Police warn of online binary option trading scams; more than S$1m lost to date
Posted 15 Dec 2016 00:40 Updated 15 Dec 2016 01:00
File photo: A man uses a laptop computer. (AFP/Frederic J Brown)
SINGAPORE: There has been a "sharp rise" in scams involving online trading in binary options, said the police on Wednesday (Dec 14), with more than 30 reports of such scams lodged to date, and investors losing more than S$1 million to unregulated binary options trading platforms.
Most of these investors are mostly local males aged between 31 and 50, and include finance professionals as well as retirees, police added in a media statement.
Police warned that binary options trading is attractive as it sounds simple and the option providers or platforms often promise high, quick and safe returns.
In reality, binary options are speculative and risky, and many online platforms offering binary options trading are fraudulent, police said.
They said: "Encouraged by initial profits and promises made by the platform staff about financial advice, more bonuses and attractive rewards, most of the investors found it difficult to stop at one small investment and will put in more money.
"In these cases, the investors either lost all their money or could not withdraw the balances in their accounts. Some also had unauthorised withdrawals made using their debit or credit cards after (handing) over their card details for payment."
ALL OR NOTHING
In explaining how binary options work, the police warned that the risk of losing one's entire investment is high, because it is difficult to predict short-term price movements correctly.
Traders try to predict whether the price of the underlying asset will be above or below a specified price at a specified point in time. This can range from a few minutes to a few months in the future.
Traders get a fixed pay-off if their prediction is correct, but lose their entire investment if they are wrong.
"That is why binary options are often also called 'all or nothing' options," said police.
"It is difficult to make the correct prediction, especially when the time to expiry of the binary option is short. Due to the short time frame, it is very likely that you cannot change your prediction or re-sell your option once you make your investment. This makes it extremely easy to lose your entire investment."
Police added that most of the binary options trading platforms encountered are usually unregulated entities based outside Singapore.
The three most common places that they claim to be operating from are the United Kingdom, Cyprus and Hong Kong, and victims usually face difficulties contacting the foreign operators when things go wrong, said police.
THINKING OF TRYING BINARY OPTIONS TRADING?
In their statement, police offered the following advice for prospective traders in binary options:
Even when offered by legitimate sellers, binary options trading is a high risk investment where you can easily lose all that you invest.
Investments which promise high returns usually come with high risks. Think carefully before making the investment. When in doubt, seek professional advice before engaging in any investment products.
Dealing with unregulated entities mean you may have very little recourse if things go wrong. Check the list of capital markets services licence holders and the list of licensed commodity brokers to find out which entities are regulated in Singapore.
Some binary options offered by that regulated entity may not be regulated. This means that you may have minimal recourse if things go wrong.
Be wary of third party reviews, endorsements or success stories of binary option providers. These reviews and endorsements may have been paid for by the binary option providers.
Be cautious of high pressure sales tactics used by representatives of binary option providers. These tactics include promises of quality financial advice or easy profits.
Be careful when sending money to overseas bank accounts via fund transfers, debit/credit card payments and any other modes of payment. Always ensure that the end recipient is reliable before making any transfers or payments.
- CNA/xk
- wong chee tat :)
Showing posts with label trading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trading. Show all posts
Friday, December 16, 2016
Thursday, October 27, 2016
Deutsche Bank promises faster revamp as braces for US fine
Deutsche Bank promises faster revamp as braces for US fine
Posted 27 Oct 2016 13:35 Updated 27 Oct 2016 16:10
FRANKFURT: Deutsche Bank chief John Cryan pledged on Thursday to redouble restructuring efforts, warning that the bank faces tough times as it seeks to finalize talks with U.S. justice authorities over a multi billion dollar fine.
Germany's biggest lender posted an unexpected quarterly profit, benefiting from a subdued rebound in bond trading, but which failed to dispel the cloud of uncertainty that drove clients to withdraw billions of euros.
"The quarter was clearly overshadowed by the attention paid to our negotiations concerning the U.S. Department of Justice’s initial settlement proposal relating to our RMBS (residential mortgage-backed securities) matters. This has created uncertainty," Cryan told a conference call.
