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  1. #61
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    Default 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.
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  2. #62
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    Default 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
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  3. #63
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    Default 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#
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  4. #64
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    Default

    From an Aussie forum - very interesting

    Quote:
    Hey

    Guys hows it going - Sorry about another broker related posting. I know i'm actually getting sick of them too.

    But I wanted to post something productive, and might deter some myths about brokers - especially the marketmakers.

    I use to work at a Large Australian Investment Bank here is Sydney - I'll give you a hint, the bank recently tried to take over the London Stock exchange. I worked on the FX cash dealing desk in 2003 and 2004 - which most of the guys who know dealing desks well....it is the lowest ranked dealer you can be. But I was only 18 years old at the time, and I was on a cadetship program with the bank, through university.

    I was working along side some of the best salesmen and traders in the country. These guys are literally on millions or in some instances tens of millions of dollars a year in bonuses and salaries. Anyways, my dream was always to be on the otherside of the phones as a private trader, hence me being one now - cause working at banks is quite stressfull and i enjoy a laid back lifestyle, but i also have a massive passion for finance.

    Anyways, enough lifestories - Basically we were the interbank market. The bank I worked for is among the top 15 investment banks in the world. So we were the end of the line so to speak, we only dealt with other major banks. (Rule of thumb was to deal with Citigroup as little as possible...lol)

    However, believe it or not - We also were a marketmaker with our clients. Infact most major Investment Banks are. Contrary, to people's beliefs that banks are straight through processing, which they are - but also dealt clients prices and matched them with other clients.

    We would take positions against our clients, quite frequently - as our division was not only a broker to our clients, but a trading house too. You don't understand the amount of losing volume that came from clients everyday.....millions! Through our dealing desk we had a volume on average of over US60 billion dollars. (sometimes it racked over 100-150 billion) - This was in 2003, 2004 by the way, I would imagine today the volume would be much, much larger. So, the trader's who liase with the executing dealers on the desks everyday would try to scalp off your position - so that they can take a commission, plus a greater spread.

    For example - If you were long 100,000 euro's at 1.20. Our bank would take a position for 30,000 short euro's at 1.20 against you. Would wait till the market hit 1.1990 and then scalp 10 pips, with a prescribed stop loss. They would not do this all the time, but they would do this when the traders felt the time was right. Sure enough, the amount of losing trades from clients outweigh the winners, and the bank would be in profit.

    We would also play clients positions against each other. Not in a bad way....but it was to offer the clients a better level of service - I'll explain why.

    Part of the reason why the bank was so heavily focused on being a marketmaker - was not only to make profits. But to ensure better service for their clients. The real truth is, that we wanted our clients to do well - but the reality was that most didn't, no matter how much advise or consultancy we gave them. Some of biggest losing clients were actually large corporate accounts.

    How we would ensure better service for our clients, was by trying to fill most orders (we couldnt do all of them, cause the volume through from some clients was to the tune of tens of billions - including leverage that is.) - and we could only fill orders sometimes, by playing clients up against each other.
    However we didnt guarentee fills.

    The dealing desk also provided 24 hour support to clients, including advisory from a trader you dealt with especially. (Most of our trades were executed over the phone by the way, we did have a web based platform - but we wanted to encourage traders to ring us up - so we can give them a better level of service through supporting them with their trading - including giving advice, and market information - so a trader could ring us up anytime and ask us for marketdepth or major buyers of certain pairs. etc)

    We would often favour clients who held their positions - we liked day trading accounts for their volume.

    Although we were a large investment bank, we hated scalpers and often tried to deter them from using us. Most retail marketmakers, I would imagine also -would have a hate towards scalpers, cause they would not be able to feed prices through to the client fast enough (since they are level 2 brokers - and receive the prices from interbanks then must pass them on to the client - making them a middle, middle man so to speak). This is probably why brokers like FXCM. etc place scalpers on manual execution - cause scalpers would take arbitrage opportunites from the real marketplace and play them against the price the broker is giving them.

    The best place for scalpers is with ECN's perhaps. People who guarentee straight through processing. The only problem is most ECN's dont have dealing desks.

    The myths of brokers, feeding through clients the incorrect market prices in order to trigger stops - is quite proposterous. To be able to do that, would not only put the whole firm in disarae, because regulatory authorities not only from Australia (whom are extremely tough), but from all around the world in exchanges we dealt in, would be on your case for fraud, misleading disception, and also theft agains the client. ASIC in Australia, who is the main regualtory body, considers it a criminal act of theft, to decieve clients in terms of pricing. And rightly so.

