Futures (Cedar Falls, IA) articles from November 2007

Futures (Cedar Falls, IA) archives from November 2007

Trading Shock Waves
November 1, 2007... Risk management is a trader's best friend, and when it comes to event trading, it is his soul mate. Disasters typically happen unexpectedly: earthquakes, weather scares, political unrest and terrorist strikes, such as September 11, 2001. Some...

ECMs vs. DCMs: CFTC on Borrowed Time
November 1, 2007... Remember when the debate was "for" or "against" a single-line reauthorization of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)? Since 2005, the CFTC has been operating on a continuing resolution and the fears of those single line proponents,...

OMX, Nasdaq, Qatar, Dubai: The Rubik's Exchange
November 1, 2007... It's a good bet that even exchange veteran Magnus Bocker is surprised at the dynamics that have unfolded since he put the exchange he heads, OMX, on the block a few months back. What looked like a simple merger between OMX and Nasdaq has turned...

It's Not 2.5 Cents per Contract but ... TT Beats eSpeed
November 1, 2007... A jury in Chicago has decided that eSpeed Inc., eSpeed International LTD and Ecco Ware LTD violated Trading Technologies International Inc.'s (TT) patents for the static ladder and single-click order entry. The deliberations lasted just four...

Under the rock: Sentinel suit filed.(Trendlines)(Sentinel Management Co.)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... The implosion of cash management firm Sentinel Management Group Inc. created many questions. Now Sentinel's bankruptcy trustee Frederick J. Grede has begun the search for answers and the process of making creditors whole. In the complaint...

Chartview: Safex tops on SSF.(Trendlines)(South African Futures Exchange)(single stock futures)
November 1, 2007... With Eurex's push to list dollar-denominated single-stock futures, we thought it would be a good time to take a look these products, which have fallen to the wayside in the United States, but are gaining volume and acceptance in other...

"CME has not met its burden.": FIA weighs in on CFETS.(Trendlines)
November 1, 2007... The comment period at the CFTC regarding the CME petition for exemptive relief on behalf of the China Foreign Exchange Trade System and National Interbank Funding Center (CFETS), was extended on a request of the Futures Industry Association...

MX pushing forward.(International News)
November 1, 2007... The Montreal Exchange Inc. (MX) is strengthening its position in North America's standardized derivatives business by purchasing a majority stake in the Boston Options Exchange (BOX) for more than $50 million. The financial derivatives...

Broker consolidation.(International News)
November 1, 2007... Futures and options broker MF Global Ltd. (MF), has acquired 100% of the share capital of BrokerOne Pty Ltd., a Sydney-based broker that has captured the leading market share of futures contracts traded on the Sydney Futures Exchange (SFE)....

Germans to list Bombay indices, deepen Irish ties.(International News)(Deutsche Borse AG)(Irish Stock Exchange)(Bombay Stock Exchange Ltd.)(Brief article)
November 1, 2007... Deutsch Borse is continuing to strengthen its global presence with cross-border agreements, most recently by deepening relationships in India and Ireland. In early October, it agreed to extend its existing technology partnership in equities...

Deal is off.(International News)
November 1, 2007... The merger between Iowa Grain Company and R.J. O'Brien, which was expected to close this summer, has apparently broken down. An Iowa Grains representative said that company policy is to not comment on such matters, but added, "Iowa Grains is...

Vincent to chair MFA.(Trading Places)
November 1, 2007... Eric Vincent, president of Ospraie Management LLC, was elected chairman of the Managed Funds Association (MFA). "The Board is dedicated to continuing its mission of advancing the growth of the industry while creating an environment of sound...

MFA members elected six new directors for a two-year term.(Trading Places)
November 1, 2007... Also, MFA members elected six new directors for a two-year term: Trey Beck, managing director, D.E. Shaw & Co. L.P.; Arthur F. Bell, managing member, Arthur F. Bell, Certified Public Accountants; Michel Brogard, managing partner, Amber...

Terry S. Arbit is now general counsel for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.(Trading Places)
November 1, 2007... Terry S. Arbit is now general counsel for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Previously he was acting general counsel and deputy general counsel for regulation and administration. Also at the CFTC, Dr. Jeff Harris was named chief...

Jaul E. Eppen is now chief marketing officer at optionsXpress Holdings Inc.(Trading Places)
November 1, 2007... Jaul E. Eppen is now chief marketing officer at optionsXpress Holdings Inc. Previously he was senior vice president and chief marketing officer at DeVry Inc.