"Uncertainty that affects the market’s view of DB as an investment, uncertainty that affected some client views of Deutsche Bank as a counterparty and uncertainty that even affects our financial planning and strategy execution."
In a letter to staff, Cryan wrote: "Unfortunately, we have to assume that the situation will stay difficult for a while," adding the bank was working hard to wrap up negotiations for the fine "as soon as possible".
"We will ... accelerate and intensify our restructuring," he wrote, referring also to a deteriorating environment more generally in certain important sectors.
After weeks of negative headlines, Deutsche was however able to announce an unexpected net profit of 278 million euros (US$303 million) in the third quarter, lifted by a surge in bond trading that boosted all Wall Street banks.
The jump helped send the bank's shares initially to a more than one-month high, though they retreated to be down 0.4 percent at 13.245 euros by 0739 GMT.
TOXIC SECURITIES
Nonetheless, negotiations over a US$14 billion demand from the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) for misselling toxic mortgage-backed securities before the 2007-2009 financial crisis set a bleak backdrop.
After weeks of speculation about how this demand has rocked confidence in Germany's one-time flagship lender, the results gave some insight.
In its retail and wealth management business, clients withdrew 9 billion euros in the third quarter. The bank, which had assets in that division of almost 440 billion euros, said outflows had since abated.
Its so-called global markets trading business was also hit.
Cryan said the bank had liquidity reserves of 200 billion euros, a fall from the more than 215 billion he had outlined on Sept. 30. In June, the bank had 223 billion euros.
Deutsche Bank set aside more money for its legal bill for numerous past missteps. Litigation reserves rose to 5.9 billion from 5.5 billion at the end of June.
Revenue grew slightly at 7.5 billion euros, ahead of analysts' expectations, mainly driven by Deutsche's trading, while business declined in other operating areas.
Its cash-cow bond trading division, which has volatile revenue and tough capital requirements to meet, was up 14 percent. Compared with its peers, however, bond trading showed a modest rebound, in part due to trimming the unit.
In equities trading, Deutsche Bank saw revenue decline as low stock market volatility gave investors less reason to trade, while revenue from corporate and investment banking fell by 1 percent.
(Additional reporting by Andreas Kroener and Kathrin Jones; Writing by John O'Donnell and Arno Schuetze; Editing by David Holmes)
- Reuters
- wong chee tat :)
Posted 27 Oct 2016 13:35 Updated 27 Oct 2016 16:10
FRANKFURT: Deutsche Bank chief John Cryan pledged on Thursday to redouble restructuring efforts, warning that the bank faces tough times as it seeks to finalize talks with U.S. justice authorities over a multi billion dollar fine.
Germany's biggest lender posted an unexpected quarterly profit, benefiting from a subdued rebound in bond trading, but which failed to dispel the cloud of uncertainty that drove clients to withdraw billions of euros.
"The quarter was clearly overshadowed by the attention paid to our negotiations concerning the U.S. Department of Justice’s initial settlement proposal relating to our RMBS (residential mortgage-backed securities) matters. This has created uncertainty," Cryan told a conference call.
"Uncertainty that affects the market’s view of DB as an investment, uncertainty that affected some client views of Deutsche Bank as a counterparty and uncertainty that even affects our financial planning and strategy execution."
In a letter to staff, Cryan wrote: "Unfortunately, we have to assume that the situation will stay difficult for a while," adding the bank was working hard to wrap up negotiations for the fine "as soon as possible".
"We will ... accelerate and intensify our restructuring," he wrote, referring also to a deteriorating environment more generally in certain important sectors.
After weeks of negative headlines, Deutsche was however able to announce an unexpected net profit of 278 million euros (US$303 million) in the third quarter, lifted by a surge in bond trading that boosted all Wall Street banks.
The jump helped send the bank's shares initially to a more than one-month high, though they retreated to be down 0.4 percent at 13.245 euros by 0739 GMT.
TOXIC SECURITIES
Nonetheless, negotiations over a US$14 billion demand from the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) for misselling toxic mortgage-backed securities before the 2007-2009 financial crisis set a bleak backdrop.
