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New York Post - The days of hedge funds operating behind a curtain may soon be over.
Bruised and bloodied by unprecedented losses, hedge-fund investors are rebelling, demanding lower fees, greater transparency and, in a growing number of cases, unfettered access to their dough.
They’re doing this through separately managed accounts (SMAs), which basically act as a portfolio for individual investors.
SMAs are common with brokerage firms but have long been shunned by hedge-fund managers.
Mike Murray of Shoreline Trading Group, which acts as a prime brokerage for small hedge funds, said he’s seeing such a spike in demand for SMAs among hedge fund investors that he expects them to double by next year.
West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) - Employment offers in financial services fell by 11% in September compared to 6 months ago, according to Powerchex Limited, a pre-employment screening firm for financial institutions.
Research by Powerchex showed that Investment Banks made the biggest cutback with 52% less jobs being offered in September compared to 6 months ago. Uncertainty about the world economy heightened with the collapse of U.S investment bank Lehman Brothers, meaning that investment banks are reluctant to hire with the fear they may be the next to falter. Unemployed stockbrokers will also be worried by the news that there has been an 11% decline in the amount of jobs being offered by brokerage firms.
Despite this, investment managers saw a 22% increase in job offers as rival firms take advantage of the increasing number of financial services workers looking for a job by “snapping up the cream of the crop on much less than they would have been able to 6 months ago”, said Alexandra Kelly, Managing Director of Powerchex Limited.
Hedge fund and insurance companies also made more employment offers than 6 months ago as those companies who have been able to remain stable through the turmoil prepare to put themselves at the head of the pack to take advantage of any economic recovery.
IT contractors based at financial services firms have been the big winners with a 30% rise in job offers. Harvey Nash, whose business is predominantly IT outsourcing, this year announced a large rise in profits and strong revenue growth. The trend towards temporary workers is likely to continue as companies attempt to avoid long term commitments in the current economic climate, coupled with the fact that there are more highly skilled workers willing to take on temporary positions.
According to financial recruitment specialists Morgan McKinley, there has been a 42% rise in the number of financial services workers looking for a job in September, with this number likely to rise, those who are unable to secure permanent positions will be forced to accept temporary roles.
“The employment landscape in financial services is getting decisively more difficult, with offers being made only to the best candidates” says Kelly. “Applicants are well advised to be very candid in their CVs, as even a small discrepancy may disqualify them from a job they can ill afford to lose”. “I expect to see a rise in CV discrepancies, as the competition for financials jobs becomes more fierce”, she concludes.
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West Palm Beach (HedgeCo.net) - While coordinating with overseas regulators to protect Lehman’s customers and maintain orderly markets, the SEC staff who have been on-site at the U.S. broker-dealer will remain in place to oversee the orderly transfer of customer assets to one or more SIPC-insured brokerage firms.
In cases such as this, the SEC says, Lehman Brothers’ customers will benefit from their extensive protections under SEC rules, including segregation of customer securities and cash as well as insurance by the Securities Investor Protection Corporation. These safeguards are designed to ensure that a broker-dealer’s customers will be protected.
"For several days, we have worked closely with regulators around the world including the FSA in the United Kingdom, the BaFin in Germany, and the FSA in Japan, as well as our counterparts in other markets around the world, to coordinate our actions in the interest of orderly markets," said SEC Chairman Christopher Cox. "In doing so we have also worked closely with the Treasury and the Federal Reserve and market participants. We are committed to using our regulatory and supervisory authorities to reduce the potential for dislocations from Lehman’s unwinding, and to maintain the smooth functioning of the financial markets."
In the meantime, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. will continue to operate while the bankruptcy process facilitates the reconciliation of claims and the realization of value from its assets in an orderly fashion, according to the SEC.
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Reuters - Some bearish option players are betting that Wells Fargo & Co and SunTrust Banks Inc could both lose as much as 10 to 15 percent of their current stock values by October options expiration.
Nagging worries about the credit markets on Monday have been slamming financial stocks, including banks and brokerage firms.
"We are seeing some limited speculation based on put spreads going up in SunTrust and Wells Fargo showing that investors are still nervous about earnings, potential failures and other industry events," said Scott Fullman, director of derivative investment st
Washington Post - When the Securities and Exchange Commission issued an emergency order last month protecting the stocks of the country’s largest financial institutions against a form of short selling, three businessmen saw an opportunity.
Harvey Pitt, SEC chairman from 2001 to 2003 and chief executive of District-based global consulting firm Kalorama Partners, teamed up with John Tabacco, chief executive of LocateStock.com, and Tom Ronk, the chief executive of Buyins.net, to launch RegSHO.com.
The D.C. company operates a Web-based, real-time electronic stock lending and location service that provides tools to help sellers and brokerage firms comply with SEC rules governing naked short selling — the practice the agency sought to prevent — and regular short sales of stocks. The Web site matches traders with available stocks that can be borrowed for short sales and offers immediate data on the short-sell market. It is named after the SEC’s order regulating such trades, Regulation SHO.