Bitcoins: Embrace or Beware?

A fad or the real deal?

Let's not beat around the bush about Bitcoins, the digital currency that has stirred up the financial world the past year or so.   

Bitcoins are a virtual currency, now accepted by some merchants and commercial enterprises as a form of payment for services or products. Because Bitcoins have a fluctuating market value, many try to exploit price volatility and treat Bitcoins as an investment--similar to investors who might purchase foreign currencies with hopes that volatile swings will result in handsome profits.

However, most participants are still not sure how Bitcoins came to be, who or what oversees the marketplace, and where all this is headed.  Let's be real. Any purchase or investment in Bitcoins is a speculative investment.  Uncertainty, volatility and mysterious (or mystical?) origins offset confidence prudent investors or users for payment purposes might have in its legitimacy.  As we saw in late 2013 when the Chinese government intervened to discourage its use, Bitcoins are enveloped by the unknown, and investors run for the hills when they sense something odd or peculiar in this marketplace.

This is a marketplace where even the most active participants are not sure the founder is one person with a vision for an online payment system or a horde of computer jocks out to amuse themselves. It’s a marketplace in its infancy.  As of mid-Jan., 2014, this is a $10 billion market with less than a million Bitcoins (BTC) traded or transferred daily.

Time will tell whether they will become a reliable currency for the long term.  Time will also tell whether this is a finance fad of the early 2010's or a landmark turning point in the history of monetary systems.

Transactions, trading and investing in Bitcoins are a global phenomenon now. A curiosity for some.  Just a year or so ago, the value of a Bitcoin was around $300. During the year, prices soared to $1,000, sank quickly to $500 last fall and then surged and stumbled again like laundry tumbling and churning in a dryer. (They were valued at about $780 in mid-Jan., 2014.)

Some argue Bitcoins (or their off-shoots or similar virtual versions) are here to stay. Bitcoin activity will be propelled by transactors attracted to a system that knows no boundaries, is not directed by government bodies or political systems, and allows for trades and payments in relative anonymity.  As with most financial trends or fads, this phenomenon is bound to stray in some direction--up or down, up and down, out of existence, or perhaps eventually into a nightmarish tangle of fraud, misrepresentation and legal quagmire.

For now, let's acknowledge what seems to be happening in early 2014:

1.  The price movements and upward, secular trend in value have attracted speculative investors around the world.  

Whether they believe in the system or are proponents of a politics-free, digital market for payments, they see opportunities to make money in the short term. If the price increased from $300 to $1,000, why wouldn't it increase to $2,000 over the next year or two--especially if popularity continues the current course?

Speculative investors may not care much for the algorithms and calculations that influence a Bitcoin's value. They see trends in growing demand and popularity, not always sufficiently explained, and a grand opportunity for a windfall.

2.  There appears to be a growing acceptance by some merchants and businesses to accept payment in Bitcoins (BTC).

Growing acceptance offers legitimacy and comfort to consumers who choose to participate in the system.  VirginAtlantic, the airline, joined this group late last year.

In some ways, an increase in participating businesses helps boost liquidity in the system and encourages other participants to join.  The growing number of participants may eventually cause a cry for more transparency and oversight--which exists today, but in veiled ways.

3.  A Bitcoin market depends on a class of participants called "miners," who act somewhat like "brokers" or "market-makers." 

In financial markets, brokers or market-makers facilitate and process trades. Rewarded with commissions or marked-up profit spreads, they have incentives to keep a market alive, active, and liquid.  In the Bitcoin world, miners act in that role.  Like many financial markets, Bitcoin "miners" have sprouted everywhere in surprisingly large numbers, partly because of the lure of rewards ("commissions") and partly because mining Bitcoins could be considered less risky than in investing in them.

Before others leap to join the ranks of miners, note the odd wrinkle in miners' responsibilities. Miners secure, confirm and report Bitcoin transactions. They are compensated by being rewarded with a special new supply of Bitcoins, but only after they have successfully solved a math problem that requires enormous amounts of computer power.

Think of a financial broker being rewarded with an incremental new issue of a company's stock.  Or think of the Federal Reserve rewarding big banks who confirm and expedite money transfers with new-money credits at the Fed. However, imagine being paid for the service only after solving a math problem that--by Bitcoin rules--will become more difficult to solve in the future.

