Morgan Stanley is looking to spin off its quantitative proprietary trading unit. The fund, in the words of The New York Times, is run by a “mathematical whiz” and a “secretive band of traders” who “use high-speed computers to turbocharge their mathematically powered investing skills.”
They program their computers to track different data and Read More
After suggesting a few weeks ago that moves by financial firms to unwind their proprietary trading operations might be a little disengenuous, Michael Lewis pushes his case further today. According to Lewis, big banks will continue to use shareholder capital to initiate trades, but — cleverly — will say that they are no Read More
Another proprietary trading desk has separated from its parent bank thanks to financial reform.
As previously reported (after a fashion), it now looks as though Goldman Sachs’ Principal Strategies proprietary trading unit has found a new home with publicly traded private equity giant Kohlberg Kravis & Roberts.
The move follows the passage of Read More
Michael Lewis comes out with an interesting take on the future of proprietary trading in the wake of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law. Lewis points out that even though financial institutions had lobbied hard to keep a loophole in financial reform that allows banks to invest up to 3 percent of their own capital Read More
JP Morgan Chase, the U.S.’s second-largest bank by assets, is moving its proprietary trading desk over to its asset-management business in hopes that switching the traders to a new department will put it in line with new regulations under the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
Update: Citing “Goldman sources,” Charlie Gasparino’s Twitter calls the CNBC report “inaccurate.” Dow Jones Newswires says:
While there have been reports that Goldman would spin off part of its proprietary trading unit or use capital to form a new entity centered on the business, such measures wouldn’t be in the spirit of the Read More
Goldman Sachs, the bank that leads the nation in profitability, is disbanding its principal strategies business, a unit of the company that trades the firm’s own capital, Bloomberg reports.
Citing “two people with knowledge of the decision,” Bloomberg said the decision was an effort to conform to new financial regulations. The so-called Volcker Rule, Read More
Update: Zero Hedge blogger “Tyler Durden” questions the reported unwinding of JPMorgan Chase’s prop-trading operations, pointing to JPMorgan’s recent acquisition of energy prop-trading operation Sempra and the firm’s naming of a new head of commodities strategy.
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In an effort to comply with new restrictions articulated by the so-called “Volcker rule,” behemoth bank JPMorgan Chase Read More
