Well, folks, it appears summer is officially over. With that comes the start of a new training season. We here at FTF will miss the warm summer days but are looking forward to once again bringing knowledge and insight to Wall Street and beyond. So whether you want to travel to New York City, Boston,
Buy-Side
Buy-Side’s Laying Low on Derivatives Reform… For Now
I just saw an interesting video on Tabb Forum about where the buy-side lies regarding derivatives reform. Kevin McPartland from Tabb Group and Chad Wekelo from Actualize Consulting discuss this issue and comment that with the uncertainty surrounding Dodd-Frank and derivatives reform, not much is being done currently, outside of initial outreach, to industry vendors
Buy-Side
All Roads Lead to the Smart Router
Guest Contributor: Renée Colyer, CEO, Forefactor As if it wasn’t complicated enough before – now, because of the OPR (Order Protection Rule) in Canada, there are two types of smart order routers (venue and broker offered) that the buyside needs to understand. On top of that, the use of algorithms has prompted much confusion about
Buy-Side
Fragmentation v Consolidation
Guest Contributor: Steve Grob, Fidessa Seems like equity and other capital marketplaces are going through the ying and yang of fragmentation and consolidation. Just as we hear about another merger, we read about another new venue going live or more regulation encouraging competition. This provides market participants with a problem, especially in terms of understanding
Buy-Side
Exploring Public & Private Clouds
(Guest Contributor: Brian McCallion, global performance architect at AIG.) Cloud computing has essentially been private from the beginning. Google, for one, demonstrates that the world’s most successful search engine runs not on an IBM Power, Sun Enterprise, or other massively powerful machine engineered for business by the go-to vendors for computer solutions. More in keeping
Buy-Side
Overcoming the Challenges of Managing Separately Managed Accounts
Guest Contributer: Joseph Amarante, Senior Vice President of Professional Services, NorthPoint Hedge fund managers often seek additional AUM by providing access to their investment strategies through the on-boarding of separately managed accounts (SMAs). In this scenario, a manager allocates assets, usually pari passu, between the fund’s internal investment vehicles and an investor’s managed account. Additionally,
Back-Office
The CIO – Your Translator for 2011
Have you ever had to call a tech-support line, whether it was to sort out a smart-phone issue or because your company web site just crashed? If yes, then I’m sure you can relate to the frustration this call can induce. You try to explain your problem in your best tech-savvy way i.e. “When I
Back-Office
Buy-Side Challenges + Opportunities in 2011
Guest Contributer: David Kubersky, Managing Director, SimCorp North America Against the backdrop of the global recession that engulfed the financial services industry over the last few years, the good news is the potential for 2011 looks bright. For the investment management industry in particular, this year holds a number of opportunities. While the recession’s impact
Buy-Side
What is a Hedge Fund Hotel?
I was reading an article the other day on eFinancial News about hedge fund hotels and, while I’ve heard of these, I never fully understood what they were and how they worked. Turns out, a hedge fund hotel is simply just that – a hotel that offers high-end office space where traders can go to
Buy-Side
Survey Results: What firms are doing (or not doing) about OTC Derivatives Valuations
During an FTF webinar last month sponsored by Open Link Financial (OpenLink), presenters Ken Knowles of OpenLink, Eric Gulbrandsen of Maven Wave Partners and Stephen Bruel of TowerGroup, conducted a series of polling questions to find out more about what’s on the minds of senior operations professionals of investment firms. Perspectives on OTC Derivatives Valuations