Monday, August 20, 2012

HFT -ve, Knight, Nomura, stupid rules and......school rules


Well, it’s Olympics time.
I had started to think of a strategy that this is the “bling” (silver) Olympics with Aussie bringing home more bling per capita than any other.

Then this refreshing link was sent to me:
I had imagined that the almost complete lack of evidence of any sporting ability would be an embarrassment to the Ozzies but I’m relieved to discover you don’t care.

In politics our PM continues to get a bashing:

Which also touches on the deeper issue of where do you draw the line. Censorship on facebook came up:

If you had a strong enough stomach to go through the page and look at the people "liking" its nauseating "jokes", you'd be struck by the number of high school (and tertiary level) students. There's a common assumption that under-25s prefer Facebook over Twitter, although there's little data to back it up. In this case, plainly the page was circulated among groups of kids, some of whom were stupid enough to indicate public approval of it, something that, if the page hadn't been removed, would have remained online and available to future employers and educators.

Being a Dad, it is exactly this kind of digital footprint that I want my kids to be aware of. Be careful what you publically like, even in jest. (And my sense of humour is not what I’d call politically correct at times).

Anyway, lighter stuff:

It is little known or appreciated, however, that the total hours of work per lifetime has never changed, as the final chart confirms.
We do, nevertheless, work for twice as many years these days (about 50 years) at half as many hours per year as our forebears in the early 1800s, who worked for 25 years on average, with twice the work-hour load per annum.
Living more than twice as long as they did has had other benefits too, it would seem: we spread the work ‘drag’ over this longer lifetime. But the total hours of work take up about 12% of our life compared with nearly one-quarter of it two centuries ago. Better to be alive in this century than any other.

So live long and get to enjoy your working life! Bliss.

Submissions due today for:

Not much reading done this week so a short recap, hope to catch up next week (as ever).
HFT negative sentiment continues here and in Europe.
Knight doesn’t help.
Nomura news.
Whatever your golden rule, it’s a stupid one!

This week-end is the biggest fun run on earth.
I’ll be there.

Enjoy the Olympics...and enjoy your leisure too!
Have a great week-end all.

S



CLEARING

AVOX LAUNCHES LEGAL ENTITY DATA PORTAL
The DTCC's Avox unit has launched a revamped portal offering free access to core data fields and standard industry identifiers for a global set of legal entities.



POLICY

CPSS-IOSCO Issues Consultative Report on Recovery and Resolution of FMIs
The Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (CPSS) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) published a consultative report that outlines the issues that should be taken into account for different types of Financial Market Infrastructures (FMIs) when putting in place effective recovery plans and resolution regimes. The report builds on the CPSS-IOSCO report published in April 2012 that calls for FMIs to have effective strategies, rules and procedures to enable them to recover from financial stresses.

HMT Consults on Financial Sector Resolution 
HM Treasury (HMT) published a consultation on financial sector resolution that sets out proposals and questions on enhancing the mechanisms available for dealing with the failure of systemically important non-banks. The consultation focuses on four broad groups: investment firms and parent undertakings; central counterparties (CCPs); non-CCP financial market infrastructures (non-CCP FMIs); and insurers.

Time to control the trading machines
So Germany is looking at charging the high frequency traders a fee. Lets hope its a big one and puts them out of business.....

DESIGNATION OF SYSTEMICALLY IMPORTANT FINANCIAL MARKET UTILITIES (FMU)
The designated FMUs are:
The Clearing House Payments Company, L.L.C., on the basis of its role as operator of the Clearing House Interbank Payments System
CLS Bank International
Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Inc.
The Depository Trust Company
Fixed Income Clearing Corporation
ICE Clear Credit LLC
National Securities Clearing Corporation
The Options Clearing Corporation

AFMA MEMBERSHIP LIST



PARTICIPANTS

Knight's armour loses its shine

Knight’s survival hinges on it striking a deal with a consortium including the discount broking firm TD Ameritrade Holdings and the electronic trading firm Getco. The consortium would inject about $400 million into the New Jersey-based Knight, heavily diluting Knight’s existing shareholders.
... Knight’s survival hinges on it striking a deal with a consortium including the discount broking firm TD Ameritrade Holdings and the electronic trading firm Getco. The consortium would inject about $400 million into the New Jersey-based Knight, heavily diluting Knight’s existing shareholders...

