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Numerous FX Brokers Shutter After Suffering "Significant Losses" Following SNB Stunner
Update: 2 more FX brokers have just gone belly up, UK-based Calpari and New Zealand's Excel Markets.
From Alpari's statement:
The recent move on the Swiss franc caused by the Swiss National Bank's unexpected policy reversal of capping the Swiss franc against the euro has resulted in exceptional volatility and extreme lack of liquidity. This has resulted in the majority of clients sustaining losses which has exceeded their account equity. Where a client cannot cover this loss, it is passed on to us. This has forced Alpari (UK) Limited to confirm today, 16/01/15, that it has entered into insolvency. Retail client funds continue to be segregated in accordance with FCA rules.
This is what Alpari's CEO, James Hughes, who dubbed the SNB move as "horribly irresponsible", for obvious reasons now, said:
"I'm sure this isn't the last we'll hear on the subject and the SNB are going to be heavily scrutinised in the coming weeks for what appears to be a horribly irresponsible move on their part. For years central banks have tried to avoid days like today by being transparent and making moves like this over time while drip feeding their intentions to the markets. The SNB have shown themselves to be amateurs today and there is many people that will suffer considerably as a result."
And here is New Zealand brokerage Excel Markets confirming it too would not continue operations. "The majority of clients in a franc position were on the losing side and sustained losses amounting to far greater than their account equity. When a client cannot cover their losses it is passed on to us."
* * *
In a re-run of the catastrophic trading losses that occurred around the Russian Ruble collapse last month (as we described here and here in great detail), two FX brokers (US-based FXCM and New Zealand-based Excel Markets) announced tonight that they “can no longer meet regulatory minimum capitalization requirements," due to "significant losses" suffered by clients. For FXCM these losses mean a $225 million negative equity balance and they are actively discussing alternatives with regulators. For Excel Markets, it is over... "we will not be able to resume business...Client positions will be closed within the next hour."
FXCM is in trouble...
- *FXCM: CLIENTS EXPERIENCED SIGNIFICANT LOSSES AFTER SNB MOVE
- *FXCM: NEGATIVE EQUITY BALANCES OWED TO FXCM ABOUT $225M
- *FXCM: MAY BE IN BREACH OF SOME REGULATORY CAPITAL REQUIREMENTS
- *FXCM DISCUSSING ALTERNATIVES TO RETURN CAPITAL TO PRIOR LEVELS
FXCM an online provider of forex trading and related services worldwide, announced today due to unprecedented volatility in EUR/CHF pair after the Swiss National Bank announcement this morning, clients experienced significant losses, generated negative equity balances owed to FXCM of approximately $225 million.
As a result of these debit balances, the company may be in breach of some regulatory capital requirements.
We are actively discussing alternatives to return our capital to levels prior to today's events and discussing the matter with our regulators.
* * *
The broker's stock has collapsed...
“We are in contact with the firm and the CFTC and have no further comment at this time”: Karen Wuertz, spokeswoman for the National Futures Association, the futures industry’s self-regulatory agency.
And Excel Markets is done (as ForexLive's Adam Button explains)... Forex broker Excel Markets calls it quits on SNB shocker
Clients of New Zealand forex broker Global Brokers NZ Ltd, which operates Excel Markets, have been told the company “can no longer meet regulatory minimum capitalization requirements of N$1,000,000 and will not be able to resume business.” Client positions will be closed within the next hour.
Here is the statement (the emphasis, bolding and caps is theirs):
The dramatic move on the Swiss franc fueled by the Swiss National Bank’s unexpected policy reversal of capping the Swiss franc against the euro has resulted in rare volatility and illiquidity. Both our primary and backup liquidity providers became unresponsive or illiquid for hours after the event. The majority of clients in a franc position were on the losing side and sustained losses amounting to far greater than their account equity. When a client cannot cover their losses it is passed onto us.
