Tel Aviv Disrupt may carry Israel to MSCI Europe ETFs

Posted on August 27, 2014 by admin

BrokerDealer.com blog post courtesy of extract from ETFTrends.com and Tom Lydon

In an attempt to gain acceptance into broad MSCI Inc. (NYSE: MSCI) Europe indices, and potentially into related exchange traded funds, Israel’s Tel Aviv Stock Exchange could end its Sunday open schedule and switch over to Western trading days.

Julien Assous, chief executive officer of Israel Brokerage & Investments and a member of the TASE board of directors, revealed that the bourse is considering changing the exchange’s Sunday-to-Thursday trading days, following feedback from MSCI about potential hurdles for wider acceptance, reports Gabrielle Coppola for Bloomberg.

The TASE board is contemplating shifting open days to a Monday-through-Friday schedule. Continue reading →

BrokerDealers Beware: Watch Your Step Before You Skip (To a New Firm)

Posted on August 12, 2014August 12, 2014 by admin

BrokerDealer.com blog post courtesy of extract from 11 August InvestmentNews.com column by Mason Braswell

Brokerage firms may be monitoring their brokers’ investment accounts for signs that a broker is about to jump ship.

Firms have long monitored brokers’ personal trading accounts for signs of suspicious trading activity. But certain behaviors — such as large withdrawals, moving assets into the accounts owned by family members or suddenly liquidating shares in proprietary products — may also suggest that a broker is planning to switch to another firm.

Indeed, brokers who make big changes to their accounts in anticipation of a job change run the risk of being fired or even facing legal consequences, said Sharron Ash, chief litigation counsel at the Hamburger Law firm, which specializes in representing brokers in transition.

“It’s certainly something that brokers who are planning a transition have to be cognizant of,” she said. “If it falls into the broader basket of anything out of the ordinary it could throw up a red flag.”

Brokers are required to custody their personal investment accounts, and those of their immediate family, at the firms they work for.

Those who are planning to quit often withdraw large sums ahead of the move to cover transition costs, such as paying for property when starting their own office. Also, brokers that owe money on large upfront recruiting loans may also withdraw funds in an attempt to thwart their firms from freezing their assets after they quit.

Liquidating positions in funds held by their firm is frequently done in advance of a move because those products may not transfer easily.

Firms do not take such moves lightly. Continue reading →

Canada Medical Marijuana Co. Floats Shares on Frankfurt Exchange

Posted on August 9, 2014May 3, 2018 by admin

Vodis Pharmaceuticals Inc. (the “Company” or “Vodis”) (CSE: VP FSE: 1JV) announced that it has listed its common shares on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FWB) under the ticker symbol “1JV ” and the International Securities Identification Number (ISIN): CA92858L1031. The Frankfurt Stock Exchange is the world’s third-largest (behind only the Nasdaq Stock Market and New York Stock Exchange) organized exchange-trading market in terms of turnover and dealings in securities. The Company’s shares continue to trade on the Canadian Securities Exchange as the primary market.stock listing on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE): Vodis Innovative Pharmaceuticals Inc.(CNSX:VP)

Otto Folprecht, CEO & Director states: “The listing on the Frankfurt stock exchange will help to increase Vodis Pharmaceuticals’ trading liquidity and facilitate investment in the company by European investors.”

About Vodis

Vodis is one of Canada’s foremost brand names in the medical marijuana business. Our products have consistently won or placed at each competition we have entered. The company is in the application process to become a Licenced Producer at our 12,000 square foot facility in Canada.

CEO of BrokerDealer Electronic Exchange Platform IEX Speaks Out (Again)

Posted on August 8, 2014 by admin

In a July 9 BrokerDealer.com blog post, we profiled the coverage of start-up company IEX, the innovative and self-acknowledged “disruptive” institutional equities order execution platform for brokerdealers that has received unheralded PR courtesy of the book “Flash Boys”, written by former securities industry member Michael Lewis.