After weeks of speculation about how this demand has rocked confidence in Germany's one-time flagship lender, the results gave some insight.
In its retail and wealth management business, clients withdrew 9 billion euros in the third quarter. The bank, which had assets in that division of almost 440 billion euros, said outflows had since abated.
Its so-called global markets trading business was also hit.
Cryan said the bank had liquidity reserves of 200 billion euros, a fall from the more than 215 billion he had outlined on Sept. 30. In June, the bank had 223 billion euros.
Deutsche Bank set aside more money for its legal bill for numerous past missteps. Litigation reserves rose to 5.9 billion from 5.5 billion at the end of June.
Revenue grew slightly at 7.5 billion euros, ahead of analysts' expectations, mainly driven by Deutsche's trading, while business declined in other operating areas.
Its cash-cow bond trading division, which has volatile revenue and tough capital requirements to meet, was up 14 percent. Compared with its peers, however, bond trading showed a modest rebound, in part due to trimming the unit.
In equities trading, Deutsche Bank saw revenue decline as low stock market volatility gave investors less reason to trade, while revenue from corporate and investment banking fell by 1 percent.
(Additional reporting by Andreas Kroener and Kathrin Jones; Writing by John O'Donnell and Arno Schuetze; Editing by David Holmes)
- Reuters
- wong chee tat :)
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
SGX seeks high-frequency traders
SGX seeks high-frequency traders
Written by Bloomberg
Monday, 28 October 2013 09:16
Singapore Exchange, Southeast Asia’s biggest bourse operator, wants to lure more high-speed traders onto its stock market as it grapples with lower volume.
Computerized trading firms, which execute transactions in fractions of a second, account for a negligible share of volume on Singapore Exchange’s cash equities market, according to bourse spokeswoman Loh Wei Ling, while they contribute 30% of revenue from derivatives. Singapore Exchange will seek to change that once it introduces safeguards, Chief Executive Officer Magnus Bocker said at a briefing this month.
“We will pursue high-frequency trading once we have circuit breakers and other policies in place,” he said. “That will enhance the liquidity and quality of the Singapore market.”
High-frequency traders facilitate the majority of US equity transactions, where computerized firms have ample opportunity to profit from fleeting price discrepancies because transactions take place on more than 50 venues. Singapore isn’t as fragmented, which keeps computer traders away. Credit Suisse Group AG and Tabb Group LLC said the city’s relatively high trading and clearing fees also deter those firms.
Bocker is seeking more business with the daily average value of equity trades down to about $1.5 billion this year, a 36% plunge from 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Singapore Exchange’s net income was $336 million for the fiscal year that ended in June, 20% lower than fiscal 2007.
‘Pretty Substantial’
He’s been building the infrastructure and regulatory framework to attract high-speed traders. The bourse rolled out a $250 million trading platform in August 2011 that can execute transactions in 90 microseconds.
The exchange hasn’t been successful in attracting orders from the fastest traders because of the high cost of trading in the city, according to Credit Suisse and Tabb Group.
“There is a pretty substantial clearing fee in Singapore that will stop many of the largest high-frequency traders,” said Larry Tabb, founder and CEO of New York-based market research firm Tabb Group. “The exchange fabric isn’t fragmented, so that there will never be the kind of high- frequency trading that we see in the US and or Europe in Singapore.”
Fees for trading on the Singapore bourse amount to about 20 basis points, or 0.2% of the value of shares traded, according to data compiled by Credit Suisse. That compares with Sydney-based ASX’s 15 basis points, the data show.
Speed Limits
“If SGX is serious about high-frequency trading, it could change its fee structure to encourage more high-frequency trading,” said Arjan Van Veen, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Credit Suisse.
Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore have considered the extent to which trading strategies that rely on speedy placement of bids and offers should be regulated amid concern that they can be used to manipulate prices. Germany was the first developed market to legislate the practice, and the European Parliament is pushing for tougher rules.
While circuit breakers provide the market a mechanism to take a pause during times of extreme market volatility, allowing high-frequency traders will introduce unfamiliar risks to investors, according to Securities Investors Association of Singapore, the largest investor lobbying group in Asia.
