State Pension Funds Would Benefit from Passive Indexing
(Jul 2013)
The Maryland Public Policy Institute and the Maryland Tax Education Foundation released a report that uses data on state pension funds to question the value of active money management. The report finds that paying Wall Street managers to actively select and trade securities in state pension funds does not generate better investment returns, although it does provide higher fees and commissions for Wall Street managers. The results are in line with that of the S&P Indices Versus Active Funds...
VelocityShares' New Volatility ETFs
(Jul 2013)
You've heard it here before: hedging equity exposure with volatility derivatives is very tricky.
While the CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) and the S&P 500 are negatively correlated suggesting a possible hedging opportunity, you cannot invest in the VIX itself, you have to invest in derivatives (futures or options) linked to the VIX. The simple fact is that this indirect exposure to the VIX does not behave like the VIX itself, making it in the end a rather poor hedge to equities .
But issuers of...
SEC Investigating Early Release of Data to High Frequency Traders
(Jul 2013)
Every month at 10:00 AM Eastern time, Thomson Reuters publishes the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) manufacturing data on its website. The ISM data is a widely cited benchmark, and its announcement can move stock markets. On June 3, that data was disappointing, and the stock market fell in response to the news. But it fell 15 milliseconds before the data was released.
Likewise, every month at 10:00 AM Eastern the University of Michigan publishes its Consumer Sentiment Index data through...
SEC Litigation Releases: Week in Review - June 28th, 2013
(Jun 2013)
Court Enters Final Judgments Against JBI, Inc. and Former Officer in Accounting Fraud Case
June 27, 2013, (Litigation Release No. 22735)
Final judgments were entered against JBI, Inc. and John W. Bordynuik, "two defendants in a fraud action filed by the Commission in 2012." In its original complaint, the SEC alleged that JBI, Bordynuik (JBI's former CEO) and Ronald Baldwin Jr. (JBI's former CFO) engaged in a scheme that allowed JBI to state "materially false and inaccurate financial...
FINRA Fines StateTrust for Charging Unfair Prices in Fraudulent Bond Transactions
(Jun 2013)
We've been discussing markups a lot on the blog recently -- including an entire week devoted to markups in municipal bonds. Yesterday FINRA announced that it fined StateTrust Investments and their head trader, Jose Luis Turnes, for charging excessive markups and markdowns on hundreds of corporate bond transactions.1 The letter of acceptance, waiver and consent (AWC) is available to view online.
According to FINRA, StateTrust charged prices customers much more, or paid them much less, than the...
Structured Investments Linked to Proprietary Indices
(Jun 2013)
Structured products are often linked to well known indices like the S&P 500 or the Dow Jones Industrial Average, but recently it has become more and more common for banks to issue structured investments linked to proprietary indices that they create themselves. The use of proprietary indices (also known as 'self-indexing') has begun to arouse suspicion from various sources and so we thought we'd take a step back and talk about the issue for a moment.
Structured products linked to well-known...
SEC Litigation Releases: Week in Review - June 21st, 2013
(Jun 2013)
SEC Charges San Diego-Based Promoter in Penny Stock Scheme
June 19, 2013, (Litigation Release No. 22730)
According to the complaint, David F. Bahr "artificially increased the trading price and volume" of penny stocks in iTrackr Systems "when he conspired with a purported businessman with access to a network of corrupt brokers." Bahr had arranged the fraudulent purchase of $2.5 million worth of shares in iTrackr with this businessman and "during a test run of their arrangement, Bahr paid a...
Foreign Exchange Rate Fixing
(Jun 2013)
Bloomberg News recently reported that traders at some of the world's largest banks have been in the business of rigging foriegn exchange (FX) rates. An FX rate essentially tells you how much of one currency you can buy with another currency: for example, currently you can buy about 100 Japanese yen for each US dollar. The rates affect "trillions of dollars of investments" according to Bloomberg, since they are used for the valuation of portfolios, derivatives, and even equity and fixed...
IRS Could Put a Halt to REIT Conversions
(Jun 2013)
We've talked a lot about real estate investment trusts (REITs) before. In the US, REITs are companies that invest at least 75% of their assets in real estate, pay out almost all of their annual income in dividends, but also pay little or no corporate income tax. As we've discussed before, many companies have tried to qualify for the REIT designation to reduce their tax liabilities, even if their business is only peripherally related to real estate.1 This 'REIT conversion boom' has been...
Reverse Convertibles and Event Risk
(Jun 2013)
Reverse convertibles are short-term debt securities issued by banks whose return of principal at maturity is contingent upon the returns of the linked stock. Although these notes typically pay relatively high coupons, they expose investors to losses on the underlying asset, especially if those losses are beyond the trigger level. Academic research shows that these coupons are not adequately compensating the investor for the market risk that they are bearing by investing in the notes. For...