ALL OPEN POSITIONS MUST BE CLOSED BY 5PM NEW YORK TIME OR THEY WILL BE AUTOMATICALLY CLOSED AT THAT TIME. NEW POSITIONS CANNOT BE OPENED AS OF THIS TIME.ALL CLIENT FUNDS ARE IN SEGREGATED ACCOUNTS AND NEVER USED FOR LP MARGINS. 100% OF POSITIVE CLIENT EQUITY OR BALANCE IS SAFE AND WITHDRAWABLE IMMEDIATELY.
Global Brokers NZ Ltd. STP’s 100% of order flow and has sustained a total loss of operating capital.GBL can no longer meet regulatory minimum capitalization requirements of N$1,000,000 and will not be able to resume business. Losses incurred on trades that could not be exited due to illiquidity were losses incurred directly with the liquidity provider and we do not have the ability to reimburse those. Please note the interbank market for francs was illiquid for hours after the event and no traders with an open franc position were able to close it for a significant period of time, at any broker.
News of the impact of this event on companies and traders is just beginning to come to light. As Directors and Shareholders we would like to offer our sincerest apologies for this devastating turn of events, and to thank you for being such a supportive group.
We ask that you place withdrawal requests for your account balance at your earliest convenience and allow for minor delays as our team begins to experience higher than usual service volumes.
In my opinion, any broker that uses ALL CAPS deserves whatever they get.
We’re encouraged that client funds are segregated. They won’t be the last to go under on this and we hope that everyone has been prudent with client money.
* * *
Which likely explains the carnage after the market close today in EURCHF
* * *
Update: A 3rd FX broker - Canadian firm OANDA says suffered loss on Swiss Franc move...

In the wake of unprecedented market events this morning, OANDA demonstrated its ongoing commitment to doing right by its clients.Despite suffering losses and vanishing liquidity in the institutional hedging market, OANDA remained true to its 14-year legacy of transparency, integrity and fairness to our clients. OANDA did not re-quote or amend any CHF cross client trades. We even took the further step of forgiving all negative client balances that were caused when clients could not close out their positions fast enough.Client inquiries are being handled normally and those making withdrawals and deposits are able to do so as normal.OANDA is proud of its strong reputation for fairness and integrity. We thank our customers for their continued loyalty and welcome new traders who want to experience outstanding service and execution.
We will see...
* * *
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FX crash! Algos gone wild!!!
And they thought they can just put traders on opposite sides of some ficitious electronic trade, and take the spread without any risk. They obviously didn't take this eventuality into consideration. This is what you call deacon risk. You forget to account for the black swan, and you get a deacon your ass.
"Broker suffers losses" = Oxymoron.
Lender to over-leveraged amateur dweebs speculating in foreign exchange markets gets fucking hammered
Somewhere in China 100 million housewives called out in horror.
Yeah........watta tragedy......some parasites got droned
It only gets bitter from here....
indeed
going forward from here, Emperor Draghi has the entire swiss establishment calling it straight on his New Clothes
And to think I get down votes for keeping my extra cash in a safe deposit box.
When this pile of kindling finally catches, it will burn baby burn ... fiatsco inferno ... and deals will be had by those with CASH.
Regards,
Cooter
As quick as the SNB made its move and surprised everyone (allegedly), as quick can any CB announce a new currency and exchange old for new at whatever ratio. Usually holders of old cash lose out. The whole point of a reset or a currency reform is to wipe out debt which equals wealth.
I hold cash and it makes me very very nervous.
I want to see how the usual suspects did out of this. They seem remarkably quiet.
Seems like my comment yesterday was a bit tame. Many people lost a lot more than their Xmas bonus.
That being said -- to those of you who lost jobs yesterday due to the snb -- I'll say you should count your blessings -- you got termed before the coming storm. You're in the front of the unemployment lines and the banks still work.
For those of you who work for companies who barely squeezed by this and are today breathing a sigh of relief -- you're next. Prepare yourself.
