Update from Forex Scholar-TW2
Quote.
With the world financial system in chaos it’s never been more important to trade with a well capitalized firm. The CFTC has just released their latest net capital figures. Not a lot of changes from the last one. Only difference is that U.S. forex dealers have 30 fewer days to make it to the coming $20 million capital requirement deadline.
Financial Data for FCMs
The following firms have net capital below $10 million
MG Financial $5,393,000
Advanced Markets $6,786,000
Forex Club $7,558,000
Friedberg Mercantile $8,147,000
ACM $8,372,000
Ikon $9,544,000
Easy Forex $9,824,000
Hotspot $9,942,000
Not much change in capital for Advanced Markets, Forex Club and ACM. Swiss broker ACM still appears to be charging the proverbial machine gun nest with a butter knife. Is this firm really going to be able to put up $20 million in the coming months? Did they even know about this capital increase before they parachuted into the U.S. market? We’ll find out soon enough.
The following firms have net capital below $20 million
GFS Forex $11,451,000
MB Trading $12,767,000
ODL $14,870,000
I Trade FX $14,952,000
Alpari $15,786,000
IFX $18,623,000
FX Solutions $19,574,000
The following firms have net capital above $20 million
CMS Forex $20,199,000
PFG $21,345,000
Interbank FX $36,505,000
Gain Capital $67,906,000
GFT Forex $73,219,000
FXCM $91,840,000
Oanda $165,458,000
As always conduct your due diligence and make sure the firm you are trading with will be able to comply with the new law going into effect in the weeks and months ahead.
Blow to Fortress Notes investors
In another blow to Kiwi investors, Macquarie Fortress Investments said today it estimated that the net asset value of its New Zealand Fortress Notes for October 17 2008 was zero cents per share.
Director Peter Lucas said the deterioration in global financial markets has continued to affect the traded prices of US Senior Secured Loans (Senior Loans) in the Fortress portfolio.
Senior loans are syndicated loans to corporate borrowers. They are used primarily to finance capital acquisition programmes, mergers and acquisitions, stock repurchases and internal growth.
"The cumulative market value of Senior Loans in the Fortress portfolio is below the total debt facility balance," Lucas said.
Lucas reassured investors that they would not be required to fund any ultimate shortfall between the total debt facility balance and the cumulative realized value of the Senior loans in the Fortress portfolio.
Macquarie New Zealand Fortress Notes were issued and quoted on the debt exchange (NZDX) in May 2005 at 100c each in New Zealand and the minimum investment was $1000. The notes are listed on the NZ debt exchange and on the Australian exchange.
Macquarie Fortress represents less than 0.5 percent of the assets the Macquarie Group manages.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4734902a13.html
Opes clients sue broker and bank
SEVEN months after Opes Prime collapsed, obliterating the highly geared share portfolios of 600 clients and triggering multibillion-dollar pandemonium in the small-cap end of the market, a big group of aggrieved clients have filed a $150 million damages claim against the broker and ANZ.
The case, filed on Monday in the Federal Court in Perth, comes as Opes Prime's liquidators are in the last stages of trying to extract hefty compensation from ANZ and Merrill Lynch for creditors of the failed stockbroking company.
Liquidator John Lindholm of Ferrier Hodgson had hoped to achieve a settlement with the banks before October 20. But Mr Lindholm last week told creditors that he was not wedded to that date, and he would persevere for as long as there was a real prospect of a deal.
Mr Lindholm could not be contacted yesterday. ANZ declined to comment on the new court case, saying it had just received the documents.
Still, it is far from clear that any deal Mr Lindholm might strike would necessarily satisfy creditors who are furious that shares they had deposited with Opes were seized by the broker's financiers when the company collapsed on March 27. The banks took control of about $1.6 billion of shares under share-lending agreements it struck with Opes Prime.
Mr Lindholm claims the banks entered into uncommercial financial deals with Opes Prime in the days before it collapsed: ANZ extended a loan of $95 million when Opes was clearly insolvent, it restructured its share-lending documentation in favour of the bank, and Merrill Lynch re-dated a fixed and floating charge that had been in place for more than a year but was never registered.
The 67 clients in the latest court case have been corralled by litigation funder IMF. They accuse Opes of misleading and deceptive conduct, and they claim ANZ was an accessory.
Among other things, the 99-page statement of claim names four ANZ senior employees who had accounts with Opes Prime — two of whom received margin calls from Opes — and argues that because these employees used Opes Prime accounts, the bank also knew Opes' general methods of dealing with clients.
The clients also contend ANZ broke the law because it failed to submit substantial shareholding notices in various companies until more than a week after Opes failed. They argue that if they had known that ANZ had a relevant interest in their shares, they would not have entered into the arrangements with Opes.
http://business.theage.com.au/busine...021-55iu.html#
New Message from Forex Scholer
The deadline to meet the new capital requirement is this Friday. The most up to date CFTC net capital statement shows the following firms with capital below the $10,000,000 requirement.
Financial Data for FCMs
MG Financial $5,393,000
Advanced Markets $6,786,000
Forex Club $7,558,000
Friedberg Mercantile $8,147,000
ACM $8,372,000
Ikon $9,544,000
Easy Forex $9,824,000
Hotspot $9,942,000
If you have an account with any of these firms contact them immediately to ensure that they will be able to comply with the new capital requirement this week. Some such as MG Financial and Hotspot have larger parent companies. But most do not. In this day and age safety of funds should be every trader’s top priority. Make sure your funds are safe.
The NFA has come out with a statement that reads as follows:
National Futures Association | News Center