I haven’t looked at the VIX in a little while. Below is a chart of the VIX with the Dow overlaid in red so you can see the relationship between extremes of fear and the market wetting itself.The only comment I can make about this is that “fear” seems still to be historically high.

In recent years, advances in telecommunications, computing capacity and financial software platform capabilities have seen huge growth in the field of High Frequency and Algorithmic Trading (now accounting for over 70% of all equity trades placed on US exchanges and in excess of 77% in the UK).  HFT firms (which can often make more than 80…

On Monday, January 21, 2008, concerns about deteriorating economic conditions in the United States caused a precipitous fall in the Asian markets. Investors in Hong Kong and Tokyo besieged brokerage firms. Markets in the United States happened to be closed, for the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday, but U.S. stock-futures trading in foreign markets showed…

There seems to be a bit of a theme this week.

The UBS situation explained.

On Monday, January 21, 2008, concerns about deteriorating economic conditions in the United States caused a precipitous fall in the Asian markets. Investors in Hong Kong and Tokyo besieged brokerage firms. Markets in the United States happened to be closed, for the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday, but U.S. stock-futures trading in foreign markets showed…

In recent years, advances in telecommunications, computing capacity and financial software platform capabilities have seen huge growth in the field of High Frequency and Algorithmic Trading (now accounting for over 70% of all equity trades placed on US exchanges and in excess of 77% in the UK).  HFT firms (which can often make more than 80…

The UBS situation explained.

There seems to be a bit of a theme this week.

I have written about the interesting (somewhat bonkers) world of Bridgewater the colossal hedge fund. Its founder Ray Dalio has some interesting things to say about Europe and risk.

How do you inform your employees that one of them has flushed $2B down the toilet – like this. Dear colleagues, We regret to inform you that yesterday we uncovered a case of unauthorized trading by a trader in the Investment Bank. We have reported it to the markets in line with regulatory disclosure obligations.…

How do you inform your employees that one of them has flushed $2B down the toilet – like this. Dear colleagues, We regret to inform you that yesterday we uncovered a case of unauthorized trading by a trader in the Investment Bank. We have reported it to the markets in line with regulatory disclosure obligations.…