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  1. #21
    Tin-foil Hatter
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    Thanks for your comments!

    I'll give HiFX a go. I want to avoid banks at any cost.
    God - Please give us just one more bubble....

  2. #22
    action-reaction arco's Avatar
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  3. #23
    action-reaction arco's Avatar
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    It has been brought to my attention that forex scholar has just added an interesting post to the thread - NFA Dead Forex Firms Walking - in the Forex Discussion forum of T2W Trading Forums.

    http://www.trade2win.com/boards/forex-discussion/25680-nfa-dead-forex-firms-walking-11.html#post377960


    Here is the message that has just been posted:

    This Friday is the NFA deadline for fx firms to meet the minimum $5 million capital requirement. Two updates to report:

    GFS Futures & Forex has just made an announcement on their website that they have received a $6 million capital infusion to put them over $10 million thus ensuring a stay of execution from the NFA hangman.

    Meanwhile, Velocity4x has thrown in the towel and is handing over their clients to Gain Capital.

    The following firms have still not publically indicated they have met the requirement. Beware these firms until further notice:

    *1) SNC Investments: $1,152,000*
    They are well below the $5 million capital requirement. It is highly unlikely they will make the new requirement at this point. I advise customers to leave this firm and look for greener pastures.

    *2) Wall Street Derivatives: $1,228,000*
    This firm is based out of New Zealand and I'm not even sure they have any U.S. customers as their U.S. website is out of service.

    *3) Advanced Markets: $1,322,000*
    Amifx is already teetering on the brink as they are the subject of a business conduct committee case before the NFA in which they are cited for a whole host of financial violations including not meeting the old capital requirement. This firm does not have much of a future.

    *4) AlpariFX $2,481,000*
    Little known European firm. Well under the cap requirement.

    *5) Solid Gold Financial: $2,040,000*
    Solid Gold's future is now in serious doubt. Like many of the other firms on this list they have been charged by the NFA with failing to meet their existing capital requirement. When you can't meet the old requirement it stands to reason you won't be able to meet the new one either. Solid Gold is anything but a solid investment at this point.

    *6) Bacera Corporation: $2,300,000*
    Like a turd that won't flush Bacera Corporation just refuses to go down the drain. The Savior wrote Bacera off over the summer as sources knowledgeable about them stated they were going to close up shop. But no, they are still hustling the folks in LA for fresh deposits. In September Bacera settled a complaint with the NFA after it was discovered they were undercapitalized to the tune of $1.2 million. NFA reported Bacera only has about 200 customers as it is. But to those 200, do yourself a favor and get yourself another broker because sooner or later the pipes are gonna get cleaned and these guys are going to get flushed once and for all.

    *7) ODL Securities: $2,566,000*
    Ravaged by undercapitalization issues.

    *8) Forex Club: $3,320,000*
    They still have not hit the minimum $5 million mark. And don't forget since they are a market maker they have other financial requirements to meet as well. They still haven't publically done so.

    *9) Easy Forex: $3,789,000*
    Under siege for their sleazy sales tactics, it's hard to imagine the NFA isn't going to drop the hammer on them soon.

    *10) Money Garden: $5,035,000*
    While they have crept up over the $5 million mark MG is notorious for their 400:1 "flexi" accounts which will require MG put up a minimum $10 million in capital in addition to other financial requirements for being a market maker. They are not even close to doing this despite their CEO's insistence they could easily get the money last summer. It looks like this veteran of the industry is about to be forcibly retired.
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  4. #24
    action-reaction arco's Avatar
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    You may have noticed in the previous post that I coloured a local broker mentioned in red. I have not personally heard of them so I am unable to comment, but here is their NZ website.

    http://www.wsd-nz.com/wsdproj/Index.aspx

    Professional looking site, but no mention of who's behind the set-up................

    WSD Financial (NZ) Ltd. is a premier investment house, headquartered in Auckland and catering to a variety of investors around the world.

    Today, more than anything clients need personal attention without prejudice of whether the client is high net worth or just investing his savings for a better tomorrow. WSD Financial understands this completely, providing each client with personalised attention and customised solutions. Being a "retail investment house", WSD is able to provide a varied range of financial products and personalised service to its clients offering global standard procedures and a 24/7 help desk.