Yes. This time around it appears that the owners of the Central Banks will use their printing presses and taxpayer backings to take out the smaller banks and brokers.
Hold your cash in nickels. Of course $10,000 = 2200lbs, it's theft resistant, heck even the cops won't want to bother carrying it away under civil seizure. Were currency to change it'll still be worth its weight in nickel/copper.
.
These fucking parasites and remora are pissed because the game was not as rigged as they thought - Hah!
Go get a real job you deadbeat fucks!
"...Hold your cash in nickels."
The Delta Bluesman Robert Johnson was bought up to Chicago to record. He ended up in a scuffle and his producer had to bail him out. The producer checked him into a hotel and gave him 30 cents. Just as he got home, the phone was ringing, he answerd, it was Robert Johnson,
Robert said, "I'm lonely"
"what?"
Robert, "There's a girl here and she wants 35 cents, I'm lonely and I lacks a nickel..."
Well..somebody better go back and get a SHITLOAD of dimes!
If you get downvotes (which I didn't vote you down), it's because you kept your stuff in a safety deposit box.
That shit got confiscated or you were unable to access it when bank holidays were declared.
Cash is just an IOU. It's not going to worth anything, anyone who think otherwise should look up history right from the roman times.
Gold and crypto are the only true forms of money.
As long as the Rothchilds got their customary heads-up, it's all good. They could care less about the wailing lamentations of a 100 million chinese housewives who just got their asses blown out of the water by the SNB..
What can possibly go wrong in a self-regulated casino business. Has any other business on the planet simillar far-reaching privileges and authority to determine what's wrong and right? I can only come up with those Sharia courts in India in order to appease the muslim minority there.
I am waiting for the FX traders to start throwing themselves out of windows any day now.
You pine for the days of rail travel, free markets, and getting married still a virgin.
They just call old 'Yellin now a'days.
Regards,
Cooter
Hahahaha you've been corzined, people
This is the kind of stuff worth signing up for. lol
Did anything get resolved with MF Global? Its not like Corzine raised a great deal of money for the Obama campaign. Oh wait, he did.
Spitzer, did you see my reply
Did you address it to number 9?
Those FX "speculators" are the the worst scum possible. FX "traders" make people on welfare look like they are doing an honest living.
Guess the losers who got butt rapped hard have to get a job or go kill themselves or something.
Back to the meth lab
Ya, because trading FX is so easy. Retail traders are rolling in money /sarc
"Broker suffers losses" = Oxymoron.
Nothing can be truer than that Knukles...
Brokers just serve as a conduit to facillitate a deal. That is their function. They collect a fee, usually a percentage, to provide that service.
If there is no deal then there is no fee for services rendered as the service has not been rendered.
They are not supposed to lose ANYTHING as they are not supposed to have any skin in the game. It is unethical if they do.
It is not a conflict of interest...There is another term for this which escapes me presently...when they have their own skin in the game.
Help me out.
But that is a great point...Knuks
Agree Tom, the problem being that they offer their own off exchange rate based on liquidity provider prices, so they do suck up that risk. The only way around this is to use an ECN broker that provides direct access to the interbank network - but this isn't really doable for several hundred thousand tiny $1000 accounts, so these fx bucket shops become off exchange more often than not. Expect more of the same in the next week.
"Broker suffers losses" = Oxymoron.
"Broker suffers losses" = Redundant
There...fixed it for ya...
Does anyone know if Russia holds JGBS,,,,,just askin
This is a very good question.
Japan did complain of "excessive Chinese buying of JGB's" pre Fukushima.
OANDA is big at SA too.
Actually, if the trades were fictitious, the broker would have made enormous profits today. The trades were real, the customers lost all of their money and all of the broker's money that the customers had borrowed from the broker. Now the broker is totally out of funds and will need to pursue the customers for money the customers now owe to the broker. The broker set the margin requirements too low.
