the world have taken advantage of capital relief trades that allow them to use credit default swaps to alter the risk characteristics of loans on their books. But what impact will this have on the risk profiles of the banks and, perhaps more important, the funds that are selling the… Read More »
Thursday, July 2nd, 2015 by GEORGE BOLLENBACHER Let me begin by saying that I believe the all-important swaps reporting requirement has been badly mishandled by the regulators worldwide, missing a golden opportunity to shed some light on this otherwise opaque market. In the US, one of the nagging problems has been that the SEC hadn’t put out its reporting rules, so there was no required reporting on one of the… Read More »
Thursday, July 2nd, 2015 by GEORGE BOLLENBACHER For any investment firm operating a single‐dealer bond or swap ECN in Europe, MiFID II raises a life‐altering decision: whether to become an organized trading facility or a systematic internalizer. Here are some of the criteria firms must consider in making the OTF‐SI decision. For any investment firm operating a single-dealer bond or swap ECN in Europe, MiFID II raises a life-altering decision:… Read More »