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Van der Moolen puzzles again

45 comments / July 16, 2009
Van der MoolenVan der Moolen serves as an easy target to make fun of. The listed trading firm has to inform the public on every bad move it makes. Today was another fine example. For unknown reasons the charming Hans Kroon decided not to join the board. A topic for speculation.

Then the financial markets watchdog AFM suspended trading in the shares Van der Moolen. Awaiting a press release which did not appear. Again a topic for speculation. Guess they will present a complicated press release with serious bad news on Friday. A very complicated story probably, because simple stuff could have been released within an hour and trading could continue. And bad news, as good news is easy to explain.

Possible press release topic

Possible subjects for the coming press release:

  • Another serious loss on dividend tax?
  • A significant trading loss by rogue trading?
  • Losing the last quarter results in the train?
  • Insider trading?

I would place my bets on trouble with dividend tax : a little bit of history repeating. Time will tell.

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Employees wanted at trading firms

37 comments / July 14, 2009

Several Dutch market makers are desperately looking for traders and it-personnel. To achieve this they have joined forces and the Holland Financial Centre will launch a campaign to attract new talent. They will visit universities and… secondary schools. Let’s hope the newspaper FD misquoted the chairman Sjoerd van Keulen, because I honestly wouldn’t know why firms would like to inform 17 year old schoolkids on derivative trading.

The involved market makers are All Options, IMC, Optiver and surprisingly Van der Moolen. In contrast the the big three VDM is not a member of the Holland Financial Centre. According to the same register All Options and Optiver are the only market makers in the member list of HFC, as IMC describes itself as an asset manager.

Instead of running advertising campaigns there are easier ways to attract potential traders. Let’s publish the average yearly bonus per firm in a nice ranking. Job seekers will be happy to find out what they always wanted to know, and the market makers will have something to talk about.

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All Options chief accused of insider trading

4 comments / July 9, 2009

The Dutch business magazine Quote has raised questions whether All Options chief Allard Jakobs has been involved in insider trading. While the magazine isn’t famous for it’s financial expertise, it’s certainly having a focus on juicy stories on the niveau riche. However, there’s something silly with this story.

Jakobs has bought 800.000 shares of Kasbank last April, that’s a 5 percent stake in the firm and worth EUR 7 million. After the purchase the shares went up 20% over the past months. A profit of 1.4 million. Nothing new here, it’s public information and mentioned on this site a month ago.

However, this morning a clever journalist was finally connecting the dots. Ladies and gentlemen, we’ve got him. Insider trading. This can’t be a coincidence according to the senior journalist:

  • The stock went up after his purchase
  • He bought shares on his personal account
  • It was a large transaction
  • Kasbank is a financial institution, so is All Options
  • Allard Jakobs refused to comment

Frankly, Quotenet couldn’t find a smoking gun. They couldn’t find anything suspicious at all. It’s a large step to suggest insider trading based on, well, nothing.

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Mr Bean caught stealing Goldman’s code

5 comments / July 7, 2009

Developing story in the automated trading world. A few days ago the Russian immigrant Sergey Aleynikov(LinkedIn) was arrested on charge of stealing Goldman Sachs’ source code for high frequency automated trading software.

This Aleynikov made 400k a year at GS and was responsible for “development of a distributed real-time co-located high-frequency trading platform”. He left the Wallstreet powerhouse for the new firm Teza who paid him 1,2 million a year. Teza is a startup by former Citadel traders. Strange enough, after his very first day at his new job he was arrested for allegedly trying to steal Goldman’s trading secrets.

The Reuters commentary and especially the well-informed weblog Zerohedge smell a rat in this strange case. Suggestions are GS may just want to corner a possible competitor. Anyhow, this affair may help giving an insight in the secretive business of Wallstreet’s program trading. And Sergey? The Russian ballroomdancer / programmer / actor is evolving into some kind of cult hero. Mr Bean bringing down Goldman, who knows.

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