Those who have access to such computing heft have opportunities to reap substantial rewards. Like market-makers and brokers in a financial market, they facilitate transactions without taking on significant amounts of investment risk. (Their initial investments are those in computer servers or in space that houses computers.)

Because they bear a little less risk than speculative investors, a cottage industry of miners (and related businesses) has surfaced in global corners everywhere--from California to Iceland. There are miners, but there are also companies that support miners by selling or leasing access to computers for mining purposes. There are investors (including private-equity firm Andressen Horowitz) that are now comfortable investing in "mining" operations.

4.  Bitcoin "money supply" is controlled, and growth is restricted, planned and charted, based on an initial algorithm. 

BTC coin supply is based not on economic policy or economic objectives, but on the complex math calculations miners are required to do with their high-power computers. 

By design, the more successful miners are in finding solutions to the calculations, the more difficult the next series of calculations becomes.  It becomes harder and harder to solve the problems to get the same reward. Miners will, therefore, invest in greater computing power to earn similar revenues. Today, miners are racing to grab revenues that might be near impossible to generate a few years from now. And racing like mad.

Those calculations have less to do with how central bankers manage monetary supply, more to do with the calculating power of their computers. Governments and central bankers, we observe, manage monetary growth based on objectives they have regarding interest rates, inflation rates, and expected economic growth.  "Money supply" is ultimately finite in the world of Bitcoins. Until supply reaches a determined maximum, it is now  determined by activity, participants, and computer power. 

5.  While "mining" helps ensure the Bitcoin market is an orderly market, nobody yet knows what will happen in the worst of cases.  

If there is a sudden crash in price --a sudden collapse or a widespread panic, who will oversee the marketplace? If there are crises or disruptions caused by technology, systems or deceitful miners, who will act to revive trading and transacting? 

6. The  system, which eased quietly into the global financial system within the past few years, will continue to attract participants--not because libertarians enjoy that governments have no part to play, but because of money-making opportunities.

A steady increase in legitimate participants may eventually force the system throughout--not just in segments--to provide a blueprint for how the system will behave in worst-case scenarios.  Furthermore, crises, disruptions and crashes will have inevitable legal implications, which of course will require governments or courts to intervene in the end.   

For now governments and central bankers have been shunted aside. The system is self-policing. But the greater the number of participants and the greater the likelihood for system mishaps, then the greater the push for order and protocol that would boost confidence in the system.

But will all that occur before the system's first panic crash, the shocking catastrophic plunge that will cause large numbers of participants to flee en masse with no confidence in ever returning?

Or will the system, supported by a phalanx of miners around the world, find ways to keep itself honest, fair, and relevant?

Tracy Williams

What Will 2014 Bring?

Equity markets: More of the same in 2014?

If the year 2013 ended with moods, markets and sentiments on an upswing, what's on deck for 2014?

What will happen in the upcoming year? What is the agenda for banks, investment managers, hedge funds and an assortment of institutions in financial services?

Let's first sort through equity markets. Last year, we saw blockbuster returns--over 25%, depending on the index you follow. There were the usual dips, dives and concerns, but by autumn, equity markets continued to edge upward. Anybody's diversified portfolio of stocks performed well. The upbeat markets reflected perceptions by many (traders, investors, bankers, et. al.) that we had climbed out of the financial crisis, that the economy had finally reversed course, and that we could confidently move on.

But market returns above 20%, for some portfolio managers and investment gurus are nothing to rave about. They become headaches, causes for concern.  Are we headed toward another bubble, another 1987, 1998, or 2008? A debilitating nose-dive after periods of euphoria has happened before (more than once), so it can (or must?) happen again. How should we interpret recent discouraging data about net job increases across the country? What will the Fed do (or not do)?

For many in finance, 2013's soaring returns are a warning signal that we should be cautious about an impending bubble burst or should at least dissect market trends or economic behavior that portends a market slump.  Market prognosticators who see doom on the horizon are not necessarily nay-saying pessimists. After everybody was struck by knock-out blows of the last crisis, market participants just want to be prepared for the next time.

