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? I don't understand what obsoleting the floor had to do with this. Floor traders and screen traders were hit equally by this.

... well, I mean, what we call MF Global today wasn't exactly a very good company 5 years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refco But I will say, that I previously was encouraged by the fact that *customers* recovered from a disaster like Refco without losing a penny, or even being...

Or you can make money in your newly acquired position in the UL (as in your example). In the name of market efficiency, let's just agree the UL was pricing risk/reward correctly the previous day, and you didn't lose anything (in expected terms) from early assignment. On the other hand, being...

Well, presumably you sold your call *expecting* either early assignment, or the drop in stock price that would follow the dividend. You wouldn't have been "screwed". Just as an aside, I get early assigned in commodity futures options regularly.

As an option seller, early assignment is almost always a "good" thing. The other side of your trade decided for whatever reason they wanted to throw away what was left of the time premium in the option, and make a gift of it to you.

I had a real issue with them a few years back, when their margin system was completely broken. And not IB's "inconvenient" sort of broken... but can't do arithmetic kind of broken. Intraday buying power wasn't being restored correctly in their margin calculations, when you closed out a...

Well, I hope you spend the millions you made buying MF puts wisely. More seriously, the industry is shocked by this for a very good reason. I don't begrudge you the right to brag about your remarkably prescient prediction about MF, but the point remains: ALL of those working in this...

Anyone trading futures should become familiar with NFA Basic: http://www.nfa.futures.org/BasicNet/CaseInfo.aspx?entityid=0326888&type=reg The exchanges used to fine you for all kinds of procedural stuff: wearing the wrong coat, drinks, improper time stamping.... old world stuff. There...

Glenmorangie.

No, large city.

I don't think the cultural revolution explanation is right. I hear it often, but it doesn't jive with my memories. I remember being involved in a (bike) accident in the mid-80s, and not only did a random stranger stop to drive me to the hospital, another random stranger pushed my damaged bike...

Your broker doesn't have an execution desk? They should, your FCM should. Get this filled down in the pit, they will get you a more or less fair fill. Or just offer at today settlement minus a few ticks on Monday. Someone will want the free money.

I think this is nothing more than the CME trying to forestall conversations about the right margin requirements for transferred MF positions: initial or maintenance. A lot of the new FCMs are nervous, so they want initial. No big deal. No big players (oufside of MF accounts) are close to...

Aaaaah... "bulk transfer of accounts" doesn't mean bulk of all accounts. Just means a "bulk" of accounts. Okay, now this is all making sense.

"RJ O'BRIEN, MACQUARIE TO GET BULK TRANSFER OF MF ACCOUNTS: CNBC" Haha... these last few headlines say all we need to know about the present state of chaos.

I don't think you would've had all that many options. My understanding is not many people could get through to MF and get liquidated Monday anyways. MF traders were all chased off the floor, no other FCM was willing to give-up to MF, and their own execution desk was completely swamped... I...

The point of this entire move isn't really to help out the account holders as far as preservation of value. As I think about it, all of this is intended to solve one problem: liquidation and management of existing positions. Beyond the risk management issues (as people can't find a way to...

I think the courts' order is actually pretty clear. "(a) The Trustee is authorized and shall use his best efforts to complete the Account Transfers to one or more selected FCMs (the “Transferees”) that have agreed to accept such Customer Account Positions, together with the minimum...

I don't think there has ever been a promise of segregating customer futures accounts from each other. I don't think that has ever existed. I always thought that was a reason to stay away from the really small FCMs... Am I wrong?

Cash in a futures account is for the purchase of a non-security, and as such clearly not covered by SIPC. That's a no-brainer. I read today frozen accounts will, hopefully, be transferred to some other random FCM within the next 48 hrs. Only 60% of account net liq value will be transferred...