Brokers - the good, the bad, and the ugly

[Yossarian]

that is truly f'ed up. end of.

[AMR]

Oh God. Makes blue chip and bridgecorp look like honest buggers.

[arco]

BrisConnections in an unguarded moment

Mark Hawthorne

November 27, 2008


IT WAS another dog-day afternoon for the board of BrisConnections, which had to mull over news that the company's biggest shareholder is a 26-year-old owner of an IT company operating from a block of flats in St Kilda.
Nicholas Bolton of Australian Style Investments bought 47,643,166 BrisConnections unit trusts for about $47,600. Except that he owes the company a further two instalments of $1 each, under the deal devised by Macquarie Bank.
BrisConnections company secretary Tamira Herbst has been desperately seeking Bolton, without any luck. "If you speak with him again, ask him to please get in touch with Tamira," said a spokesman.
After visiting Australian Style Investments' HQ in Fitzroy Street, where the office number is written in marker pen on masking tape at the front gate, Full Disclosure has concerns that Bolton may not be able to pay the $95,286,332 he will owe the toll-road company for his shares.
It certainly doesn't have enough cash to employ top-notch security, given the age of the tired and unthreatening mutt selected to guard the company's front door.
But behind that door is the biggest shareholder of BrisConnections, which was floated in July after winning a $3.5 billion contract to build an airport toll road in Brisbane. Shares were issued at $3 each, to be paid in three instalments of $1.
With 12.2% of the company, Bolton now controls more than Queensland Investment Corporation. One wonders if he will use his stock and potential voting power to challenge the position of Trevor Rowe — the chairman of QIC, which invests the superannuation of Queensland public servants, and of BrisConnections.
Fang He, the Melbourne housewife who bought 8% of the company — with a potential $65 million debt to the company — has sold her shares. BrisConnections is desperate for her to file a substantial shareholder notice to discover who now owns the shares
For a second day, staff at BrisConnections ducked questions from BusinessDay, instead choosing to refer them to a PR flack. "It's an unfortunate situation, but we can't say much until we have been in contact with Mr Bolton," said spokesman Mark Gold. "The company has written to him, and tried to call him."
It appears that Bolton, like many small investors, bought the stock using an online account. BrisConnections is adamant that it will collect what it is owed, even if it means employing debt collection services. Bolton may need a bigger dog.
Of course, BrisConnections could send a bill to Macquarie Bank, which put together this dog's breakfast of a deal. It pocketed $100 million in fees.

http://www.businessday.com.au/busine...1126-6iv0.html

[AMR]

Has anyone use GFT Australia before?

[arco]

Has anyone use GFT Australia before?

No, havent tried them. Maybe do a Google search.

I usually search something like "GFT bad"......and see what comes up.

[arco]

Friday December 12, 2008, 1:28 am EST



I still can't quite get my head around the enormity of the numbers in the Madoff case. For one thing,
Madoff's investment advisory business served between 11 and 25 clients and had a total of about $17.1 billion in assets under management.
Now that's what I call high net worth individuals! And then you read the indictment, and you think you know what to expect, until:
On Dec. 10, 2008, Madoff informed the Senior Employees, in substance, that his investment advisory business was a fraud. Madoff stated that he was "finished," that he had "absolutely nothing," that "it's all just one big lie," and that it was "basically, a giant Ponzi scheme. Madoff stated that the business was insolvent, and that it had been for years. Madoff also stated that he estimated the losses from this fraud to be at least approximately $50 billion.
Yep, $50 billion. In other words, that $17.1 billion is only the beginning: presumably Madoff's clients had invested much more than that, and Madoff was sending statements to them, on the one hand, while reporting different numbers to the SEC, on the other -- none of which were true.
If the total losses are really $50 billion, that means that the average loss to Madoff's clients is a minimum of $2 billion, and perhaps as much as $4.5 billion. After all, in a Ponzi scheme, everybody comes out fine, except the last people out: the 11 to 25 clients still with Madoff to this day.
The one thing this does do is get me a little bit more comfortable with Jeffrey Epstein's business plan of managing billionaires' money. Clearly there are actually quite a lot of people with a few billion dollars to invest and who feel perfectly comfortable entrusting it to individuals like Madoff and Epstein. Who knew?
Right now, there are a handful people whose world has suddenly been turned upside-down: who have, overnight, suddenly lost billions of dollars of dynastic wealth to a Wall Street con man. I'm sure that their names will appear sooner or later. But there really is no precedent that I can think of: when has one man ever managed to steal $50 billion dollars? If the $100 million Harry Winston heist in Paris was the "steal of the century", what's this?.


http://finance.yahoo.com/news/The-Wo...-13817029.html

[arco]

ACM is officially closing their U.S. office and retreating back to Switzerland after failing to make any headway in the U.S. Of course the Scholar has long suspected this Swiss broker wouldn’t last very long on this side of the pond in light of the increased capital requirements. Here is the official statement from ACM which you can find on the front page of their website: Forex - Currency Trading - Forex Broker - ACM (USA) LLC

More here

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/fore...tml#post619392

[arco]

By James P. Miller
Tribune reporter
4:27 PM CST, January 7, 2009
Federal agents arrested two top executives of a Winnetka foreign-exchange futures dealer that collapsed over a year ago on federal fraud charges, the Justice Department disclosed Wednesday.

Both men were principals with One World Capital Group, which was effectively shut down in December of 2007 when the Commodity Futures Trading Commission – responding to a growing chorus of complaints from customers who said they'd been unable to withdraw funds from their accounts -- obtained a court order that froze One World's assets and barred the troubled foreign-currency trader from further trading activity.

.....and theres more
http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...0,405109.story

[arco]

The NFA’s next scheduled capital requirement is set to kick in on January 17th at $15 million. Firms offering leverage of over 100 to 1 therefore must have over $20 million set aside. Alpari was showing $18 million in their last net capital filing but still appear to be about $5 million short of the amount required to offer leverage greater than 100 to 1. Therefore, Alpari has just announced they are raising their margin requirement:
Change to Customer Agreement and Terms of Business

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/fore...alking-41.html

[GeorgeW]

I thought I relieve Arco from his another regular post.

The CFTC has just released their latest net capital figures.
15 million dollar deadline is just days away.

http://www.cftc.gov/marketreports/fi...fcms/index.htm

The following firms have net capital below $15 million

Advanced Markets $10,195,000
Hotspot $10,527,000
Easy Forex $10,606,000
GFS Forex $12,861,000
MB Trading $14,664,000

The following firms have net capital below $20 million

IKon Royal $15,013,000
Forex Club $15,823,000
I Trade FX $17,098,000
Alpari $18,158,000
ODL $18,982,000

The following firms have net capital above $20 million

CMS Forex $26,540,000
PFG $27,704,000
Interbank FX $42,954,000
FX Solutions $45,125,000
GFT Forex $73,808,000
Gain Capital $102,959,000
FXCM $131,416,000
Oanda $170,799,000

http://www.trade2win.com/boards/fore...alking-41.html