Joseph P. Adamczyk was named director, enforcement counsel at the CME Group Inc.(Trading Places)
November 1, 2007... Joseph P. Adamczyk was named director, enforcement counsel at the CME Group Inc. Previously he was an antitrust attorney at Jenner & Block.

David Geen is now general counsel at the International Swaps and Derivatives (ISDA) Association.(Trading Places)
November 1, 2007... David Geen is now general counsel at the International Swaps and Derivatives (ISDA) Association. Previously he was ISDA's European general counsel.

MFA Reaches over the Pond
November 1, 2007... The Managed Funds Association (MFA) announced in October that it has initiated a global dialogue on sound practices for the hedge funds industry. MFA President Jack Gaine met with Sir Andrew Large, chairman of the Hedge Fund Working Group...

Double espresso to go.(Hot Commodities)
November 1, 2007... Since early September coffee prices have rallied from $1.15 per pound to nearly $1.40. "If they don't get decent rain, it will be $1.50 or more, easy," says John P. Casey, president of Anderson & Co. The other fundamental driving the market...

S & Ps take out high.(Hot Commodities)
November 1, 2007... After being range-bound between 1550 and 1575, the S & P E-mini finally broke through, setting an all-time high of 1586.75. "This market completely ignores bad news," says Larry Levin, president of Secrets of Traders. He says that the Federal...

(S)lumber market.(Hot Commodities)
November 1, 2007... Back in 2004, when people still did things like build new houses, lumber futures were trading at $460 per 1,000 square feet; but with the housing market now in shambles, the lumber industry has been crushed by oversupply and lumber has traded...

Bernanke's First "Crisis"
November 1, 2007... The Federal Reserve's long-held and much-repeated supposition that problems in the sub prime mortgage market would remain contained and not spill over has, of course, proved wrong. And so what once looked like a predictable, even boring year for...

Options Strategy
November 1, 2007... Question: With so many strike prices and expiration months, how do I know which options to buy to protect my profits? Answer: Using quarterly expiring options can help traders hedge their market risk for a specific time period. A trader is...

How to Bag Some Cash in Grains; While Grain Experts Worried That Ethanol Demand Would Push Corn to Historic Levels, with Soybeans Not Far Behind Due to Lower Planting Acreage and Biodiesel Demand, Wheat Quietly Rallied to All-Time Highs as a More Fundamental Worry Hit Home: Will There Be Enough Wheat to Feed the World?
November 1, 2007... World stocks of wheat are at an all-time low. Many hoped that other starch grains like rice, barley, corn or sorghum would make up for the shortage and prices would remain in check. But "Got any bread?" (right) depicts the stocks of all starched...

Tech Talk: Protein Shortage in 2008
November 1, 2007... With corn plantings expanding to their largest level since World War II and wheat prices exploding $2 per bu. higher than their previous record level in September, the current tightening of the world and U.S. soybeans supplies will likely keep...

Why Higher Energy Prices Are Good
November 1, 2007... The economy received great news late last September when oil prices surged to an all-time record high. That's right, it was great news. The move was a welcome relief to traders who were mired in a period of uncertainty about a potential cancer...

Mathematics of Pip Production
November 1, 2007... When getting started in forex, it is useful to know how potential income is related to the amount of money in the account, the pips produced and the leverage used. The dollar amount of your account is your stake and will dictate how you trade. A...

Event Trading with Options: Options Are Excellent Vehicles for Positioning Your Equity before an Event Occurs. One of the Most Active Arenas for Such Trades Is in Individual Equity Options, Where Individual Company Announcements and Industry-Wide News Create Tradable Events
November 1, 2007... Certain corporate events cause gap moves in stocks: earnings announcements or warnings, takeover bids or rumors, lawsuit verdicts and governmental hearings (particularly FDA hearings for biotech companies). Option traders often anticipate these...

Five Keys to Surviving the News: If You're Going to Day-Trade Modern Markets, You Need to Be Nimble, Prepared and Protected. Understanding How News Events Can Impact the Markets Is Key to Long-Term Success. Here Are Five Ways to Better Prepare for the Unknown
November 1, 2007... Day-traders live for big news events. News moves markets. The Federal Reserve announces a rate cut, and the financial markets ignite. Terrorists succeed in delivering a crippling blow to an oil pipeline in Nigeria, and fuel prices spike and...