From now until about midyear, traders and research analysts will observe every move of new Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen, even if many have described her as a Bernanke disciple, someone loyal to a course of maintaining low interest rates and continuing the Fed's program of bond purchases.  Some experts say this such Fed strategy explained much of last year's upturn and any plan to deviate from this could upset stock markets.  

In 2014, in equity markets, if we don't see continuing upswings, we will see more structural changes in the way stocks are traded. Over the past decade, there have been structural overhauls in stock trading. Major stock exchanges (NYSE, Nasdaq) are no longer stoic boys' clubs that monopolize among themselves  transactional volume. They have had to change, adapt, and be aggressive to stay alive. They compete with lightning-quick electronic exchanges, "dark pools" (run by major financial institutions), high-frequency traders, and markets that have no end of day. They must offer low fees and nano-quick execution or become less relevant.  

So in 2014, the heralded New York Stock Exchange struggles to find a role in the chaotic stock-trading sphere. It is no longer independent. A few years ago, it considered diversity and expansion by acquiring European exchanges and becoming NYSE Euronext. As it struggled to adapt, appease shareholders and remain profitable, it allowed an upstart electronic-futures exchange, ICE, to take it over.  Now in the upcoming year, ICE wants to dismantle parts of NYSE, hinting that it acquired NYSE mostly to grab the futures and commodities arms. It will likely hold onto NYSE as a badge of prestige, while the NYSE goes head to head with other electronic newcomers and trail-blazers.

The overall agenda for 2014 is otherwise assorted--a range of items and issues that must addressed, tweaks here and there.   

Financial regulation continues into what might be phase three--more implementation,  a few more rules, and widespread adjustments by banks, traders, funds and regulators before we head into years of strict enforcement.  Perhaps the year will finally bring more clarity in derivatives trading--exchange trading, clearing vehicles, and over-the-counter rules.

On the legal side, last year's insider-trading scandals continue through the court system. Federal prosecutors suggest there could be more indictments, although they may not match the headlines from accusations, indictments and settlements at SAC Capital.  In this realm, Round 1 involved the hedge fund Galleon Group.  Round 2 brought us SAC Capital and settlements involving its founder Stephen Cohen.  Round 3 will unfurl in the year to come, could involve others in an intricate, tangled trading network, but may not expose familiar, big names.

Global banks performed well last year, but their investment-banking units had less reason to celebrate in 2013. IB revenues across the board sagged at most places. Banks have been mired in IB restructuring (as banks adapt to Volcker rules and capital requirements), and their clients continue to approach the economic horizon with caution. Indeed in 2013, there was a welcome spate of IPO's, big deals, and debt offerings. But clients have been hesitant about expanding too far too fast, shy about acquiring other firms or doing big mergers--all frustrating investment-bank leaders. M&A activity, which suggested a back-to-glory-days trend last summer, has slowed to an ordinary crawl. Some call it humming, normal activity. Others call it doldrums.

Nevertheless, like all years, it's easy to capture and describe current moods (renewed, cautious confidence), but hard to project a specific event that could be the domino that causes market unrest. Experienced market participants and risk managers know it takes one or two correlated events to change abruptly a bright, comfortable course, one event that could pummel 2013's optimism from its pedestal.

Let's hope in 2014 no Russian debt crisis, no Bear Stearns mortgage wipe-out, no unsettling, triple-witching-hour trading day, no Long Term Capital portfolio implosion or no Drexel-like junk-bond circus looms to erode the era of good feeling 2013 brought.

Tracy Williams

See also:

CFN:  Looking Back at 2013
CFN:  Cliffs, Recoveries, Outlook for 2013
CFN:  Where Do You Want to Work in 2013?
CFN:  Opportunities in 2012
CFN:  Approaching 2012

Yale SOM Gets a New Look

Yale SOM's Evans Hall opens up in January (NH Register photo)

Yale School of Management, one of the Consortium's 18 schools, is opening up a new campus facility, Evans Hall, in New Haven in mid-Jan., 2014.  The school will launch the new state-of-the-art building with receptions, lectures, presentations and celebrations of what has made Yale SOM special and unique among the panoply of business schools. The week's theme is "Leadership in an Increasingly Complex World."

