More Publicity for a Transaction Tax

NY Times Columnist Bob Herbert gave wide exposure to an idea that has not received much press – taxing transactions. He publicised the suggestion from economist Dean Baker, who argues it could raise $100 billion and put a slight damper on speculation.  (Ok, I admit, I did write about transaction taxes here at the end [...]

Chris Skinner’s Guide to MiFID

I have written about MiFID often enough that I can almost figure out the acronym without going to Google. Ok, not quite – look it up yourself.
So I expected my friend Chris Skinner’s book on The Future of Investing in Europe’s Markets after MiFID to be moderately interesting but hardly surprising.
Wrong. Well, it was only [...]

TradeTech 2008 in Paris vs. SIFMA

A tech vendor friend from New York was very pleased with the quality of attendees and the content at TradeTech 2008 in Paris. The show drew high level people who really knew the industry and were apt to be decision-makers, he thought. He didn’t mind the high price of £3,684 (€5,526). In fact, he thought [...]

Mark to Market Debate Continues

The Letters page in the Financial Times has become quite interesting in recent weeks  On 20 March, the president of the CFA Institute, Jeff Diermeier, defended fair value reporting, i.e. mark to market.
 “Recent market problems stemming from a lack of transparency in subprime lending and securitisations based on such loans have added a new urgency [...]

Reuters to the Rescue?

When no active market exists, how do you value assets? Reuters is promoting a plan to develop industry consensus pricing for derivatives and complex securities – see my article in Securities Industry News 10 March.
Philippe Carrel, EVP and global head of business development at Reuters, calls the service, announced on 28 January, an open pricing-model [...]