Naked but Not Overexposed: When Selling Options, There Is Significant Downside If Something Goes Wrong. Although You Can Protect Yourself with Spread Techniques, These Compromise Some of the Benefits of the Original Naked Position. There Are Other Solutions
November 1, 2007... One of the first concerns that arise when trading options for income on a futures portfolio is how to manage the risk. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Many strategies are available, and most of those involve spread strategies. However, there are...

Evolution of T-Note Channels: Positions of T-Note Futures in or out of Channels Indicate Potentially Undervalued or Overvalued Futures. by Knowing Which Is More Likely, You Stand to Make Money in the Markets. Here We Show You How
November 1, 2007... Recent events in the U.S. credit market highlight the importance of monitoring the Treasury-note futures channels described in "Channeling T-note futures," July 2006. By reviewing how these events cascaded through the Treasury market, we can...

Forex and Treasuries Provide Clues for Gold: Trends Are Always Obvious-In Hindsight. Identifying Major Trends Early on Is Difficult, but Artificial Neural Networks Allow Us to Mine Data for Subtle Clues, Find Complex Inter-Asset Relationships and Identify Turning Points
November 1, 2007... Gold, the one asset that has been used for hundred's of years as a means of currency and wealth accumulation, is used today primarily as a hedge. Since peaking in the late 1980s, gold prices steadily declined, then held around $300 per oz....

Commodity Explorer
November 1, 2007... Commodity Explorer 15601 N. Dallas Parkway, Suite 200 Addison, TX 75001 (866) 260-4900 trader@commodityexplorer.com www.commodityexplorer.com OVERALL RATING: Adequate LEVEL: Beginner to advanced. PRICE: $99 monthly with...

Tracking the Markets with Bar Charts: A Simple Chart Provides a Graphical Representation of a Market's Movement through Time. Here's a Quick Look at How to Read One and Make Better Trading Decisions
November 1, 2007... Just as an animal leaves foot prints when it moves through the landscape, a market leaves tracks on a bar chart as it moves through time, and whether you are tracking game in the woods or a market on a chart, trackers and traders employ the many...

The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World
November 1, 2007... The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World By Alan Greenspan Penguin Press $35.00, 505 pages There are many interesting aspects of former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan's long-awaited book, but for market participants...

Algo Trading and CTAs-Perfect Together: With the Rapid Expansion of Electronic Futures Markets, CTAs Can Now Fully Harness the Power of Algorithmic Execution Tools to Improve Trading Performance
November 1, 2007... One of the hottest topics in the futures markets these days is algorithmic trading. The financial press is awash with story after story about the rise of algorithmic trading, and a trader would be hard-pressed to attend a futures industry...

2007 Public Funds Returns (through Sept. 30)
November 1, 2007... Unit Starting value Change Trading Date unit through for Name of fund advisor(s) started...

OTC and Exchanges: Convergence Deferred; Five Years Ago, the Promise of Commoditization and Real-Time Processing Created an Expectation of a Renaissance in Listed Product Development. Alas, Only a Handful of Products Were Developed, and They Were Underwhelming. but the Expected Convergence of OTC and Exchange Markets Is Gearing Up Now
November 1, 2007... Richard Olsen and his partner Michael Stumm built the Oanda trading platform in part to show it was doable, and in part because they truly seem to believe that if you get more people participating in open, transparent and liquid markets, you'll...

Contract dates.(Dateline)(Calendar)
November 1, 2007... 1 LTD: BM & F Alcohol OF, CME Oct Milk F,OF, Euronext-Liffe Dec White sugar OF, Dec White sugar OF, Tocom Oct Crude Oil F. [TABLE OMITTED] 2 LTD: CME Oct Weather F, Live cattle OF, Nybot Dec Cocoa OF. 3 LTD: Nybot Dec Cocoa OF....

Events coming up.(Calendar)
November 1, 2007... Call the numbers listed for more information. For other seminars, see the classifieds on pages 77-81. Futures Magazine I-Trade Virtual Trade Show. NOV. 6-7. Go to www.FuturesMag.com to register. Traders Expo Las Vegas. NOV. 15-18....

Parrot: Soaring like a Condor
November 1, 2007... Parrot Trading Partners LLC (PTP) returned more than 30% in its Calendar Condor trading program in the three-month period ending in August, a period that produced large drawdowns for many option based strategies. Jes Santaularia, managing...

Agents of Change
November 1, 2007... "The Internet by far. The concept of electronic trading and the explosion of information and accessibility of information, it's all been driven by the Internet. It's just revolutionized every aspect of our business." Ralph Cruz, co-founder of...