Well, the trades were fictitious, until they weren't. That's the only way you can see the FX deals allow leverage up to 100x on some pairs.
Cry me a micro-river.
they're going to cry you a macro - river
FX is a weird game with unpleasant surprises hidden away. I figure the US will lose reserve status before too much longer and since no other currency is resilient enough to replace it we'll wind up with a currency basket and then Forex could turn into a real blood sport.
I lost hundreds of thousands of dollars before I decided it was not for me. luckily it was the Scottrade practice account.
My account got wiped out with Excel Markets. Made a little bit back with CitiFX and Tickmill. Both have told me that it is business as usual and have also informed clients: http://www.tickmill.com/company-news/record-high-volatility-eurchf/
It was a disaster for many traders and I feel very sad. I hope it is the last time in this century.
I am still at breakeven when looking at my trading so I think I need to make a decision one moment what to do about all this.
There will be huge implications on the FX brokerage markets and today is the start of a process where a lot of the companies will become rich overnight. Currently the list of brokers who in some cases have already started to buy out other brokers includes: CitiFX, IronFX, IG Markets, Tickmill, FXPro, Oanda.
FXCM was just an arrogant group of people who like MFGlobal thought that they are invincible.
UHHHHHHH OHHHHHHH
The real fun is just starting now! Until the bailouts start, a minimum of 225+ million dollars (most likely in the billions) of someone's fucking money just vanished into thin air from one night to the next, and while the CB's wouldn't even sneeze at that, 225 million dollars vanishing from real people who thought they had it last night, could and will have a very serious cascading effect on real spending, etc etc
If this really gets rolling, let the panic and pissing in the pants begin, because NO ONE knows what that dumbfuck in charge will do, with regard to bailing out wall street and banks THIS time around, and who knows what price they will have to pay for it?? A receipe for some fucking real panic and fun IMO!
I've told many people this, and I always get the deer in the headlights look. Assets can disappear overnite, vanish into thin air, debt never disappears, it has to be satisfied. It has to be paid off or wrote off. Someone's debt, is someone else's asset.
Day of the Dollar, 2005
Stephen Roach, Andy Xie, Maarten Schinkel, Cees Maas, Rob de Wijk, Kees Vendrik, Schiff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuPgdZeAFjA
Vpro Backlight.
You rang?
Hopefully, Hillary Clinton's blind trust got blindsided by the Swiss currency fluctuations.
No way, she always comes out on top:
Hillary Rodham Clinton was allowed to order 10 cattle futures contracts, normally a $12,000 investment, in her first commodity trade in 1978 although she had only $1,000 in her account at the time, according to trade records the White House released yesterday.
The computerized records of her trades, which the White House obtained from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, show for the first time how she was able to turn her initial investment into $6,300 overnight. In about 10 months of trading, she made nearly $100,000, relying heavily on advice from her friend James B. Blair, an experienced futures trader.
Washington post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/whitewater/stories...
the records were from the white house. who was on the losing (briber) trade was never revealed. probably tyson foods. my opinion only.
What does it look like when an algo lifts up its shirt?
SCHWING!!!!!!
What kind of leverage must they have had to be wiped out by that trade???
A lot, me thinks. Also, this probably gives the fed an excuse next time they decide not to raise rates even a little. " we were gonna raise them I promise, but...."
Normally FX accounts have 100:1 leverage, up to 1000:1
I stay away.
Real money losses of $225MM, levered up 100-1000x? That might be enough to force not only the ECB into full QE/bailout mode, but also the US. Tomorrow should be fun, but the week-end is shaping up to be a doozy.
What kind of leverage must they have had to be wiped out by that trade???
Imagine being on the right side of that trade..you could have owned one of these bankrupt brokerages
What kind of leverage must they have had to be wiped out by that trade???
don't know why that printed 3 times...must be my fat finger or the drinks..ha
HFT commenting. Trying to front run himself. lol j/k
You would think these would be "credit events" to set off the quadrillion dollar D bomb.