Nomura suffers a Lehman limp

The question now is how extreme Nagai’s retreat will be from the global ambitions of his predecessors.
Senior insiders expect a withdrawal from areas such as equities and investment banking, with a sharpened focus on bond trading, the one uniformly profitable area of the group’s global operations.


STUFF

Polarisation of super dubbed "shocking" by UK manager
The extent of polarisation within the Australian superannuation industry is "shocking," according to a UK-based manager
"In a population of 23 million people to have nearly half a million self-managed super accounts is jaw-dropping," McFarlane said.

Pimco's 'death of equities' error
Gross is right in one important respect. Twisting past returns into golden rules is a sure-fire way to lose money. ‘Stocks are better than bonds’. ‘Property is better than stocks’. ‘Cash is king’. Whatever your golden rule, it’s a stupid one.
The moment any investing strategy becomes accepted as superior, it becomes self-destructive. At the right price, any asset can provide a better return than any other. At the wrong price, you’ll lose money even if there is a thousand years of data behind you.
If you want real returns, you need to own real assets, purchased at an appropriate price. Property or equities, it needs to be something that is yours, to keep, irrespective of how much inflation, deflation or economic growth there is. Holding cash might seem prudent today but, long term, it is almost certain to erode your real wealth.

What You Need to Know about Willpower: ...
The evidence from willpower-depletion studies also suggests that making a list of resolutions on New Year’s Eve is the worst possible approach. Being depleted in one area can reduce willpower in other spheres, so it makes more sense to focus on a single goal at a time. In other words, don’t try to quit smoking, adopt a healthy diet and start a new exercise plan at the same time. Taking goals one by one is a better approach.

Q. What error do reporters often make in inquiring about SWB?
A. Reporters sometimes think that the particular questions on their mind, rather than the ones scientists are studying or those that scientists know about, are the important ones. Thus, reporters sometimes ask research psychologists questions about SWB that are either uninteresting from a scientific point of view, or about which the scientist knows little.
Let me offer an analogy from chemistry. Imagine that you phone an expert chemist, who has just won the Nobel prize, and ask her if she could turn water into wine, or turn lead into gold. She would hang up on you. She has made an important discovery, and that is what she knows about and wants to discuss. If you phone an astronomer and ask about life on other planets, he or she can make some educated guesses, but ultimately does not have a strong answer to your question. However, the astronomer knows a great deal about many extraterrestrial things, if you are interested in those particular things and ask about them.
So a psychologist-researcher, for example one who is an expert on SWB, knows certain things, and knows a few things pretty well. And those are the things not only that he or she is competent to discuss, but are also the things about which s/he likes to talk. When the reporter brings up a bunch of questions that have just popped into their heads, the interview may seem naive or irrelevant to the researcher. The challenge for reporters is to draw out what is known scientifically, not to try to answer some questions about which science knows little.


Specifically, these activities are not acceptable to any of us, and their occurrence will attract severe sanctions:
  • No student is to visit any other school for any purpose before, during or at the end of the normal school day, or to be in the vicinity of another school without proper cause;
  • No student is to enter the grounds or buildings of another school without proper cause: students who do so will be referred to the police to be charged with trespass;  
  • No student is to dress in any other school uniform than that of her/his own school;
  • No student is to engage in activities capable of being interpreted as being a scavenger hunt or similar; 
  • No student is to throw eggs or water bombs or similar projectiles at students, staff, vehicles, buildings or property in any circumstance; and
  • All Year 12 students are expected to continue to behave with dignity and decorum as befits senior secondary students and young adults, especially on public transport, on railway stations and bus stations, in public places and on the way to and from school, and in all settings where inappropriate behaviour may bring discredit on their school.

1 comment:

porta said...

you stopped my search...i got the right article
thanks for sharing this

Depository trust & clearing corporation