1/4% Tax on all stock trades pushed in NY Times today

Quote from Robert A. Green:

In Report, Speed Trades’ Problems and Pluses - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/23/business/in-report-speed-trades-problems-and-pluses.html

Score one for HFT. The major British government report says it improves prices for investors. This report can help make the point that FTT will make prices for investors worse, with the opposite effect.
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Foresight Project

Final Project Report

http://www.bis.gov.uk/assets/foresi...puter-trading-in-financial-markets-report.pdf
 
An application to proceed with the FTT under the “enhanced cooperation” procedure can be successful if:

At least 9 out of 27 Member States want to move forward under enhanced cooperation;
14 out of 27 Member States vote in favour; and
The combined number of votes of these 14 countries is at least 255 out of 345 votes.
So those ten member states have now confirmed their willingness to move forward under enhanced cooperation. The Commission should receive support from up to 11 countries representing around 175 votes. We wait for Estonia to make its mind up. This means that for enhanced cooperation (255 votes) there is a shortfall of 80 votes and at least three other Member States are required.
Based on recent statements from the EU's 27 finance ministers, the shortfall is met - given that five other member states have indicated they will vote in favour of the bid for enhanced cooperation. These are:

the UK (29 votes)!!!!!!!;
Poland (27 votes);
Hungary (12 votes)
Czech Republic (12 votes)
Malta (3 votes)
These five countries together represent 83 votes, meaning that the threshold for enhanced cooperation of 255 votes would be met. The Cypriot Presidency has confirmed that the vote will take place on 13 November at the ECOFIN meeting of Finance Ministers.

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/p...ahead-with-the-financial-transaction-tax.html
 
It is important to note that these positions may change as progress on the FTT is dependent on progress on other policy issues. There are three possible developments:

The negotiations on the long-term budget which could in particular impact on the British position;

The negotiations around Irish debt relief and legacy assets could change the Irish position; and

The possible development of a special Eurozone-only budget in addition to the wider EU27 budget, which could lead to difficulties in the redistribution of the proceeds of the FTT. This could alter the positions of, notably, Ireland and Malta.
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Any one got any ideas as to what the last point concerning Ireland and Malta mean.
 
A spokesman for the Treasury was critical of the plan by the 10 countries.

"We've consistently said the UK will not participate in an EU FTT," he said.

"As with an EU-wide FTT, a FTT amongst a smaller number of EU countries would still have damaging impacts on growth, jobs and financial activity in the EU.

"It would increase costs for pensions, for manufacturers. It could conceivably distort competition and fragment the single market.


"We are, however, not minded to block others from creating a FTT using the enhanced co-operation procedure, but before taking a firm view the UK would need to fully consider the scope of the new proposal and what the revenues would be used for."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20041588
 
Heres how the QMV votes currently stack up, the 10 have 171 votes, they need 255 to pass FTT via enhanced co operation.

Code: 
Germany				29
United Kingdom		29	
France				29
Italy				29
Spain				27
Poland			27	
Romania			14	
Netherlands		13	
Greece				12
Czech Republic		12	
Belgium				12
Hungary			12	
Portugal			12
Sweden			10	
Austria				10
Bulgaria		10	
Sweden			10	
Slovakia			7
Denmark			7	
Finland			7	
Ireland			7	
Lithuania		7	
Latvia			4	
Slovenia			4
Estonia			4	
Cyprus			4	
Luxembourg		4	
Malta			3	
                        184	171
 
Quote from southall:

A spokesman for the Treasury was critical of the plan by the 10 countries.

"We've consistently said the UK will not participate in an EU FTT," he said.

"As with an EU-wide FTT, a FTT amongst a smaller number of EU countries would still have damaging impacts on growth, jobs and financial activity in the EU.

"It would increase costs for pensions, for manufacturers. It could conceivably distort competition and fragment the single market.


"We are, however, not minded to block others from creating a FTT using the enhanced co-operation procedure, but before taking a firm view the UK would need to fully consider the scope of the new proposal and what the revenues would be used for."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-20041588
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At the ECOFIN meeting in June, Finance Ministers from the UK, Sweden and Denmark all said they opposed an EU-FTT, but would not block an EC-FTT as long as there was no extraterritorial reach.
 
Quote from tomdavis:

At the ECOFIN meeting in June, Finance Ministers from the UK, Sweden and Denmark all said they opposed an EU-FTT, but would not block an EC-FTT as long as there was no extraterritorial reach.
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Exactly. If this 'new' enhanced cooperation ftt proposal contains any hint of extraterritorial reach then the UK and others would be very stupid to sign on. I'm really not sure they should sign on anyway but I guess we'll see.
 
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