SunGard took its BRASS sell side OMS and combined it with the recently purchased GL Trade to make their new platform, called Valdi. Sungard will be their toughest competition, with those unwilling to spend the time to swap out their existing system second toughest: “This allows the SunGard platform to give customers quick access to […]
Category: In the News
Hedge Funds Face Higher Capital Requirements Under Senate Bill (Bloomberg)
A tightening up of end user exemptions would have more hedge funds falling under proposed capital requirements and OTC derivative clearing and execution mandates. This language is up for quite a fight in the Senate still, as the definition of “Major Swap Participant” will have major implications for the financial markets post-reform, but it seems […]
Swap Desk Spin-Offs Not Seen As Workable (Derivatives Week)
Is it clear to anyone yet that I don’t like the Lincoln OTC derivative proposal? Kevin McPartland, senior analyst at the TABB Group in New York, said it depends on how the rules are written. “If they force [dealers] to completely spin them off, that just won’t work,” he said. The idea, he said, is […]
Swaps spin-off proposals look costly for banks (Reuters)
The recent proposal by Senator Lincoln isn’t bad because it will cost banks, but because it is ignores how the OTCderivative markets function. Its pretty obvious from my comments I’m against most of what she’s proposed here. It feels as if she’s ignoring everything Congress has learned since early 2009, most of which came through […]
Looking Through the Prism – Visualization Tools (Waters)
This story talks about Citi’s foray into visualization to help with risk management. My comments: “Before all of the mess started, we were in a place where companies with household names were perceived as having zero risk,” says Kevin McPartland, senior analyst with Tabb Group. “There was no chance that a major bank would ever […]
Senator Warns of ‘Populist Fervor’ Against Wall St. (NY Times)
Senator Gregg is standing up for Wall Street – a little shocking. He is a Republican and they tend to be pro-bank, but politics have kept most in DC from saying anything nice about financial services firms. My comments here focus on the linkage (or lack thereof) between execution and clearing and how most can’t […]
Dodd Swaps Bill May Give Trading Edge to CME, ICE (BusinessWeek)
Since the OTC derivative reform debate began, Washington and Wall Street have argued about whether it makes sense to move certain OTC derivative products onto exchange platforms for execution. The Dodd bill seems to think this is the way to go, whereas the House Bill has a better grasp on the idea of non-exchange electronic […]
My Interview at the Telx Event (TMCnet)
Following the panel I moderated at the Telx financial service event, they shuttled us all upstairs to talk to TMCnet. Here is the interview:
The "New" Exchanges: Fast, Faster, Fastest
I originally wrote this article for FIX Global Magazine. You can download the PDF here and read the full version at TabbForum.com. High frequency traders are not the only ones trying to get faster. The last few years have seen exchanges enter an arms race for speed that rivals the most sophisticated trading shops in […]
Wall Street's Cloudy Opportunity (Data Center Knowledge)
I moderated a recent event put on by Telx discussing the challenges faced by financial services firms when creating low latency, highly reliable infrastructures. The event saw ~150 people come out to Telx’s new data center in Clifton, NJ to see what I felt was a pretty interesting panel. We also learned Telx is in […]