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Showing posts from November, 2008

The New Arms Race and the Coming Revolution

Note: This feature length story by Chris McMahon originally appeared in the November 2008 issue of Futures Magazine. Link to original @ Futures Magazine Back in the old days, runners, the people who grabbed orders and ran them into the pits where trades were executed, were called the "wheels on the bus," and speed was of paramount importance. Today that responsibility falls to the software, hardware and network infrastructure that connects traders around the world with the exchanges. And as electronic trading matures, trade execution times are measured not in seconds, but in milliseconds. In this new electronic trading environment, the need for speed is still there, but it is increasingly a given as independent software vendors (ISV), brokers, futures commission merchants and other technology providers battle to create and market superior technology and traders search for new ways to establish or keep their edge. In the new world of electronic trading, traders operate

Rescuing the Bailout

Note: This news story by Chris McMahon originally appeared in the November 2009 issue of Futures Magazine. Link to original @ Futures Magazine To say the first iteration of Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson's $700 billion bailout plan was poorly received understates the case. In a closed-door meeting, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) reportedly referred to the bill as a "crap sandwich." Even after President George W. Bush addressed the nation to explain the looming catastrophe and the potential effects of the credit crisis on Main Street, the House of Representatives rejected the bill, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average into a 774-point nosedive. Days later, another version of the bill was passed by the Senate and the House and signed by the president, and the Dow dropped 342 points. The bill authorizes a total of $700 billion for the Treasury secretary to purchase troubled assets, with an initial outlay of $250 billion. The president could then

Jamie Charles: Discretion in Management

Note: This profile by Chris McMahon originally appeared in the November 2008 issue of Futures Magazine. Link to original @ Futures Magazine In college, Jamie Charles, chief investment officer of Greenwave Capital, began trading with money he earned over summers waiting tables in the Catskill Mountains; and in 1980, during his junior year in college, he studied economics in Brussels, Belgium where his interest in currency trading took hold. On weekends, he would travel from country to country, the same way he would travel from state to state while growing up in New York. "It was not uncommon for someone I would meet to have a wallet full of different currencies. Not for any sort of show," he says, but to spend while bargain hunting as they traveled from one country to the next. "As a starving student, any sort of marginal change gets your attention," he says. "If there was a way for me to save $10, well, that's a day's worth of meals back then.&quo

Scything Up the Grain Markets

Note: This feature length cover story by Chris McMahon originally appeared in the November 2008 issue of Futures Magazine. Link to original @ Futures Magazine Scything Up the Grain Markets During planting season, the grain situation looked grim. Inventories were perilously low and large agricultural production areas were drought stricken. In the Midwestern United States, cold wet weather delayed corn and soybean planting, then punishing rains followed. Flood damaged fields and food riots were fixtures on the evening news and grain prices skyrocketed. Then something miraculous happened: The markets worked. Spurred by high prices, farmers worldwide increased acreage, and despite the fact that demand continues to increase faster than production, grain prices began to moderate after peaking in July. Growing conditions were near ideal in the United States and according to the Sept. 30 USDA quarterly stocks numbers, there will be 1.624 billion metric tons of corn, compared to 1.304