BrokerDealer: Saudi Arabia Outlines Plans to Open Tadawul Exchange to Foreign Investors

BrokerDealer.com blog update courtesy of extract from 12 Sept article from Zawya, a Reuters service

Plans for new regulations on direct foreign investment in the Saudi Arabian stock market have been outlined, setting out requirements and limits for oversees buyers seeking to buy into the region’s biggest exchange.

On August 21 the Capital Market Authority (CMA) released detailed information on opening up the Saudi Stock Exchange (Tadawul) to foreign investors, following on from the Saudi cabinet’s approval for the initial proposal in late July.

Although this marks a further liberalisation of the market, a series of caps on trading will restrict the ownership levels within individual companies and overall foreign participation on the exchange.

Emerging market status

The combined market valuation of the Tadawul is around $530bn at present, representing about 45% of the total capitalisation in the MENA region. Jadwa Investment forecasts a $40-50bn injection from total foreign inflows beyond the short term.

The initial response to the reform was positive. The Tadawul rose some 10% up to the end of August, hitting a six-year high on August 26 with a surge in the value of shares bought by foreign investors via equity swaps. Since the release of the detailed draft regulations the market has eased off its highs of late August, possibly as investors digest the operational limits the CMA plans to put in place.

Even with the caps, investors will see the opening of the Tadawul to foreign buyers as a significant opportunity. Over the past decade, and despite the downturn in the wake of the global financial crisis, the exchange has shown a return of 120%, according to an HSBC report, issued in mid-August. Investors will also be lured by the strong fundamentals of the Saudi economy and outperformers such as the world’s biggest petrochemical firm, Saudi Basic Industries Corp (SABIC).

“The opportunity set for foreign investors is too significant to pass up given the quality of the corporations and market breadth relative to other frontier markets in the Middle East that come with a higher risk premium attached,” Neil Azous, founder of research firm Rareview Macro LLC, told Bloomberg.

For the full story, please click on this link.

Hedge-Fund steps out of the Game due to HFT

Brokerdealer.com post courtesy of WSJ.com

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A hedge-fund manager says an unusual culprit contributed to his firm’s demise: high-frequency traders.

Rinehart Capital Partners LLC, which had been backed by hedge-fund veteran Lee Ainslie and specialized in emerging-markets stock-picking, is closing, according to a letter viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

In the letter, Rinehart founder Andrew Cunagin aligned himself with those who have been critical of the rise of fast-moving traders. Continue reading

Brazilian ETFs hit snag in Moody’s rating

Brokerdealer.com post made possible through ETFTrends.com 

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The iShares MSCI Brazil Capped ETF (NYSEArca: EWZ) and other Brazilian ETFs have been enjoying a mostly excellent 2014, but that ebullience has encountered some resistance in recent days. Investors’ willingness to stick by EWZ and Brazilian stocks in the run-up to next month’s national elections is being tested Tuesday after Moody’s Investors Service lowered its outlook on Brazil’s sovereign debt rating to negative from stable. Continue reading

High-profile ETFs and how to garner Alpha from them

brokerdeal.com blog post courtesy of insidermonkey.com
Bloomberg’s Eric Balchunas discussed the most ‘Warren Buffett-esque’ ETFs: Market Vectors ETF Trust (NYSEARCA:MOAT), iShares Trust (NYSEARCA:QUAL), and Direxion iBillionaire Index ETF (NYSEARCA:IBLN). These funds rely on different approaches to building up their portfolio, but tend to arrive at somewhat similar results. Continue reading

Social Media and Financial Services; BrokerDealers Need To Know

A brokerdealer.com blog special article.

No longer are organizations and financial brands able to focus exclusively on email aliases, storefronts and toll free numbers for support and customer participation. Now, a brand must engage customers 24/7 in social media. However, as we have seen together with the rise in social media junk, the upsurge in social fraud, the continuing social account hacks and also the ever increasing regulatory focus on social websites, financial services’ social media programs endure the most comprehensive set of compliance challenges and hazards.

Actually, every one of the specific financial services sub-verticals including retail banking, insurance, wealth management, charge cards, etc., all tend to have two to three major categories of social media applications including centralized brand programs, adviser / agent programs and social customer care systems. Unfortunately, they may just be partially equipped to manage conformity and risk for just one of their social programs.

Brand plans confront regulations but in addition have a tendency to be exposed around account hacks deceitful accounts and social media junk. Social care plans have to worry about those same problems in addition to controlled and sensitive data managing of misdemeanors of FINRA Customer Criticism Dangers regulations or FFIEC Regulation Z and DD on top and PCI. Advisor and agent applications have to handle industry regulations like FFIEC FINRA, FTC and SEC, along with corporate standards including keeping the advisor or agent account protected and using approved employee bio data, approved publishing tool workflow.

Here are several best practices to help financial services organizations address the comprehensive set of compliance and danger challenges they confront in social media:
1. Don’t rely on keyword detection: manual workflows and Less accurate key word dictionaries do not scale. Technology that comprehends context and the content ought to be employed to automate detection, handling and improving retention and eDiscovery search for several compliance, legal and related content violations.
2. Define Policies & Organization Obligations: Create a cross-departmental working group defining and executing on who is responsible for applying them, creating policies and reacting to incidents across social systems.
3. Learn Compliance Context: Social marketers, IT teams and agents or brokers will not be naturally compliance specialists. Thus, they must be trained by external and internal compliance specialists, so they are informed regarding the circumstance of the regulations.
4.Shield Social Accounts: Maintain access control on social pages, profiles, and accounts by restricting what tools can publish to the report, protecting passwords and monitoring the account to discover and prevent account hacks.
With increasingly more resources being committed by financial services brands to social networking, the urgency grows with it each day. Without a serious strategy and investment in this more comprehensive set of compliance areas and social danger, financial services organizations will fight to efficiently and safely scale their social plans.