Good, Dangerous
“A knife is good as well as dangerous,” said David Gerald, president of SIAS. “The exchange and manufacturers of products will put out products to improve their bottom line. Investors must know the risks and decide for themselves whether they want to invest or not. There are many products out there which are very risky and investors have to be educated on the risks and they must make an informed decision.”
One of the hallmarks of high-speed trading has already arrived in Singapore. The bourse has about 100 clients that house their trading computers near the exchange’s servers, an arrangement known as co-location, spokeswoman Loh said. That lets them speed up trading by cutting reaction times.
“We have said in the past that high-frequency trading accounts for roughly 30% of our derivatives market,” Loh said. “SGX has announced previously that we will enhance market safeguards before opening up the cash equities market for high- frequency trading. These include random opening and closing routines, pre-trade risk controls and circuit breakers.”
Trading Safeguards
Regulators worldwide have evaluated safeguards since the May 2010 plunge known as the flash crash briefly erased about $862 billion from the value of US equities. Exchanges in that country have since implemented a limit-up/limit-down initiative that prevents market makers from quoting shares at prices deemed too far above or below current levels.
SGX will introduce circuit breakers by early next year after a plunge in shares of three commodity companies erased US$6.9 billion in market value over three days, the bourse operator said on Oct 10. Under the proposal, trading of a stock will be halted for five minutes if it moves 10% in either direction, the bourse said.
Since becoming CEO in December 2009, Bocker scrapped the midday trading break and introduced dual listings of American Depositary Receipts at SGX to boost profits. Brokerages are turning less bearish on the company, with the number of sell recommendations at the lowest since 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Getting high-speed traders to operate in Singapore will improve liquidity and market efficiency, Tabb said.
“The more liquidity and the more trading generally makes the market better, lowers trading cost and helps smaller investors,” Tabb said. “Generally, it doesn’t make the market more risky unless it becomes as complex and fragmented as the US market.”
- wong chee tat :)
Written by Bloomberg
Monday, 28 October 2013 09:16
Singapore Exchange, Southeast Asia’s biggest bourse operator, wants to lure more high-speed traders onto its stock market as it grapples with lower volume.
Computerized trading firms, which execute transactions in fractions of a second, account for a negligible share of volume on Singapore Exchange’s cash equities market, according to bourse spokeswoman Loh Wei Ling, while they contribute 30% of revenue from derivatives. Singapore Exchange will seek to change that once it introduces safeguards, Chief Executive Officer Magnus Bocker said at a briefing this month.
“We will pursue high-frequency trading once we have circuit breakers and other policies in place,” he said. “That will enhance the liquidity and quality of the Singapore market.”
High-frequency traders facilitate the majority of US equity transactions, where computerized firms have ample opportunity to profit from fleeting price discrepancies because transactions take place on more than 50 venues. Singapore isn’t as fragmented, which keeps computer traders away. Credit Suisse Group AG and Tabb Group LLC said the city’s relatively high trading and clearing fees also deter those firms.
Bocker is seeking more business with the daily average value of equity trades down to about $1.5 billion this year, a 36% plunge from 2007, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Singapore Exchange’s net income was $336 million for the fiscal year that ended in June, 20% lower than fiscal 2007.
‘Pretty Substantial’
He’s been building the infrastructure and regulatory framework to attract high-speed traders. The bourse rolled out a $250 million trading platform in August 2011 that can execute transactions in 90 microseconds.
The exchange hasn’t been successful in attracting orders from the fastest traders because of the high cost of trading in the city, according to Credit Suisse and Tabb Group.
“There is a pretty substantial clearing fee in Singapore that will stop many of the largest high-frequency traders,” said Larry Tabb, founder and CEO of New York-based market research firm Tabb Group. “The exchange fabric isn’t fragmented, so that there will never be the kind of high- frequency trading that we see in the US and or Europe in Singapore.”
Fees for trading on the Singapore bourse amount to about 20 basis points, or 0.2% of the value of shares traded, according to data compiled by Credit Suisse. That compares with Sydney-based ASX’s 15 basis points, the data show.
