Below is a short article on how the market share between prime brokers is changing. Some banks are gaining over $1B a quarter in new assets while others are losing market share to those banks which appear to be less risky to hedge fund managers who are trying to lower counter-party risk. Here is the article excerpt: The collapse of Lehman Brothers last September was the flashpoint of a year that saw the prime brokerage world - along with that of its hedge fund clients - transformed by the ongoing credit crisis and grisly economic backdrop. But for those funds and brokers that come through the turbulence intact, the new landscape offers ...

h1 style="text-align: center;"bNew Prime Brokerage Model/b/h1h2 style="text-align: center;"bspan class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(102, 0, 0);"New Prime Brokerage Model Emerging/span/b/h2br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wM_OZdOMR_Y/SUvGhHYSIaI/AAAAAAAACrA/bkbv9SI9Bmo/s1600-h/Prime-Brokerage-Trends.jpg"img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 134px; height: 200px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wM_OZdOMR_Y/SUvGhHYSIaI/AAAAAAAACrA/bkbv9SI9Bmo/s200/Prime-Brokerage-Trends.jpg" alt="New Prime Brokerage Model Emerging" title="New Prime Brokerage Model Emerging" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5281533260240920994" border="0" //aThe credit crisis and the subject of counter party risk is proving to be the final nail in the coffin for the hedge fund industry's single prime brokerage model. Funds of all sizes now demand multiple custodial relationships.br /br /The problem the high-cost-structure leading a href="http://primebrokerageguide.com"prime brokerage/a firms now face is that without the assurance of the captive single prime model the economics of servicing smaller funds no longer make sense. This reality combined with the primes' decreased risk tolerance means that we are seeing a mass exodus away from the top-tier primes. Anecdotal evidence suggests that these ...

h1 style="text-align: center;"bTop 3 Trendsbr //b/h1h2 style="text-align: center;"bTop 3 Prime Brokerage Trends/b/h2br /a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.mauronewmedia.com/images/ued/main-business-objectives.jpg"img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 228px; height: 162px;" src="http://www.mauronewmedia.com/images/ued/main-business-objectives.jpg" alt="" border="0" //aOver the last two years the mainstream media’s and general public’s interest in prime brokerage has rapidly grown. This is due to a number of factors including the struggle and failure many investment banks offering prime brokerage services including a alt="Lehman Prime Broker" href="http://primebrokerageguide.com/2008/05/lehman-prime-broker.html" title="Lehman Prime Broker"Lehman Brothers/a, mergers within the industry and widespread failures and redemption notices of hedge funds themselves.br /br /The top three trends affecting the prime brokerage industry right now are multi-prime brokerage relationships, limiting capital introduction services, and prime brokers acting as business partners to hedge fund managers.br /br /Multi-prime brokerage relationships used to be used by $5B+ a href="http://richard-wilson.blogspot.com/2008/03/hedge-funds.html"hedge funds/a whose large institutional clients demanded the practice as a risk ...

Interesting read. Ted Butler is saying that all of the big long contract holders of silver have been intentionally squeezed out.

COT Extremes

By: Theodore Butler

– Posted 2 December, 2008

It’s been a while since I have commented in detail about the Commitment of Traders Report (COT), since there have been other issues to be discussed. Plus, I know many find the topic confusing. However, there have been some recent developments that should be reviewed.

Long-time readers know that I have studied and written about the COTs for years. I find the report invaluable. This weekly report from the CFTC tells us who has been buying or selling in all U.S. futures and options on futures. The reports don’t tell us the “who” by name, but offer three broad trader categories - large commercial, large non-commercial, and non-reportable. The two large categories must report their positions to the CFTC on essentially a daily basis,

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Hedge Fund LawsuitsHedge Fund Lawsuit | Legal ActionsQuick Link: Hedge Fund Regulation Corner(http://HedgeFundBlogger.com) Perhaps more dangerous than a wave of further redemptions in the hedge fund industry would be a wave of legal actions. With gates dropping as fast as assets at many hedge funds investors may be often left with locked-up assets, partial withdrawals, steep losses or all three. The last thing the industry needs is wave of 500+ lawsuits against hundreds of the top managers in the industry. Most hedge funds are relatively short on staff as it is and legal battles can keep managers from trading and raising capital as they should. Here is a story excerpt about Amaranth and their lawsuit against JP Morgan and their prime brokerage division:Remember ...

Hedge Fund ComplianceHedge Fund Compliance NotesThe recent financial crises has lead to many recent events for our team which runs HedgeFundBlogger.com. These have included a furry of proposals on how to further regulate hedge funds, blaming hedge funds for speculative practices and calls for great understanding of exactly what individual hedge funds are investing in. Being a blog which only discusses hedge fund related matters I have seen:A member of the White House executive staff has recently joined the Hedge Fund Group (HFG)Press Inquiries - many of which come down to questions on how hedge funds should be further regulated. My common response is that if it is done in a way where technology can be leveraged to apply the new regulatory procedures at the prime broker or hedge fund ...

Prime Brokerage SingaporeArticle on Prime Brokerage in Singapore

Here is a recent post from our associated PrimeBrokerageGuide.com site:

When visitors arrive at Singapore's Changi Airport, they get both an immigration card and an application form for opening a hedge fund.

This was one of the jokes making the rounds in 2007. The fact is that hedge funds in Singapore were growing fast since 2006. According to an article dated Feb 2007 from eFinancialCareers, "prime brokers are in hiring mode" - Barclays Capital, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and UBS all hired for their Singapore prime brokerage operations in 2006.

By Nov 2007, Singapore serves as prime broking regional headquarters for Credit Suisse

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Asian Prime BrokerAsian Prime Broker Growth TrendHere is an interesting article about the growth of prime brokerage services in Asia. I didn't know that growth was so strong for these groups right now...Citigroup expects the amount of assets serviced by its Asia Pacific prime brokerage arm to grow by more than 30 percent annually over the next three to five years, as more global hedge funds set up shop in the region.Even with tumbling stock markets hammering Asia's hedge fund industry, many large international managers are doing more business in the region, drawn by its long-term potential, said Hannah Goodwin, head of Prime Finance, Asia Pacific for the U.S. banking giant."We're looking at a 30 to 50 percent growth every year," ...

The Spanish River GroupSpanish River Group - Hedge Fund ProfileAnother example of how even in a tough market when many funds are closing there are others launching hedge funds who come from large hedge fund shops with experience in the industry. Many times the launch of the hedge fund has been in the making for 1-2.5 years before doors are fully opened so current market conditions don't have a large effect on those taking a serious approach to the business.The following piece on The Spanish River Group is being published as part of our daily effort to track hedge fund events in the industry. To review other hedge fund related announcements please see our Hedge Fund Tracker Tool.___________________________________...

Financial NewsJason Corcoran in Moscow 16 June 2008 The Russian securities market has attracted substantial inflows from western investors in the past few years but the infrastructure to support the growth is only slowly catching up.The average daily volume of transactions of Russian stocks stands at $6.1bn (€3.9bn), which includes $5bn traded on domestic stock exchanges with the remainder traded on foreign exchanges, according to investment bank Troika Dialog. Investors have recognised some improvements over the past few years, but still regard dealing in Russian securities as a transaction, settlement and custody risk. Most Russian investment offerings to non-Russian investors are domiciled in the Cayman Islands or in Guernsey, and often administered in Ireland. Global custodian State Street administers Prosperity Capital and Hermitage Capital, the two largest equity funds investing into Russia, from Dublin. Damian McEvoy, ...