    This would damage the banks name - and i imagine it would be all over the media in a flash. One of the strictest rules in the firm, was to have integrity, especially towards clients.

    The foreign exchange market is not regualted to an extent - but if pricing can not be confirmed as being executed at market prices for that time (market prices means that there must be a record of prices from anywhere in the world being at that quote at that time), it cannot be done, legally.

    I dont know if brokers elsewhere can toy with that idea - set up phony exchange houses and deal incorrect prices with them for example. But I know we didnt do it. I doubt most large sensible, even the larger retail brokers would do it either.

    To the idea of chasing stops - Yes, this did occur, quite often. During news times mostly. We would see where stops were with our clients, we also had a good idea where market depth was, and we would send through volumes of trades to take them out, in order to make money for the bank.

    See the bank always came first...profitability for the bank the most important thing overall. Clients would leave eventually, successfull or not....but the bank was always there, so it was our main priority.

    The idea at the end of the day is that its every man for themselves in the market. Brokers, traders, hedgefunds. etc are all in it for themselves to make a buck and they will do it whatever way they can.

    If you are a good trader - and know the ins and outs of the market (not placing in house stop losses. etc), you will not need to worry, cause you can play the game - then your sweet!

    My advice is - pick a respectable and PROFITABLE (profitability in a broker is so important, cause the more clients a broker has, the better level of service they can offer you - and the less chance the broker has of falling to the ground), who has impeccable client service. Aim for the bigger retail brokers (if your retail)....who have great relationships with interbanks.

    When questioning a broker, ask them how many interbanks they deal with. If they have a figure less than 5....than stay well away, cause the flexibility of price they will offer you as a client will be completely crap!

    Also, just dont go for brokers just cause they have tighter spreads. etc. Of course you want the best deal at the end of the day...but you also want your orders filled and a dealer you can talk to - this is why I'm not really a fan of broker houses without a dealing desk.

    For everyone who deals with American brokers go to www.cftc.gov - and then go to 'financial reports for FCM's'. Here you can check out the Capital of all the brokerage houses, try to stick to the retail brokerage houses with the highest amount of capital - cause this ultimately means more clients, a better relationship with more banks in the interbank market, cause they can guarentee volumes, and also a better level of service.

    Most importantly....make sure your broker is licensed and registered with regulatory authorities in major financial countries around the world. For example - dont be signing up with no brokers who offer you tight spreads and guarenteed fills from Nigeria.

    Brokers arent bad, they arent there to be against you. But they may not, in terms of co operation in the market itself, work with you. Most brokers who are large and service respectible numbers of clients will tend to try to help their clients become profitbale as much as they can.

    But once your order is placed, its every man for themselves...

    I hope I've helped some people who are just starting out create an idea of how the major brokers and institutions work.

    Cheers

    Rusty
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  5. #65
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    Default 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
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  6. #66
    action-reaction arco's Avatar
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    Default More from Forex Scholar

    Scandal at SNC

    Last year forex dealer SNC Investments sold off its forex business because they were unable to meet the NFA’s $5 million capital requirement. But it appears that they stayed in business as a Futures Commission Merchant and Money Manager. They are in business no more. Let’s roll the tape from the NFA complaint…

    National Futures Association | News Center

    Quote:
    On October 29, 2008, the CFTC contacted NFA. The CFTC advised NFA that it had received a telephone call from attorney David Serepca of San Carlos California, who said that he represented an individual by the name of Chris Lee. Serepca told the CFTC that, in April 2008, Chris Lee had written a check for $500,000 to SNC Asset Management and Kenneth Lee for the purpose of investing in a fund which would trade forex. Serepca said that he and his client had met with Kenneth Lee on October 29, 2008 and were told by Kenneth Lee that Peter Son (SNC CEO) had disappeared, and that customer money was missing.
    Gotta love these CEO’s who just cut and run the moment everything goes pear shaped. I can picture Peter Son now, dressed up in drag like Jefferson Davis trying to escape the Union Army after the surrender of the Confederacy. Another forex fugitive gallops off in the dead of night…

    Quote:
    On October 29, 2008, another principal of SNC, Young Choi – who worked at SNC’s main office in New York City – advised NFA that SNC was out of business and wished to withdraw its NFA membership. In addition, NFA became aware of a newspaper article that appeared in The Korea Daily on October 29, 2008, which reported that SNC – a Korean investment firm located in California – was “closing its operations due to the global financial meltdown” and that “the partners of the firm have no power to revive the business.” The article also stated that the firm had been managing over $70 million and that “it appears many Korean investors may lose their investments in the firm.” The article reported that the main office of SNC had been closed since October 28 and that employees had been notified to no longer come to work. In addition the article reported that the “president of the firm, Peter Son, has not been reachable by many investors and that his cell phone has been off.”
    Well if you mismanaged $70 million you’d probably turn your cell phone off too. Better yet you’d probably have hurled it into the East River on your way to Macy’s to get fitted for that wig and frock…

