Posts tagged 'Shorting'

How much are the new short-selling disclosures missing?

Masa joined the FT in 2009 and has worked on a number of desks across the paper, including Companies, Markets and Comment. She spent much of 2010 in New York covering the US equity markets. But earlier this year she finally saw the light and moved to Alphaville.

She started her career in the investment banking division at Lehman Brothers in the summer of 2007, timing it perfectly with the beginning of the credit crunch.

She studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford University.

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| Nov 09 2012 13:53 | Comment |

Short-sellers must now notify the market when a net short position on a European stock reaches 0.5 per cent of the issued share capital of the company concerned and again at each 0.1 per cent increment after that. Then the information on UK stocks goes on the FSA’s website (in a particularly hard to use format).

But disclosures so far indicate that the new rules are missing a significant chunk of short-selling activity. Data from Markit suggests that, for example, Lonmin has around 17 per cent in undisclosed short interest. Read more

A short leap across the Atlantic

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Nov 02 2012 21:18 | Comment |

No doubt the California buyside was up early this morning… checking whether they had any disclosures to make under the new short-selling regulation which affects them.

That would be the European one. Read more

Terry Smith doesn’t like ETFs

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| May 24 2011 12:13 | Comment |

Uh oh.

Terry Smith, City veteran, pugnacious former director of Collins Stewart and manager of the Fundsmith Equity Fund, has turned a critical eye onto one of our favourite subjects — exchange traded funds. Read more

Hedge funds search for way to short munis

Tracy Alloway used to be deputy editor of FT Alphaville. Here she learned the details of derivatives, the absurdities of accounting and the various structures of ... erm ... structured finance. She now covers big US banks for the FT paper, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She pops up on FT Alphaville every once in a while.

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| Feb 09 2011 09:41 | Comment |

As fears grow over the scale of a crisis some believe could rival the debt problems of the eurozone, hedge funds and other investors are looking at how to trade the market in America’s municipal debt, according to the FT. Political sensitivities to shorting munis has helped drive investors looking to trade muni risk to a wider CDS index backed by 50 credits, rather than swaps for individual states and borrowers. The Wall Street Journal notes that “State and Municipal Debt: The Coming Crisis?” is the provocative topic of a congressional hearing on Wednesday, which among other things will consider whether states should be allowed to file for bankruptcy protection. Read more

Shorting a tarnished fund management group

| Nov 17 2010 12:58 | Comment |

Hmm. Read more

Those ETF shorts

Izabella Kaminska joined FT Alphaville in October 2008. Before that she worked as a producer at CNBC, a natural gas reporter at Platts and an associate editor of BP's internal magazine.

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| Oct 20 2010 16:29 | Comment |

Blackrock, the world’s largest asset manager — with $3,450bn under management according to figures released on Wednesday — puts out a regular quarterly review of the ETF industry.

And as usual, it presents some interesting factoids on all matters exchange-traded fund — be they product, currency or commodity. Blackrock itself, of course, is a leading player in the ETF market through its ownership of iShares and currently — according to its own report — has some $534.6bn in ETF assets under management. Read more

A stunned short-seller never forgets

Tracy Alloway used to be deputy editor of FT Alphaville. Here she learned the details of derivatives, the absurdities of accounting and the various structures of ... erm ... structured finance. She now covers big US banks for the FT paper, including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. She pops up on FT Alphaville every once in a while.

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| Aug 12 2010 09:17 | Comment |

For sure the 2008 financial crisis lingers on in the minds’ of long-only investors, but perhaps it’s surprising to hear the episode scarred the shorts too. And not just because they got banned, scapegoated or squeezed.

Data Explorers is marking the third anniversary of the credit crunch by delving into short-selling perspectives in the run-up to the crisis’ apogee in September 2008, and its aftermath. Read more

Down with volatility, and down with volatility indices

Joseph joined FT Alphaville way back in March 2010. He likes all the politically and legally fiddly bits of finance. He also likes credit, rates, global macro, tail risk, and all that stuff. (You should email him story ideas. He’ll take anything.)

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| Mar 18 2010 11:32 | Comment |

The fear gauge. The chaos barometer. The weathercock of mild investor perturbation. Vix, Chicago’s almighty options volatility index, has been going down of late — having breached 17 on Wednesday, indicating that anxiety in equities is at its lowest since May 2008.

Except — maybe Vix doesn’t indicate anything useful at all. Read more