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PFGBest Accounts Frozen (PFG scandal big thread)


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PFGBest Accounts Frozen (PFG scandal big thread)

  #301 (permalink)
 
djkiwi's Avatar
 djkiwi 
Mercer Island WA
 
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Big Mike View Post
Yes and one thing people have to understand.... I've seen several posts about people wanting to move to a larger, safer institution. MF Global was huge, and incredibly unsafe.

The days of looking for size as protection are gone. Looking at numbers on a piece of paper or in an Excel column are worthless, since the numbers are fabricated easily.

The point is, you can't trust anyone or anything right now. And this will remain the case until their is legislation which basically provides insurance for customers (SIPC/FDIC type).

I think this will happen eventually. But the question is what happens between now and then.

Basically, if you are a professional trader you simply need to be smart. You can't just take all your money out and wait on the sidelines. But you can make sure your account balance is only what it really needs to be, and not more.

Mike

@Big Mike.

True, nothing is entirely safe and the minimum balance idea is good. If you swing trade the overnights margins can be a little stiff so you can only go so far.

The MF Global situation and PFG are slightly different. Firstly, MF Global used customer funds for risky investments, whereas PFG was out and out theft by an officer. It would have been impossible for the CEO of MF Global to steal $200m out of the company and merely deposit it into his own personal account.

Secondly, the clients of MF Global will likely receive 100% payback of their funds. In the cases of single individual theft the payback to customers are near zero or not much more. One is misappropriation of segregated funds and the other is theft.

The question what to do right now?

Personally, I'm not going to do anything different after this.

If you have an equities account at IB then consider trading futures there. You will have individual account coverage of $900k of SIPC coverage at IB for cash held for equities OR futures provided you elect to the securities sweep option.

With my AMP futures account I have none of this protection. Is IB dipping into segregated funds? I will never know but by all accounts IB appears to be a better run organization than PFG or MF Global with better controls. I like the fact that I can read their annual report and find out audited trading volume and profits are growing with profit of $860k per employee. I don't like the fact that IB is nearly owned and controlled by one guy but I like the fact that they have a chief compliance officer who reports directly to the internal audit committee to combat this concern. Is it foolproof? No, but what is?

Given all of this PFG mess, I'm not going to swing trade overnight with AMP and although AMP makes up a small percentage of my overall account will look at reducing it to the minimum.

Cheers
DJ

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  #302 (permalink)
 
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 cory 
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jungian View Post




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pass!

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  #303 (permalink)
 kevinkdog   is a Vendor
 
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karoshiman View Post
.. I don't have an account with PFG, but feel sorry for all who have and I'm worried about the industry overall.

are in this business...

I have an account at TradeStation. They say they have excess SIPC insurance policy in place for futures and forex accounts with coverage up to $300m. However, I still do not feel secure given this recent news in such short period of time as I do not know whether the insurance will really work in case of fraud...

Even though Tradestation calls this "excess SIPC insurance," I have confirmed with Tradestation that it DOES COVER futures accounts (as karoshiman stated).

Sorry again for doubting you karoshiman. I've been TS customer for 8 years, and I never knew this "excess policy" existed. I hope we never need it, and if we do, I hope it covers things!

**********************
From: ClientService@tradestation.com

Dear Mr. Davey,


The additional coverage through Lloyds of London applies to all TradeStation brokerage accounts, including futures.



For further inquiry into this matter, please reply to this email or call the Client Services Department.



Sincerely,

Daniel



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  #304 (permalink)
 steve2222 
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SpongeBob coins won?t cost NZ Mint after US broker collapses | The National Business Review

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  #305 (permalink)
 
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 aligator 
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kevinkdog View Post
I hope we never need it, and if we do, I hope it covers things!

If you recall TS took over IBFX recently. Considering that IBFX received a $40M special interest blank check, also not too long ago, does not turn into a Trojan horse for TS in the near term.

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  #306 (permalink)
 rt-trader 
Australia
 
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Earlier on in this thread, some were advocating having a/c's with different brokers to spread risk.

Quite some time ago I had done this and had a/c's at MFG and PFG. When MFG collapsed I figured I would just stick with PFG on the basis that lightning was most unlikely to strike twice!

So now like many others I am looking for another broker and wondering if the best form of risk management is to just walk away....

It occurs to me that this latest event has the potential to trigger others, as traders decide to sweep their a/c's back to minimum balances to manage 'broker failure risk'. Should this happen in large numbers, then any firms that are marginal may be pressed hard.

Slow redemption of funds could be an early sign of this - remain vigilant should you notice this happening.

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  #307 (permalink)
 
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 GridKing 
San Diego, CA USA
 
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Gotta say MB Trading I've been with for 6+ years , not the fanciest shindig but the important stuff seems to be priority and the CEO answers my emails ...

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  #308 (permalink)
 
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 Big Mike 
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djkiwi View Post
With my AMP futures account I have none of this protection. Is IB dipping into segregated funds? I will never know but by all accounts IB appears to be a better run organization than PFG or MF Global with better controls. I like the fact that I can read their annual report and find out audited trading volume and profits are growing with profit of $860k per employee. I don't like the fact that IB is nearly owned and controlled by one guy but I like the fact that they have a chief compliance officer who reports directly to the internal audit committee to combat this concern. Is it foolproof? No, but what is?

Given all of this PFG mess, I'm not going to swing trade overnight with AMP and although AMP makes up a small percentage of my overall account will look at reducing it to the minimum.

Cheers
DJ

I can read PFG's report and find profits. I could read MF Global and find the same. PFG's CEO was on the NFA board. The CFO appears to have been directly involved as well.

Means nothing. Records can be, have been, and will continue to be falsified. The only true safety is insurance.

Mike

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  #309 (permalink)
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wavey View Post
my thoughts go to all affected traders, hopefully the backup account is ready to battle through those tough times. If one reads through this list closely, you come to realize there was at least a foreshadow building up...

First MFG(lobal), Now PFG: Who Is Next? | ZeroHedge

The Atlas Rating / ZeroHedge website is "NOT" a solid source :

https://moneycation.blogspot.com/2011/12/zero-hedge-website-review.html

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  #310 (permalink)
 olobay 
Montreal
 
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Got this email from the NFA:



My money was with PFG but I called up my introducing broker, Cannon Trading, and I don't want to spread rumours or give anybody false hope because there is too much unknown at this point, but he said that he heard that the money that vapourized was not from futures accounts but rather from PFG's forex accounts. He did not tell me how he heard this but he just passed on this info. He was kind of optimistic that once they start doing some forensic auditing, they wil find a paper trail and recover some of the money. Again this is not fact, just hearsay and I don't want anybody to get their hopes up.

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