    Quote:
    Based on the telephone call from SNC’s Young Choi advising NFA that SNC was out of business, as well as the information received attorney David Serepca, and which appeared in the Korea Daily newspaper article, on October 30, 2008, NFA auditors went to SNC’s main office at 40 Wall Street in New York City to inquire about Peter Son and his whereabouts and to determine if customer funds were missing. However, when NFA auditors arrived at SNC’s main office they found that it was closed and its doors locked. The auditors left a note on the door requesting that a representative of SNC contact NFA.
    Left a note on the door? Oh brother talk about closing the barn door after the horses have bolted… What could the note have possibly said? “Uh, Hello? You think you could let us regulators know what happened to that $70 million you had under management? Hope to hear from you. Warmest Regards, NFA.”

    Quote:
    Subsequently, NFA’s auditors were contacted by Young Choi, who agreed to meet with NFA’s auditors at SNC’s main offices at 40 Wall Street. Thereafter, NFA’s auditors did meet with Young Choi, who again indicated that SNC was out of business and that he had terminated the lease for SNC’s main office effective October 31, 2008. Young Choi also told NFA’s auditors that he first became aware of SNC Asset a few weeks ago, that he was unaware that it was involved in forex trading, and that it was this understanding that SNC Asset only invested in real estate. Young Choi further indicated that he did not know Peter Son’s whereabouts.
    There is always someone that gets left holding the bag in a stick-up. And Young Choi appears to be said bagman. Left behind to clean up Peter Son’s mess poor Young Choi must be ruing the day he ever joined SNC Investments.

    The implosion of SNC is yet another lesson in the perils of sending money to poorly capitalized firms. There is no way of telling how many small firms are tottering on the brink of financial ruin in the wake of the global credit crisis that has wiped out billions of dollars in wealth. As always, conduct your due diligence and beware poorly capitalized firms like the late SNC Investments.

    http://www.trade2win.com/boards/fore...tml#post552490
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  7. #67
    action-reaction arco's Avatar
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    Default Dbfx

    Trying out DBFX (Deutsche Bank AG London )

    Quite a nice easy platform to trade on..............


    arco
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  8. #68
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    Default GO MARKETS Australia

    Theres a new boy on the block...........................

    Go Markets also have MT4, Saxo platform, trading forex/CFDs/Shares

    http://www.gomarketsaus.com/home
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  9. #69
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    Default

    LatitudeFX have just given me MT4 as well. They have also upgraded their online platform.
    Disclaimer: Do not take my posts seriously. They are only opinions.

    AMR has sold all shares and is pursuing property.

  10. #70
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    Default CMC Markets

    http://www.compareshares.com.au/case32.php

    CFD specialist CMC Markets is holding an all-staff meeting at the Intercontinental Hotel in Sydney today at 2.30pm to put the rumours to rest once and for all. What is happening to CMC Markets?

    CMC Market's normally thundering public relations machine has suddenly gone quiet, and in its place is FD Third Person, a media agency "specialising in financial transaction support and issues and crisis management”, according to their website.

    CompareShares did its best to get clarification for traders with existing accounts with CMC Markets. We put in numerous calls to internal public relations, Sydney reception, the New Zealand office and even the 1300 303 888 number and couldn't get anyone to comment. Phone calls rang out. According to FD Third Person, key staff were in meetings until late last night and again early this morning.


    CMC Markets does not want to make an official announcement to the market until staff have been notified of the changes at 2.30pm today, was the official response.

    An email to CompareShares from a CMC source noted that more staff cuts are on the cards including high management and top sales positions. CMC Market shut its Perth office in August this year, and cut back its Sydney staff by 8 per cent.

    Two months ago, CompareShares reported on a series of events that had unfolded at CMC Markets, “An AVO, staff cuts and a trophy mansion – it’s all happening at CMC Markets.”

    Back then, managing director David Trew denied the suggestion that staff cuts were a result of problems at CMC Markets. He insisted that further staff cuts were not anticipated.

    Trew also refuted the rumour that the Brisbane office was about to close. “We’ve got a long-term lease on the Brisbane office, which we took out over a year ago, and we don’t have any plans to change that,” he said.

    By 2.30pm today, at least staff will know what is happening at CMC Markets.

    CompareShares will endeavour to keep investors and traders informed as soon as the lines of communication open again.
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