    WSD is an international company that specializes in Foreign Exchange, Precious Metal, Futures, Options, and CFD’s.
    WSD is a customer focused financial services company for international clients who expect exceptional, personalized client service, unrivalled trading tools and state-of-the art trading software which is sophisticated, user-friendly and provides winning edge. WSD is the clear choice for the beginner or experienced individual investor, introducing broker, CTA, instructional investor, fund manager or corporate institution looking to safely and securely invest, hedge or speculate in Foreign Exchange, Precious Metals, Futures, Options, CFD’s and virtually every other financial instrument.

    According to forex scholer they have not met their NFA requirement at present, so we will have to wait to see what transpires.
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  5. #25
    Tin-foil Hatter
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    Quote Originally Posted by arco View Post
    You may have noticed in the previous post that I coloured a local broker mentioned in red. I have not personally heard of them so I am unable to comment, but here is their NZ website.

    http://www.wsd-nz.com/wsdproj/Index.aspx

    Professional looking site, but no mention of who's behind the set-up................

    [I]WSD Financial (NZ) Ltd. is a premier investment house, headquartered in Auckland and catering to a variety of investors around the world.

    Check the company's details (e.g., directors) in the Companies Office website www.companies.govt.nz and spot the MP.
    God - Please give us just one more bubble....

  6. #26
    action-reaction arco's Avatar
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    Who Has What
    With Congress set to increase capital requirements to $20 million and with the NFA having previously narrowed down the list of U.S. Brokers to 24 I thought it helpful to post the numbers for the remaining brokers in business so everyone knows where the industry is at in the here and now:

    According to the latest CFTC Report:
    Financial Data for FCMs


    Advanced Markets $1.3 million
    Alpari $6.4 million
    Bacera $3.1 million
    CMC $2.7 million
    CMS $11.4 million
    Easy Forex $7 million
    Forex Club $4.8 million
    Friedberg Mercantile $7.9 million
    FX Solutions $26.9 million
    FXCM $75 million
    Gain Capital $50 million
    GFS Futures & Forex $3.6 million
    GFT $57 million
    Hotspot $6.1 million
    I Trade FX $23.8 million
    IFX $17.1 million
    Ikon $9.1 million
    Interbank FX $30 million
    MB Trading $6.6 million
    Money Garden $5.3 million
    Oanda $159 million
    ODL $13 million
    PFG $12.8 million
    RJ O'Brien $91 million

    Source
    http://www.trade2win.com/boards/fore...tml#post388041
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  7. #27
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    Hi Arco

    very interesting theres not going to be many brokers left in the US,your broker has the most capital by far,which has to be reassuring

  8. #28
    action-reaction arco's Avatar
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    Five minutes to midnight

    Tricom is now living on borrowed time – time borrowed from ANZ Bank on short-term loan.

    In a statement yesterday Tricom said it “remains financially solid” and has been a net receiver of funds throughout this week, and there is no reason to doubt that statement.

    However, it is understood Tricom has been “in margin call” for a week. That means ANZ has been asking Tricom, every day, to top up the loan to value ratio (LVR) on its wholesale facility of just under a billion dollars for that time.

    But whereas a borrower usually has just 24 hours to do this, Tricom’s margin call has been extended every day for seven days. This is virtually unheard of, but there are good reasons for ANZ going easy on Tricom.

    Apart from anything else, Tricom is believed to have an email from ANZ apologising for failing to settle a significant trade on Tuesday because stock had been lent and was not available.

    The question of whether Tricom or ANZ was responsible for the failure to settle is likely to become a matter of great dispute between them, especially if the worst happens and Tricom does not make it through this crisis.

    The wholesale debt margin call by ANZ is, however, a separate matter. ANZ, in effect, owns the shares against which the loan is secured and it could have started selling them to fix the LVR six days ago. The trouble is that most of the stocks concerned are illiquid, so that if and when ANZ started dumping them, the prices would have collapsed (especially in this market) and the value would evaporate. Tricom would almost certainly go under.

    ANZ could do it today, but I understand the bank has told Tricom’s CEO Lance Rosenberg that it won’t – yet. Nevertheless, Rosenberg has only days to meet the demand to reduce his exposure.

    Meanwhile Rosenberg is potentially caught in a trap.

    Tricom’s contracts with its retail margin loan customers are quite different to the normal ones. Normally the broker has a first mortgage over the securities the customer has “bought” with borrowed money, usually on a 50 per cent LVR, and they go into a separate trust, with the broker as trustee.