Subsequent to BrokerDealer.com being contacted by IEX communications executive Gerald Lam in his effort to set the record straight re: erroneous news media coverage, this blog has kept an eye on IEX; below are extracts from an op-ed article written by IEX CEO Brad Katsuyama to Bloomberg LP and published on Aug 3

‘Flash Boys’ and the Speed of Lies

65 Aug 3, 2014 6:03 PM EDT

By Brad Katsuyama

IEX CEO Brad Katsuyama, Image Courtesy of Wall St. Journal

In the last few months, I have had a strange and interesting experience. In early April, I found myself the main character in Michael Lewis’s book “Flash Boys.” It told the story of a quest I’ve been on, with my colleagues, to expose and to prevent a lot of outrageous behavior in the U.S. stock market.

Many of us had worked at big Wall Street brokerdealer firms or inside stock exchanges, and many of us believed something was amiss in the market. But it took the better part of five years to discover exactly how the market had been organized to benefit financial intermediaries, rather than the investors, the companies or the economy it was meant to serve. Only after looking at a flurry of market innovations — 40-gigabit cross-connects, esoteric order types, microwave towers — did we understand that the market’s focus was less about capital formation and more about giving certain market participants an advantage over others. In the end, we felt that the best way to solve these problems was to build a stock market of our own, which we did.

After the book, our stock market, IEX Group Inc., became a topic of discussion — some positive, some negative, some true and some false. Fair enough. If you’re in the spotlight and doing something different, you should take the heat along with the light.

It’s for this reason that we have done our best to resist responding publicly to misinformation about our company — even when we read memos circulated inside banks that “Michael Lewis has an undisclosed stake in IEX” (he does not); that “brokers own stakes in IEX” (they don’t); or articles in the Wall Street Journal that said we let “broker-dealers jump to the front of the trading queue,” putting retail investors and mutual funds at a disadvantage (in reality, all orders arrive at IEX via brokers, including those from traditional investors). Our hope in staying quiet was that the truth would win out in the end. But in recent weeks, the misinformation campaign has hit a new high (or low), and on one particularly critical matter, we feel compelled to set the record straight.

For the entirety of IEX CEO Brad Katsuyama’s Aug 3 op-ed piece to Bloomberg News, in which he seeks to dispel the erroneous information published by industry news media and select broker-dealer industry analysts, please visit the Bloomberg site at http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-08-03/flash-boys-and-the-speed-of-lies

For those who are challenged with reading, Katsuyama was interviewed on Bloomberg TV Aug 5…The link to that video is http://www.bloomberg.com/video/iex-s-katsuyama-on-hft-full-exchange-ambitions-B0MB~4T7SIiBquvLC8nbLQ.html

New York AG Puts Top BrokerDealer Dark Pools In Cross-Hairs (Again)

Posted on August 7, 2014August 7, 2014 by admin

BrokerDealer.com blog update courtesy of multiple news sources.

NY AG Eric Schneiderman

Less than two months after N.Y. Attorney General Eric Schneiderman levied charges against Barclays that it deliberately misled investors in its dark pool, regulators are reportedly looking into operations at five more investment banks. No specific allegations have been revealed, but several firms have confirmed that either Schneiderman’s office or another agency is investigating their practices.

The latest additions to the list of firms under scrutiny by the N.Y. attorney general’s office are Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, according to The Fox Business Network, which cited people with direct knowledge of matter as sources. Neither firm has publicly acknowledged an investigation, but they also would not deny the scrutiny, according to the report.

Press officials at both firms as well as at the N.Y. attorney general’s office all declined comment.

One week ago, Credit Suisse revealed that regulators have asked the firm for information about its alternative trading system (ATS) as part of an investigation into dark pools. Credit Suisse said it was cooperating with “various governmental and regulatory authorities” regarding its ATS but would not specify which regulators were investigating, according to the Wall Street Journal. The bank further said that it is one of 30 defendants named in lawsuits related to high-frequency trading or other alleged violations filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Days earlier, UBS and Deutsche Bank disclosed that they were the subject of inquiries. UBS said that it was being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the N.Y. attorney general’s office and other regulators as part of an industry-wide investigation, according to the New York Times.

“These inquiries include an SEC investigation that began in early 2012 concerning features of UBS’s ATS, including certain order types and disclosure practices that were discontinued two years ago,” the firm said, according to the New York Times article.

At the same time, it was reported that Deutsche Bank separately disclosed it had been contacted by regulators. Deutsche Bank did not reveal which regulators had contacted the firm, but the New York Times report cited an unnamed source familiar with the matter as saying that the N.Y. attorney general’s office was investigating. Deutsche Bank and UBS both said they were cooperating with authorities.