Using high-speed, high-frequency programmed trades, Traders in effect bend down to pick up those pennies – often millions lying around in the stock market – then do it again, sometimes thousands of times a second. There is nothing wrong with this activity in, and of itself, however, HFTs have become a matter of financial public policy and regulatory review given a glimpse into its potential harm to efficient Markets. Left un-checked this could become the next big financial disaster waiting to happen.
Financial Regulatory Reform Update from around the horn for the week of 11 May 2010.
In an effort to stem the deepening collapse from the Greece Sovereign Debt crisis, finance ministers from the European Union agreed on a deal that would provide $560 billion in new loans and $76 billion under an existing lending program. Elena Salgado, the Spanish finance minister, who announced the deal, also said the International Monetary Fund was prepared to give up to $321 billion separately.
Today’s precipitous sell-off in US Markets – the most volatile single day of trading in Wall Street history – my most recent read, After the Fall: Saving Capitalism From Wall Street & Washington, by Nicole Gelinas of the Manhattan Institute, is suddenly very relevant. Her premise is that robust financial markets support capitalism, they don’t imperil it.
On Vladimir Putin’s first visit to Venezuela, the Russian Prime Minister has offered to help Venezuela set up its own space industry infrastructure and capabilities — including, importantly, a satellite launch site – for the South American nation, thus threatening US Western hemisphere hegemony.
That a tsunami of anger over healthcare reform today is illogical, given that what the right calls “Obamacare” is less provocative than either the Civil Rights Act of 1964 or healthcare benefits in other wealthy industrial nations. But the explanation is plain: the health care bill is not the main source of this anger and never has been. It’s merely a handy excuse.
Obama is beginning to look like a financial guru with investment performance that puts even the brightest Wall Streeters to shame. The Administration is presently making final preparations to sell its stake in the New York bank, according to one of my reliable industry sources. At Friday’s closing price for Citibank, the sale would net over $8 billion – by far the largest profit returned from any firm that accepted bailout funds
In the movie ‘War of the Roses’ debt and finances were one of the central factors and most disruptive of issues in the relationship between the two characters, and the ensuing all-out war during their divorce, and inevitably, in their annihilation of each other. Believe it or not, nations act in the same manner toward each other.
Moody’s issues shot across the bow to warn US about expanding Federal debt burden.
In a clear threat of economic warfare, China indicated that it may sell-off its holdings of U.S. Treasury notes in retaliation for our recent arms sale to Taiwan.
Sri Lanka — For years, ships from other countries, laden with oil, machinery, clothes and cargo, sped past this small town near India as part of the world’s brisk trade with China. Now, China is investing millions to turn this fishing hamlet into a booming new port, furthering an ambitious trading strategy in South Asia […]
Nicolas Sarkozy made the first visit ever by a French president to Haiti, once his nation’s richest colony — offering aid to a country laid to waste after a catastrophic earthquake.
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