Algos gone wild, trades on trampolines = The Man Show.
Ya know that cracking sound a board makes just before it breaks... Ya.
#41
God speed.
Http://hedge.bz
Chris Walken as Tyler Durden
Real consequences for bad behavior?
What are these people talking about?
Hey numbnuts! Moral hazard is a real bitch, after all no one actually "fails" anymore...
wasn't that outlawed along with gravity?
Let me be clear; FUCK EM!
Yep Fuck Em!!!!! Anybody trading with these type of brokers are actually too poor to be in the game. These brokers allow $500 deposits and trade .01 cents a pip. If thats what you are trading hoping to compound your interest over 6 months with no losses,then a big LOL, I have some swamp land on the cheap for you also. These .01 cents a pip traders who were swing trading with long positions got off a lot better than a guy trading at a minimum of $10 pip whose stops were not honored. And lets not forget about the fucking retards who do not believe in stops. Its these small traders who get fucked.
The FX market brokers is a cesspool of some of the worse scams in the finance industry. No regulation, then little guy prepared to get fucked raw if you decide to play.
What others were destroyed that we're not hearing about?
See what happens when you try and destroy Putin and Russia?
There are several holding on by their fingernails and one more good disaster should make for interesting times...
We shut down and closed some folks out..
damn, this box wine aint half bad.
Nice, dark amber ale myself...
Quad distilled home fermented potato vodka.
Oh my heart feels soo bad for them.
Arrest them. don't let them get away.
What would have happened if Corzine was their ....
I just went to the FXCM website and you still have time to open an account.
Lookie lookie lookie!
They'll give you $50,000 in a real practice account!
http://www.fxcm.com/?engine=bing+val+fxcm+rais+phrase&CMP=SFS-7016000000...
Something about all this reminds me of Mike's Healthy School Lunches Run Amok
Can you open an account with a negative balance?
And these guys admitted it. Think of all those shaking hands with nail guns tonight.
These are Governments not just traders.
"Play time is over." Commodities are a nothing burger next to currencies...and then of course debt itself.
Detroit going belly up is one thing...Tokyo or Beijing...or both...quite another.
Hahaha! Sorry hahaha!
These people are a disgrace to all the Corzines out there
it is not the same. with Corzine, the broker lost the customers' money. in these cases, the customers actually lost the brokers money.
unless of course you mean that these brokers need to learn something from Corzine! sorry if i missed that.
the point is that Global Brokers NZ Ltd actually segregated customer accounts unlike corzine who said fuck it and took all the clients funds (winners and losers) and gave it to da boyz to satisfy margin calls. normally that would be illegal but he has wh cufflinks and the squid protection clause.
thanks, i missed it. yes, these brokers obviously need to go to the Corzine School for Brokers.
THE ELITE ARE ABOVE THE LAW!!!
fixed it: the elite are the law
Going tribal on the goy is always fun. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
segregated - that's rayciss [/corzined y'all's money bitchez]
it's even antisemitic.
Is that an Oxi-Moron? Do we even have Capital Requirements in America? If so, who the fuck inforces it?
They have to say something that sounds official before the accountants say something with "going concern" in their sentence. :)
That butt if necessary
Fiduciary vewey bwig wod
How in the world are they going to make the market turn green tomorrow?
Maybe the taxpayers can help in some way? It's the patriotic thing to do. Like standing in line out in the cold for ' The Interview '
Bail In
Queue at the currency exchange.
FXCM is scum, they DESERVE to go out of business
FUCK THEM!!
I used to have an account with FXCM. Closed it 3 years ago.
I've been with them seven years. Fantastic service and execution. I respectfully disagree. I hope they'll be able to get through this. No lamenting emails or internal news reports (knock on wood).
Just donate a few facebook shares w/ some biotech thrown in. $223M is chicken feed for this bubble.
$223M sounds like th GDP for NZ, gonna hurt
Bah!! Nationalize everything in the country and New Zealand will be better off! /sarc.
