As Wall Street retreats from the energy trading business new players like major oil companies, utilities and other corporate enterprises are taking large chunks of the energy derivative and price hedging market. “With Wall Street hamstrung by growing regulatory restrictions, a recently finalized ban on proprietary trading and increased capital requirements, these corporate behemoths are… Keep reading →
Option traders are looking for Norfolk Southern to steam ahead in coming months. The NSC September 77.50 calls were bought for $1.90, along with some July 77.50s snapped up for $0.15. OptionMonster’s tracking systems showed that the volume was heavily skewed to the upside, with 9,200 calls traded against fewer than 3,000 puts. Those calls… Keep reading →
One of the most frightening scenes from the financial crisis unfolded in the staid environs of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s Washington offices, where the regulators charged with monitoring derivatives trade gathered together the heads of commodity trading from recently shamed Wall Street giants like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. The CFTC was a comparatively… Keep reading →
Trade in derivatives has been one of the most controversial activities in finance since the opacity around those markets was held by observers to blame for the scale and depth of the financial crisis of 2008. One of the key solutions recommended by regulators was to move trade in contracts onto exchanges, where they could be monitored more closely.
That effort showed early signs of success as the more-liquid contracts moved online but efforts to make exchange trading the default have faltered and – for many types of derivatives – actually reversed. Keep reading →
