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.

Financial tech Start-ups and their value

BrokerDealer.com blog update courtesy of financial industry publication TabbForum; those interested in fast-growth start-ups that have secured a presence within the trading technology space would want to visit OMEX Systems

FinTech disruption is in its early innings, particularly on the institutional side. But the number of exciting startups is growing. This growth is occurring due to the vast coverage of industries and asset classes that companies such as ChartIQ and OMEX Systems have been benefitting from clients that are looking to profit from the data they collect.

You’ve likely heard of companies such as Lending Club in the lending sector, Wealthfront for wealth management, and Square for payments. Companies such as these are reinventing very old processes in their respective sectors, and there are many more examples of technology firms like these that are gaining mainstream recognition. But there are thousands of startups reimagining much more niche functions in financial services, and many of them could be complementary or competitive to your own business.

Continue reading