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You can buy insurance on whether or not you can make a basketball shot from mid-court.... I would imagine you can buy insurance for your broker going bust. Nobody likes insurance until they need it. Private insurance would be the free market solution. (free market solutions = possibly long gone fantasies) The gov't regulators and such just provide an illusion of safety and no real protection. How many examples do we need. If they did not exist then people would think more of their own protection, have more of the wild wild west mentality mentioned earlier (wasn't so wild - but discussion for another day), and more groups like the independent ratings agency you mentioned would exist (and eventually garner credibility) and more people (a bulk of them) would look into private insurance....then the price would be competitive...etc.
Everyone has a battery backup and internet backup yet nothing in place for this...why? Comfortable with the "regulated" futures industry.
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That being said I am sorry for traders who lost accounts in this. It is a dupe on many many different levels. Possible solutions such as multiple brokers, withdrawing profits regularly, etc which are all forms of insurance have been proposed in the thread so purchasing private insurance is another idea.
“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” - Dr. Seuss
POSTED BY ANN BARNHARDT - JULY 10, AD 2012 4:59 PM MST
The National Futures Association needs to be sued into the ground by all of the PFGBest customers, as well as many of the NFA employees PERSONALLY.
In 2010 I was audited by the NFA, which is a bi-annual (every two years) occurrence for Independent Introducing Brokers. The NFA tried to tell me that a commercial hedge broker could not execute more than one round-turn per client per cash inventory cycle.
Yes, I kid you not. They actually tried to make that argument. As in a feedlot or rancher who is hedged with short futures and has a big open profit on the hedge MAY NOT exit that short futures and buy puts in order to manage that position. Or, if a hedger has an option position that has a big open profit, the hedger may NOT roll that option position into a different strike price in order to capture equity and protect against time value erosion.
The NFA actually tried to argue that it is against the law for a hedge broker to transact more than one round-turn per cash commodity inventory cycle. Again, I can't make this crap up. I have all of their stunningly ignorant letters to prove all of this.
But here is the point, and anyone out there who is a PFGBest customer or an attorney representing a PFGBest customer needs to listen up:
The same "Senior Compliance Manager" who signed off on the PFGBest affadavit and who is listed on the NFA website as both the "Director of Audits/Investigations" and the "Director of FOREX Compliance", Lauren Brinati, is the same woman whom I and my attorneys dealt with two years ago.
Now, hold on to your pantyhose.
One of my attorneys in the Schuyler Roche Crisham firm in Chicago, as livid as I was by the NFA's galactically stupid contention about hedgers being limited to one round-turn per cash inventory cycle, called Lauren Brinati to discuss the NFA's position. Lauren Brinati said that she couldn't discuss the matter with my attorney directly because:
"I don't actually understand any of this stuff. I just sign whatever comes across my desk."
Lauren Brinati, June 2010
Lauren Brinati said that to my attorney in June of 2010.
This woman is DIRECTOR OF AUDITS AND INVESTIGATIONS, and openly stated that not only did she have no understanding of the futures and options industry, but also admitted freely that she was a de facto robosigner who signed off on ANYTHING that came down from above.
The NFA had full, direct auditing oversight of PFGBest because PFGBest was a non-clearing FCM. The Director of NFA Audits and Investigations, Lauren Brinati, admitted freely to my attorney that she lacked even rudimentary understanding of the industry, could not discuss even the simplest concepts, and signed whatever came across her desk from on high without understanding it.
Anyone who is interested in pursuing this as evidence of gross negligence and breach of fiduciary duty by the NFA, and Lauren Brinati personally, should have their attorney contact me.
UPDATE: The NFA was mailing bank account confirmations to an UNVERIFIED PO BOX in CEDAR FALLS, IOWA that was actually rented by Russell Wasendorf, Sr. That's how he was faking the balance confirms. That's right, Lauren Brinati and the NFA auditing crew snail mailed account balance confirms, confirming HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS in customer funds to an UNVERIFIED PO BOX in CEDAR FALLS, IOWA. You simply cannot make this shit up.
Here is the Reuters citation.
UPDATE 2: Just in case you didn't catch it, Russell Wasendorf, Sr. currently sits on the NFA's FCM Advisory Board. Go ahead and screen capture the following URL before they scrub it.
I think you should forward this information to the press to raise broad based awareness and therefore trigger faster housekeeping.
Serious allegations here, and if you have documentations, it might help improve the industry for all of us. Capitalism can only function if we flush out incompetence mercilessly.
that is my general assessment of the whole regulator agencies, they have no idea of what they are regulating.
ps. when I file tax I always file it under this assumption.
Futures brokers are going to quickly discover that when they attempt to cold call a prospect, they will have the specter of MF Global and PFGBest thrown back in their face.
They MUST come up with some kind of solution that allows them to truthfully say, "That can never happen now" ... and the only way they can do that, in my opinion, is to go the SIPC route. Otherwise, there will be no retail futures business.
Or they could just offer lower commissions, lower margin requirements and lower amounts required to open an account ... and be swamped with applications....
I'm just a simple man trading a simple plan.
My daddy always said, "Every day above ground is a good day!"
In this Industry where most don't make money....it's tough to see that it may start turning out to be easier to lose money without trading than with it....