Expert Witness: Options & Futures, Trading and Complex Securities

Should US stocks settle T+1? The current T+2 settlement date is considered antiquated, and the Robinhood affair (gee, them again???) has relaunched the debate. Here is a review of the DTCC’s proposal, as well as an idea for derivatives traders.

#FinancialMarkets, #DTCC, #Settlement, #Derivatives, #MarketStructure
Navesink International (www.NavesinkInternational.com)

The SEC and the NY AG are suing CoinSeed for lack of registrations and multiple other counts. That’s a cold shower for the crypto industry. Spoiler alert: adult supervision is needed.

Geode handles $700 bn of Fidelity’s index tracking assets. Geode Diversified, the much smaller hedge fund business, took a 36% loss on COVID’s volatility rally. It is now getting the axe.

Navesink International is at the interface of two worlds – the financial markets and the legal space. It is a scarcely-populated niche. We are confident that the content of at least one of these two universes will be of interest to you.
Feel free to register

Infinity Q may be the new variance swap skeleton. The New York hedge fund has just been suspended by the SEC pending valuation of its variance swaps and its full liquidation.
The fund’s main investor is handling the fund, while the founder is on administrative leave.

There are complex indices behind trillions of dollars in ETFs and passive funds. Their providers do investment research. They have discretion in inclusions. They suggest indices and strategies to asset managers. Their decisions move markets. When they fail to calculate correctly, investors lose millions.

Should those ‘data providers’ become ‘investment advisors’? The SEC is considering it. Two academics explain why and how this should be implemented.

The first GameStop (GME) lawsuit is out. ‘Roaring Kitty’, the redittor who started the frenzy, the modern Robin Hood who went after the hedge funds villains, the David fighting the short-selling Goliath, is actually a Wall Street lion himself.

This post explains Keith Gill’s actions, his investment and his supervisory background, and the responsibility of his employer, as they are stated in the class action lawsuit. We ask questions and ponder the long-term consequences.

The billionaire matriarch of the Schottenstein family was being taken advantage by her own two grandsons. So grandma ate the wolves.

She brought her two JP Morgan bankers to FINRA and obtained the largest award since 2018 – $19 millons. The post explains the case.

‘When you combine ignorance and leverage, you get some pretty interesting results.” Warren Buffett

Three good notes from the derivatives research teams of Morgan Stanley, Société Générale, and Nomura point to a potential squeeze in the VIX, as a result of the increasing retail activism. This technical post explains the contents of the research papers. Spoiler alert, yes, the VIX is prone to a squeeze.

Free doesn’t mean without cost. Payment For Order Flow brings benefits to the public, but there are drawbacks to this new execution approach.

This article explains what Payment For Order Flow is, the role of the market-makers, as well as the benefits and the drawbacks of the approach. It highlights the difficulty that SEC will meet in smoothing out those issues.