Speed Limits
“If SGX is serious about high-frequency trading, it could change its fee structure to encourage more high-frequency trading,” said Arjan Van Veen, a Hong Kong-based analyst at Credit Suisse.
Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore have considered the extent to which trading strategies that rely on speedy placement of bids and offers should be regulated amid concern that they can be used to manipulate prices. Germany was the first developed market to legislate the practice, and the European Parliament is pushing for tougher rules.
While circuit breakers provide the market a mechanism to take a pause during times of extreme market volatility, allowing high-frequency traders will introduce unfamiliar risks to investors, according to Securities Investors Association of Singapore, the largest investor lobbying group in Asia.
Good, Dangerous
“A knife is good as well as dangerous,” said David Gerald, president of SIAS. “The exchange and manufacturers of products will put out products to improve their bottom line. Investors must know the risks and decide for themselves whether they want to invest or not. There are many products out there which are very risky and investors have to be educated on the risks and they must make an informed decision.”
One of the hallmarks of high-speed trading has already arrived in Singapore. The bourse has about 100 clients that house their trading computers near the exchange’s servers, an arrangement known as co-location, spokeswoman Loh said. That lets them speed up trading by cutting reaction times.
“We have said in the past that high-frequency trading accounts for roughly 30% of our derivatives market,” Loh said. “SGX has announced previously that we will enhance market safeguards before opening up the cash equities market for high- frequency trading. These include random opening and closing routines, pre-trade risk controls and circuit breakers.”
Trading Safeguards
Regulators worldwide have evaluated safeguards since the May 2010 plunge known as the flash crash briefly erased about $862 billion from the value of US equities. Exchanges in that country have since implemented a limit-up/limit-down initiative that prevents market makers from quoting shares at prices deemed too far above or below current levels.
SGX will introduce circuit breakers by early next year after a plunge in shares of three commodity companies erased US$6.9 billion in market value over three days, the bourse operator said on Oct 10. Under the proposal, trading of a stock will be halted for five minutes if it moves 10% in either direction, the bourse said.
Since becoming CEO in December 2009, Bocker scrapped the midday trading break and introduced dual listings of American Depositary Receipts at SGX to boost profits. Brokerages are turning less bearish on the company, with the number of sell recommendations at the lowest since 2011, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Getting high-speed traders to operate in Singapore will improve liquidity and market efficiency, Tabb said.
“The more liquidity and the more trading generally makes the market better, lowers trading cost and helps smaller investors,” Tabb said. “Generally, it doesn’t make the market more risky unless it becomes as complex and fragmented as the US market.”
- wong chee tat :)
Saturday, July 27, 2013
Yangzijiang to trade shares in RMB on SGX's dual currency trading platform
Yangzijiang to trade shares in RMB on SGX's dual currency trading platform
POSTED: 25 Jul 2013 1:01 PM
Singapore Exchange (SGX) announced on Thursday that Yangzijiang Shipbuilding will be the first company to trade its shares in renminbi (RMB) on SGX's dual currency trading platform.
SINGAPORE: Singapore Exchange (SGX) announced on Thursday that Yangzijiang Shipbuilding will be the first company to trade its shares in renminbi (RMB) on SGX's dual currency trading platform.
Yangzijiang's RMB-denominated shares will start trading on 5 August.
Magnus Bocker, CEO of SGX, said this is an exciting and positive development for Singapore as an offshore RMB centre. It also demonstrates how SGX is contributing to the infrastructure and capabilities required for issuers and investors to tap opportunities offered by China.
The exchange currently offers other services such as the listing and depository of offshore RMB bonds and the listing, quotation, trading, clearing and settlement of RMB-denominated securities.
SGX also offers China A50 index futures, the only offshore access to the China A-share market.
- CNA/xq
- wong chee tat :)
POSTED: 25 Jul 2013 1:01 PM
Singapore Exchange (SGX) announced on Thursday that Yangzijiang Shipbuilding will be the first company to trade its shares in renminbi (RMB) on SGX's dual currency trading platform.
SINGAPORE: Singapore Exchange (SGX) announced on Thursday that Yangzijiang Shipbuilding will be the first company to trade its shares in renminbi (RMB) on SGX's dual currency trading platform.