The new class there will finally have the Marxism they have wanted for years!
Peter Jackson is good for it...
fuck them
the beauty of this debacle is that 24 hrs ago, the Swiss CB WAS #1 on the trusted list - around the world. So pilgram, did you learn anything in the last 24 hours?
The gun isn't loaded?
We Corzined some folks
I pulled 1080 pips off of the EURNZD yesterday and boy was my schadenfreude standing at full mast
The NZD really popped- Way to time it!
O/T, but Interesting. I did not know 'the J-Bonds held by oil are greater than the sub-prime home loans.' Once I got past some of Jim's ranting, I found the money money quote above.
http://www.silverdoctors.com/jim-willie-dollar-will-severely-crack-by-mi...
Broke?
Fuck!
* it should have been said in... .
hehe!
I discussed this with a colleague of mine insanely, Economist of a State Company at the time.
There were two disagreements.
One was about Obama and mcain.
I said that right-wing nuts would be better concealed.
We bet and he won a bottle.
Then it was about the crash of the banks.
He said they needed to save and I said "fuck you".
Saved the banks and I lost another bottle of good Scotch.
Today, 15_01_2015 feel vindicated.
He is unemployed and I do not (for now).
hehe.
Collateral Damage may result when trading with the enemy
"Broker" - what you will be if you use one.
We fuck some people ...
If you would like your bank, you can have your bank ...
hehe.
Deceased begins to rot from the inside out, you can not imagine how much a human being as a stink rot.
In banking, the rot is like fish rots from the outside in.
The thing in this post is only the edge of the fish.
hehe.
We margin called some folks.
Didnt Hillary say she was going to run on Obamas economic record? I'd start rethinking that Hillary.
and...it's gone!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DT7bX-B1Mg&noredirect=1
and...it's gone!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DT7bX-B1Mg&noredirect=1
That's always a good view.
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2...
A lot of fancy word and charts and such.
Could an average Joe assume that a few managers bought tickets to freestyle BASE jumping school?
Strip all the principals.
If you can catch them.
FXCM writes in the risk warning that a negative equity can happen but does not mean you have to pay. You can loose all of your money but no more.
"Although the margin call feature is designed to close positions when account equity falls below the margin requirements, there may be instances when liquidity does not exist at the exact margin call rate. As a result, account equity can fall below margin requirements at the time orders are filled, even to the point where account equity becomes negative. This is especially true during market gaps or volatile periods. FXCM will not hold traders responsible for deficit balances in this scenario, but clients should be cognizant that all funds on deposit in an account are subject to loss. FXCM also recommends that traders use Stop orders to limit downside risk in lieu of using a margin call as a final stop."
http://www.fxcm.com/legal/trading-execution-risks/
ohhh my heart bleeds for you cockroaches. lol
Everyone wanted to be the next George Soros.
Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.
George Soros got lucky.
Exactly-
What we can take from this occurrence is that when a CB attempts to hold a certain ceiling or floor, or maintain a certain fix, it cannot be held indefinitely. Assume it will eventually fail and trade accordingly.
The good thing is:
ALL CLIENT FUNDS ARE IN SEGREGATED ACCOUNTS AND NEVER USED FOR LP MARGINS. 100% OF POSITIVE CLIENT EQUITY OR BALANCE IS SAFE AND WITHDRAWABLE IMMEDIATELY.
No one actually believes statements like this any longer - right?
I mean, you guys all know you are gambling (literally) and that you can wake up and your accounts are all gone or empty - no matter who you bank with...
You all DO know that, right?
thats why holding stock or anything over night sucks!
Stop losses are so important and GOLD!
did FXCM not take over the DB forex trade when DB suddenly left the retail market (with several thou of my money) in 2010?
Join the fucking foodstamp queue, suckers. More will come, ....
Oanda's "14 year legacy......" I've got shirts older than that.
