Posted on 11/17/2011 11:45:32 AM PST by tcrlaf
Presenting The First MF Global Casualty
BCM Has Ceased Operations (source) Posted by Ann Barnhardt - November 17, AD 2011 10:27 AM MST
Dear Clients, Industry Colleagues and Friends of Barnhardt Capital Management,
It is with regret and unflinching moral certainty that I announce that Barnhardt Capital Management has ceased operations. After six years of operating as an independent introducing brokerage, and eight years of employment as a broker before that, I found myself, this morning, for the first time since I was 20 years old, watching the futures and options markets open not as a participant, but as a mere spectator.
The reason for my decision to pull the plug was excruciatingly simple: I could no longer tell my clients that their monies and positions were safe in the futures and options markets because they are not. And this goes not just for my clients, but for every futures and options account in the United States.
The entire system has been utterly destroyed by the MF Global collapse. Given this sad reality, I could not in good conscience take one more step as a commodity broker, soliciting trades that I knew were unsafe or holding funds that I knew to be in jeopardy.
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
Is it just me or do others think that demonrat supporters are looting not just the American taxpayer but the corporate world too and that the money is being offshored for some future purpose?
No. The MF Global collapse (what, 2 weeks ago?) was the first time that customer funds have been seized by a brokerage company. Before that, sure, companies failed, but customer monies were returned.
It's a whole new world. And it's not good.
It's actually a fully-legal semi-auto AR-15.
But there are still full-auto M16s that can be transferred to civilians on a Form 4. If you live a state that allows machine guns, like I do.
They want to drain the system and make resistence all but impossible.
Scary-——this crook Corzio was angling for Treasury Secy.
I suspect that Miss Barnhardt has moved all of her money into "tangible assets" and will be getting a minimum wage job as a greeter at Walmart or something of the sort. Since the money she will be making will put her well below the poverty line, paying taxes on her income is no longer an issue. I do believe we are witnessing yet another shrugging. Remember the guy trying to open a coal mine who threw up his arms at a public hearing and just said "To Hell With It!". We'll be seeing allot more of this in the near future.
Yes, one in the same.
http://barnhardt.biz/
My guess is that like Midas Mulligan, her customers were paid to the last penny and that her personal fortune is now nowhere to be found.
Oh boy.Source: http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=197702Look folks, the risks involved here are real.
Rick Santelli was just on CNBC pointing out that there have been no answers forthcoming on the MF Global mess. There are reports that several people who you would never expect to have gotten caught in something like this did, including Gerald Celente.
The reason they got caught is the same reason I would have gotten caught if I had been clearing through MF Global: Despite being around the markets since well before the 2000 crash and having successfully negotiated that and the 2008 mess everyone has believed, right up until MF blew up, that customer funds were in fact segregated and thus this risk would never occur.
Simply put everyone has now discovered that this assumption is wrong.
Nothing that has come out of the CME, the SEC or Washington DC that has restored my confidence that MF Global is, in fact, a one-off situation. In point of fact The Fed is now requiring margin on certain repo transactions where they never did before, implying that there may well be additional snakes in the grass and additional unrecognized and intentionally hidden risks of this sort.
Read Ann's entire missive. Yes, it's highly partisan, but given what has just happened and Obama's continued insistence that "no crimes were committed" (yet no grand juries have been convened to investigate, so how would he know?) it is entirely justified.
Folks, we must insist that the rule of law be brought back into the forefront. We must do this particularly with credit instruments and other OTC derivatives and that has to happen right now. In addition all off-balance sheet BS must be ended immediately.
I have, since 2007, advocated that all credit instruments be forced onto an exchange and that cash margin be required on all underwater positions, marked nightly, without exception or offset. This has been "poo-pooed" as impractical due to bespoke contracts and other considerations.
Now it turns that I was in fact right - there were additional "snakes" in the grass that were cheating. First we had ENRON, then Bear and Lehman and now this.
Here's reality folks: We either fix this problem and do it now or you had better pray that Europe doesn't detonate, because if it does you're going to see the very thing that everyone was talking about back in 2008 happen on a global scale, it's a hundred times the size that Lehman was, and we will not be immune to it here in the United States -- in fact we'll damn near be the "center of the sun!"
There is the potential for an imminent cascade failure on these contracts just as there was in 2008; it has not gone away, it has not been attenuated, it has in fact grown in size since 08 and if we do not act to put a stop to it and the risk becomes realized it will be too late.
Ah, I see. Cash — > real property - income = Galt.
I hope you’re right. She seems like a good person, and I wish her well.
I just received my copy of the first installment of Atlas Shrugged on Monday. I think I’ll slip it in tonight for a second watching.
FR, Show Prep for all of Conservative Talk Media....
Thanks for that article.
I’m kind of surprised that this hasn’t had the market reaction that Reserve Primary Fund breaking the buck the day after Lehman Bros fell.
Yeah, the ass of the boat is not off the cliff yet. Let’s hope that a pelican or two lands at the rear.:-) The black swan event would be an albatross landing on the tip of the boat.
bfl
Ahh, camping on the river, and bathing in the am. The water white with snow melt...back when I was tough.
Just like the heads of Enron, the top guys hold off the panic, while they salt away all they can.
True,few realize what a blessing to Freedom and Democracy this forum is.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.