Yangzijiang's RMB-denominated shares will start trading on 5 August.
Magnus Bocker, CEO of SGX, said this is an exciting and positive development for Singapore as an offshore RMB centre. It also demonstrates how SGX is contributing to the infrastructure and capabilities required for issuers and investors to tap opportunities offered by China.
The exchange currently offers other services such as the listing and depository of offshore RMB bonds and the listing, quotation, trading, clearing and settlement of RMB-denominated securities.
SGX also offers China A50 index futures, the only offshore access to the China A-share market.
- CNA/xq
- wong chee tat :)
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Asian exchanges rush to upgrade trading systems
FACTBOX-Asian exchanges rush to upgrade trading systems
Reuters
Reuters - Tuesday, August 17
* Send
* IM Story
(Updates with latest information from HKEx; adds link to main story)
SINGAPORE, Aug 17 - Asia's biggest stock exchanges have invested heavily in new systems to attract high-frequency traders and fend off expected competition from alternative trading platforms such as dark pools.
Dark pools, which have become increasingly popular in the West, allow brokers and fund managers to place and match large "buy" and "sell" orders anonymously so as to not influence the share price.
The operators of these systems are keen to expand in Asia, having gained large market shares in Europe and North America. For a related story, click [ID:nSGE6790M9]
Following are steps taken by the region's largest bourse operators: Tokyo Stock Exchange
- TSE launched its new $140 million Arrowhead stock trading system in January this year, allowing it to execute trades in 5 milliseconds , compared with up to 3 seconds in the case of the previous system.
The new system, built by Fujitsu <6702.T>, will also reduce the time taken to distribute stock price and quote information to 3 milliseconds.
Arrowhead puts the Tokyo bourse in the same league as the New York and London stock exchanges, which attract a large number of high-frequency traders who use complex algorithms to analyse market data and place orders.
In step with the launch of Arrowhead, TSE has cut tick sizes -- the smallest increment by which a stock can move -- and widened daily price limits to allow stocks to rise or fall by a larger amount in one day.
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing
- HKEx <0388.HK>, the world's second-largest listed exchange by market capitalisation after CME
The system is scalable to 150,000 orders per second, HKEx said on Tuesday.
The Hong Kong bourse operator is also looking further ahead to come out with a next generation system that can handle a larger number of orders per second and improve its connectivity to market players in China.
HKEx did not say how much its investments in technology will cost.
Currently, there are about ten dark pools operating in Hong Kong with a combined market share estimated at less than 3 percent of total stock trading.
Hong Kong law prohibits the use of alternative platforms to trade Hong Kong-listed shares, except via automated trading services that are registered with HKEx. These ATSs must report and clear their trades through HKEx, a Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission spokesman said.
Singapore Exchange
- SGX
Called Reach, the new system will allow trades to be executed in 90 microseconds or 0.09 milliseconds, down from 3-5 milliseconds currently. A microsecond is one millionth of a second, while a millisecond is one thousandth of a second.
The new system uses technology developed by NASDAQ OMX
SGX has also teamed up with Chi-X to launch what will be the first exchange-backed dark pool in Asia. The 50-50 joint venture, called Chi-East, will initially allow trades in selected equities listed in Australia, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore when it starts operating some time this year.
Shares of Singapore-listed firms are held in the city-state's Central Depositary, a unit of SGX that keeps track of changes in share ownership, making it difficult for dark-pool operators to bypass the incumbent operator.
ASX
- Australia's ASX
The Genium INET platform developed by NASDAQ OMX will also allow ASX to cut the average time taken to execute a trade to 250 microseconds from 3 milliseconds currently.
ASX has also created its own dark pool offering called VolumeMatch that will allow traders to anonymously match buy and sell orders above A$1 million with a fee of just 1.5 basis points.
Chi-X has already obtained a provisional license to operate in Australia when the market is open some time next year.
- wong chee tat :)
Monday, August 3, 2009
Computer-trading worries grow as NYSE builds new datacenter
Computer-trading worries grow as NYSE builds new datacenter. What worries can you expect?
- wong chee tat :)
- wong chee tat :)
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