Digital Chosunilbo – Many companies who bought forex hedge funds are on the verge of going bankrupt as a result of the plunging won. Many who bought Knock-In Knock-out (KIKO) option trading, which protects customers’ money when the exchange rate fluctuates within a certain range, have suffered losses of several billion won after the Korean currency plunged beyond the range.

According to the Financial Supervisory Service, there are 519 companies on KIKO trading as of the first half of this year, and their total losses amount to W1.478 trillion (US$1 = W1,119). “As the won dropped further in recent days, it generated an additional loss of some W400 billion. The total loss this year will tally up to W2 trillion at this point,” said Kang Nam-hoon, head of the external cooperation affairs division at the Korean Federation of Small and Medium Businesses, on Wednesday.

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Tags: fourth-quarter, hell, international-investment-bank, rubs, third-party, trillion

Bloomberg- It’s Friday, March 14, and hedge fund adviser Tim Backshall is trying to stave off panic. Backshall sits in the Walnut Creek, California, office of his firm, Credit Derivatives Research LLC, at a U-shaped desk dominated by five computer monitors.

Bear Stearns Cos. shares have plunged 50 percent since trading began today, and his fund manager clients, some of whom have their cash and other accounts at Bear, worry that the bank is on the verge of bankruptcy. They’re unsure whether they should protect their assets by purchasing credit-default swaps, a type of insurance that’s supposed to pay them face value if Bear’s debt goes under.

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Tags: california-office, capital-management-ltd, conference-call, default-protection, derivatives-research, east-coast-routes, eliot-spitzer, loans, losses, market-meltdown, rubs, spanish-banks, walnut-creek-california