Is this the event that boots our asses off the edge and into the abyss?
You can add Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank to the list of banks suffered loss. After the SNB news broke, its FX unit in Hong Kong was apparently asleep at the wheel, the exxchange rate of CHF/HKD did not change for over two hours. Traders got wind of the screw up exhanged untold amount of HKD for CHF at the low rate of 1:7.6 to 8.8 where the rate elsewhere on earth was >1:9. Apparently if the exchnage rate moves more than the usual( like 30% in this SNB news), the computer wont accept the change as real and keeps the rate unchanged and human intervention was needed to make sure the computer did not make a mistake. That human was apparently missing.
Can't THEY just bail them out? Why make it diffiCULT?
This is hilarious. Isn't it odd why the fat tails never burn the squid or whale.
One more for the list
http://www.forexlive.com/blog/2015/01/16/alpari-uk-enters-insolvency-rtrs/
5 trillon a day is FX's kingdom.
What part of it is pure speculation (naked hedging) and what part of it is legitimate hedging of commercial goods?
That's the first question that comes to mind.
If the speculation is 85% of the FX market, as some pretend, its a dead duck.
And worse, its a systemic black swan for the economy that needs to be shot down.
We are now maybe coming to the point where western financialized capitalism as it works, since NWO/Reaganoomics made it what it is, is a cancerous disease that has metastasized.
Lady Lagarde by admitting she was out of the loop of SNB decision-- FX trading is an area where the Swiss banks excel-- has made that ominously clear. Its looks like the CBs don't play the game as a co-ordinated team.
Awesome if true. Titanic blues.
"Its looks like the CBs don't play the game as a co-ordinated team." They never did. They do cooperate... sometimes
otherwise, it was always a simplification, this "CBs rule the world"
fact is that some markets need speculation. wheat is the classic example, where the benign speculator works together with the warehousing supplier and delivers... smooth prices
but if the benign speculation is crowded out by a malign speculation "pressure" (i.e. too much speculation), then you have the opposite effect, and so speculative volatility
if the financial tail wags the real economy dog, then perhaps that tail is too big for that dog
"If"??
are you kidding me?
there is NO IF
only malevolent specualtion today man. if any beign, its insignificent numbers.
I'm not kidding you, just reminding that "moar" is the problem
a speculator as such is neither benign nor malign. it depends. on the market and on how much speculation there is
a bit of sugar in your tea in the morning gives you energy, too much of it gives you diabetes, overweight and might even give you death
"moar" of everything is eventually... too much
lol, Ghordius, our tea drinking friends here will appreciate your "sugar coated" humor.
Anyways, I must say that we have to give a hat tip to Bruce K who has always been skeptical about Gnomes and their ability to miss-aim, so unlike the sons of William Tell.
The SNB sort of played : Aim for the Moon, at worst we will hit a star! Looks like they took down a Supernova in our financial galaxy!
As that guy B. Coeure is now saying at the ECB : we must have a QE that is big enuff to be significant!
There it is, as Bruce has so clearly deduced. Deflation is now the hundred headed Hydra for Euro-Hercules to swat at!
Every CB has their hand on the wheel of the Costa Concordia...all waiving to friends on shore, and it is completely out of control 100 feet offshore at 20 knots.
Here come the ripple effects, one offs etc
ALPARI UK GONE BUST TOO!!!!
We shut out some folks. who thought they were in the circle of friends.
And so it begins. But don't worry. ABSOLUTELY NO MAJOR BANK LOST A NICKEL DUE TO TRADING OR COUNTERPARTY EXPOSURE. Do not freak out. Watch CNBC.
The Swiss will not be neutral in WW3. They may get attacked before Russia.
Ever been there? That picturesque barn around the next bend in the road is hiding a 155 mm howitzer. Everybody’s got an assault rifle and everybody is equipped for a winter war.
Citibank wrote that the SNB could be looking at losses around 60 billion francs. I think somebody will get sacked there for sure.