Leo Melamed: In the Middle of the Action from the Beginning
November 1, 2007... Leo Melamed has been a part of the entire modern futures experience. He was a member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) when their biggest contract was egg futures and has supervised or been directly responsible for all of its major...

Richard Sandor: Inventing Markets out of Thick Air
November 1, 2007... In 1969 Richard Sandor was teaching economics in the graduate business department at the University of California at Berkeley. Even then he was forward thinking, teaching a course on futures at a time when futures, if addressed at all, would be...

Philip McBride Johnson: Made CFTC Master of Its Own Domain
November 1, 2007... Philip McBride Johnson says, without a doubt, his greatest economic contribution to the history of futures was helping the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) win exclusive regulatory jurisdiction in commodities trading--in which he...

Jim McNulty: O'Connor Partner Applies Process to Markets
November 1, 2007... From a humanities student to one of the most astute business men on the Street, now sitting on boards of the New York Stock Exchange Euronext and ICAP, Jim McNulty has come a long way. "In the early 1970s I did a master's degree in...

Charlie Carey and Terry Duffy: Dynamic Duo Bends Laws of (Exchange) Physics
November 1, 2007... Some might say the reason for the merger of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT) were hogs. More specifically, the hog futures pit at the CME where then CBOT member Charlie Carey went to go trade when the...

Jeffrey C. Sprecher: Unencumbered by History
November 1, 2007... While many financial exchanges are rightly proud of their hundreds of years of history, in just seven years Jeffrey C. Sprecher turned a regional power plant into the Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (ICE), brought electronic trading to several...

Ned Bennett: Saw Big Picture and It's the Small Screen
November 1, 2007... On the way to founding one of the first on-line discount options brokers, Ned Bennett, executive vice president of optionsXpress Holdings, Inc. (or the "labor" as he likes to call it) helped build the infrastructure of the futures and options...

Chris Hehmeyer: Southern Gentleman Takes on Raucous Bond Pit
November 1, 2007... Chris Hehmeyer, CEO of Penson GHCO, is a Memphis boy who was bitten early by the commodities bug. "Memphis is strangely a commodity trading focused town. When I say strangely, I don't mean it is inexplicable, because I think it comes from the...

Tom Theys: Building More Democratic Access to Markets
November 1, 2007... Tom Theys moved to London in 1981 to trade at the fledgling London International Financial Futures Exchange (Liffe). Theys, who learned the futures business from the ground up starting as a runner and eventually becoming a trader at the Chicago...

Jorg Franke: Bringing Home the Bund
November 1, 2007... Jorg Franke always seems to be offering a nod to the absurdity of fate, regardless of the subject matter. "I'm a lawyer by training," he says, "but I'm lecturing on capital markets...," pause for reflective chuckle, "... at a technical...

Per Larsson and Olof Stenhammar: Exercising Their Options
November 1, 2007... It was a 1973 stint in the burgeoning U.S. options industry that first got Swedish entrepreneur Olof Stenhammar thinking about an options exchange in Sweden, and it was a Stenhammar's talk of such an exchange that, a decade later, prompted...

Jean Francois Theodore: The Ground Breaker
November 1, 2007... Jean Francois Theodore, the current deputy chief executive officer of NYSE Euronext, could have been just a brilliant civil servant in the French administration. But his first love for history and geography, and his early professional experience...

Richard Olsen, Michael Stumm: FX Markets for the Masses
November 1, 2007... Oanda's FXTrade trading platform is more than just a business, and has been from the day Richard Olsen and Michael Stumm launched it in 2001. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] "For Michael, it was a chance to prove that all...

Bill Cruz and Ralph Cruz: Rescuing Charting from the Dark Ages
November 1, 2007... Bill and Ralph Cruz learned chaos early. Both born in Cuba during the Castro revolution, they escaped with their family to Miami, where their father, a successful lawyer in Cuba, worked as a hospital orderly and then as a librarian to give his...

John Kelly: Taking Managed Futures to the Masses
November 1, 2007... Man Investments was at the forefront of taking managed futures from a small niche investment strategy to a larger audience and John Kelly, president and CEO of Man Investment Products, played a pivotal roll in the process. Kelly worked with...

Richard Dennis: Seeding the Managed Futures Industry
November 1, 2007... Richard Dennis was perhaps one of the first celebrity traders, particularly in the futures arena, building on a reputation as a successful floor trader and creating aggressive trading strategies that would produce eye popping returns, as well as...