    In the event of a margin call, the cash is used to top up the individual’s LVR; if stock has to be sold instead, the broker does it as trustee for the client and the client owns any residual value.

    It has now emerged – reported in The Australian yesterday morning and later confirmed by Business Spectator – that Tricom’s margin loan contracts confer beneficial ownership of the shares to Tricom. It is not acting as trustee and does not have a first mortgage, as usual.

    The shares that are put up as security for these loans are actually pooled by Tricom and used as security for its own wholesale facility with ANZ Bank. If, or perhaps when, ANZ starts selling Tricom assets to protect its position, it will be selling shares that Tricom clients think they own.

    I spoke to a Tricom client yesterday who had no idea, until yesterday, that this was his legal position. He had not read the contract, and had simply assumed that it was the normal trustee arrangement. It’s not.

    The implication of this for Tricom clients is that even if they meet in full the margin call now being demanded of them by their broker, they could lose all of their shares anyway.

    If insufficient clients pay Tricom the cash it is demanding, and needs, and ANZ takes possession of its assets to protect its own position – thus sending the firm into receivership – then the margin clients become nothing more than unsecured creditors of the company for the amount they have already paid.

    And in this market a receivership fire sale of stocks like Allco Finance Group and various Babcock & Brown funds that have all been bought in large amounts by margined clients of Tricom would be guaranteed to leave nothing for unsecured creditors.

    To be clear about this: if Tricom goes broke, tens of thousands of retail investors would almost certainly lose everything. ANZ would own their shares (or rather the shares they think they own) and sell them to recover its debt.

    That’s why ANZ is treading so carefully, and not enforcing the week-long demand to reduce Tricom’s facility: it would cause a nightmare for all concerned.

    Indeed, banking sources believe ANZ is terrified at its position, and would much rather not put Tricom out of business.

    So, another question must be added to the many surrounding the Tricom situation: how on earth was it allowed to pool its clients’ shares as security for its own wholesale debts, instead of acting as trustee for its clients, and how is it that at least some of its clients did not know about this?

    Meanwhile, beneath the surface there is argument about whether Tuesday’s failure by Tricom to settle trades on time was not due to a problem with stock that had been lent and then short-sold by ANZ itself as custodian, or whether it was caused by a back-office problem at Tricom.

    Sources close to Tricom have confirmed that the stock in question could not be delivered on time because ANZ Nominees had lent it and was unable to recover it.

    However, ANZ is understood to have told other alarmed broking clients who have inundated the bank with queries, that when the instruction to settle first arrived at the bank, it didn’t have an account number that could be used and that Tricom’s back office was in a “shambles”.

    ANZ refused to comment on this to Business Spectator, but has told other clients that if clear instructions had been received in time on Tuesday, it would have executed the trades. When the proper instruction was received on Wednesday, the trade was settled.

    Indeed, Tricom has confirmed that it has had back-office problems in a statement today: “The extraordinarily large number of trades executed since Tuesday last week, placed strain on Tricom’s newly implemented internal systems.”

    In such a highly-charged situation, with minimal disclosure going on, it is difficult to be certain about very much, but it seems the failure to settle on Tuesday, whatever it was caused by, and ANZ’s margin call on Tricom are quite separate events.

    And while the first failure to settle since Patrick Partners went broke in 1974 was a massive drama that got Lance Rosenberg’s wife, Julie, on page one of The Australian yesterday, along with a picture of the family cottage in Rose Bay, it is the quietly simmering ANZ margin call and the damage to its reputation that will sink Tricom – if it is sunk.

    The settlement problem is over, but ANZ’s demand for a margin top-up is very definitely ongoing.

    And if more retail clients of Tricom become aware that paying their own margin calls won’t protect them, then they may not do it in sufficient numbers, and Tricom may have difficulty getting the cash needed to meet that margin call.


    http://www.businessspectator.com.au/


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  9. #29
    Senior Member
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    I wonder how many here did not read the fineprint when they signed up for their trading accounts?
    Death will be reality, Life is just an illusion.

  10. #30
    Legend peat's Avatar
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    yeh that is an ugly situation
    customers will have much less incentive to pay their margin calls.

    Its raises the notion of a kind of symbiosis between customers and their vendor where if they (customers) could all work as a collective they may achieve a better result for all. Good luck tho.
    For clarity, nothing I say is advice....

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