As the 2016 race for the presidency heats up, Wall Street and its many sins are back in the spotlight. Politicians on the left are tripping over each other to find the right words to help them get as many votes as possible. Some of those words from Democratic Party candidates for the presidential nomination… Read More >>
Will Democrats Rip Apart Banks via a New Glass-Steagall Act?
The race for the presidential nomination among the Democrats is taking shape as front runner Hillary Clinton is facing challenges on the left from U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont and former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, particularly on the issue of ripping apart banks that are deemed “too big to fail.” Sanders and O’Malley, in… Read More >>
Greek Default Could Cause Back-Office Nightmares
The specter of an impending Greek default and subsequent exit from the Eurozone that was raised over the weekend unsurprisingly has traders and politicians on the edge of their seats, but a default could mean plenty of pain for the back-office too, industry observers say. “I think it will rank somewhere between a bad dream… Read More >>
ISDA: Regulatory Mismatch Fragments Liquidity for Derivatives
Global derivatives markets are continuing to fragment into U.S. and non-U.S. pools of liquidity, according to a new report by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, the latest effort in an ongoing campaign by ISDA to call attention to the issue. The report, “Cross-Broder Fragmentation of Global Derivatives: End-Year 2014 Update,” says the fragmentation of… Read More >>
Interest Rates, Volatility to Rise in 2015: Greenwich Associates
As part of an ongoing series on post-trade operations predictions for 2015, FTF News has been checking in with industry analysts. Kevin McPartland, the head of research for market structure and technology at Greenwich Associates, compiled a list of 15 predictions for 2015 and he has allowed FTF News to cherry pick from it. At… Read More >>
Premier Profile: The Two Careers of Jennifer Litwin
Despite the big money and perks on offer, financial services professionals aren’t universally regarded as happy campers. This is the story of an apparent exception. Jennifer Litwin is a senior director and the head of relationship management at Greenwich Associates, the well-known Stamford, Conn.-based provider of market intelligence and advisory services to the financial services… Read More >>
New Derivatives Rules to Burden Ops
Josh Brodman must be a little nostalgic for the time—only about a year ago—when the fine print of the clearing and execution reforms for derivatives trading was still being finalized. At the time, he was an operations manager for a multi-strategy, event-driven fund with several billion under management. Life is much different now for Brodman,… Read More >>
Bottom-Line Woes Send Buy Side to the Cloud
A new convergence is underway to make cloud computing more palatable for buy-side firms looking for bottom-line cost savings as they face new derivatives-based demands for more compute power just as profit margins tighten and IT budgets flatten. At the same time, the security, business culture and regulatory barriers that have blocked the cloud are… Read More >>
Time for the Buy Side in the Clouds?
Buy-side firms need to embrace improved cloud computing solutions to get “badly needed computing power” while also helping rein in technology costs, according to consultancy Greenwich Associates. For instance, hedge funds could cut the computing costs of portfolio analysis by 50% if they embrace an enterprise-wide, cloud computing offering, according to the new report “Cloud… Read More >>
Getting Hired for Ops Gains New Respect
Things have changed in the back office. The operations staff no longer takes an automatic back seat to Wall Street’s big, bad money-making wolves on the trading desk. Not that it’s turned into models ’n’ bottles in operations. But not so long ago, those in operations were widely regarded as the Rodney Dangerfields of the… Read More >>