The new campus will feature the marvels of business-school technology and covers 242,000 square feet, at a cost of $240 million, much of which was made possible by benefactor Edward Evans, who was an undergraduate student at Yale and later CEO of Macmillan, Inc., the publishing house. Besides interview rooms and three libraries, it will even have a student gym and entertainment space.

Yale's dean, Edward Snyder, migrated to Connecticut in 2011 from Chicago's Booth School of Business. In the midst of Chicago's Gothic maze, Booth is a modern, self-contained business school campus, the kind of campus Yale SOM students and faculty might have envied.  Once Snyder arrived in New Haven, he spearheaded the completion of a new campus, a new facility featuring the latest business-school bells and whistles. And his experience in helping to open Chicago's new doors no doubt got many SOM faculty, alumni and students excited about a new campus for Yale.

Building modern facilities is a frequent occurrence at top business schools.  They know that to attract top students, schools must pay attention to their physical being. Facilities, campus and amenities sometimes rank as high as innovative course offerings, curriculum, career placement and notable faculty when students decide whether or not to attend.  While Yale SOM attracted top students over the past decades, many alumni and school leaders felt that an impressive, separate campus was necessary to lure the student that might otherwise be more interested in attending Wharton or Harvard.

Yale and Chicago are certainly not the only schools with new campuses.  Stanford now has its new Knight Management Center, home to its business school since 2011, featuring courtyards, magical classroom technology, chic ambience and sunlit, outdoor cafe settings.  Wharton and Consortium school Michigan have also opened new campus facilities.

Yale SOM has had a colorful history. When it was launched in the mid-1970s, it wanted to be different from other schools. It offered a management-education mixture of the public and private sector.  The degree it certified upon its graduates then was the "MPPM"--a master's in public and private management, arguably a combination of the MPA and MBA degree. Graduates would be steered toward Morgan Stanley, the World Bank or Capitol Hill. At one point, the "O" in "SOM" stood for "Organization."

At times, alumni, recruiters, employers and other constituents interpreted the degree in many ways. And at times, new deans pushed the emphasis one way or the other. Eventually SOM settled on the MBA degree, and it has tweaked the definition of what that means from time to time. In its first three decades, Yale SOM didn't have a separate facility, but existed in a pleasant, neighborly network of "houses" on Yale's Hillhouse Ave.

The new Evans Hall reinforces the notion that Yale SOM has become a top business school in a classical way, although the school, more than many others, tends to walk and run to its own drumbeat by remaining small and enjoying experiments with new ways of instruction or new approaches to the MBA experience. Its integrated curriculum is its latest novel approach.

Yale joined the Consortium in 2008 and has graduated dozens of Consortium MBA's since then. 

Yale being Yale, the school and new facility will seek to fit in well with the rest of the Yale campus.  Evans Hall, with blue hues, courtyards and exquisitely selected artwork, wants to be identifiably Yale, circa 2014.

Tracy Williams

Looking Back at 2013

An informal glance of the year just past

Years from now, a finance historian or a research analyst looking back at 2013 won't have a clever moniker for the notable financial events of the year.  The year was eventful, but may not even deserve a whole chapter in finance history.

And perhaps that's a good thing. It wasn't like 1987, 1994, 1998, 2008, years that conjure memories of crises, crashes, volatility, and uncertainty.

The year 2013 was not one of turmoil.  Markets behaved well. We saw equity upswings of the likes of the mid-2000's and mid-1990's, even while old hands suggested a bubble is near and we shouldn't get accustomed to double-digit percentage stock-market increases.

The fury and hoopla over BitCoins, that arcane, macabre digital currency, didn't rise to the surface until late 2013.  That, in fact, could be the bubble that bursts in 2014, and let's hope that damage won't cause debilitating financial ripples around the world.

The year 2013 featured big deals, badgering shareholder activists, headline court cases, and a few notable IPO's. One common theme prevailed, nonetheless:  financial regulation.  Regulators, politicians, and lawyers bickered about what to do, how harsh they should be, and when they plan to roll out new rules promised from Dodd-Frank legislation, now going back several years ago.

New regulation, they argued, must be at least a little painful to make up for late-2000s financial sins. But the unveiling of a new era of restraint and a new playing field has taken a long time. Basel III, Volcker rules and new rules governing derivatives and equity trading have trickled out slowly, to the pleasure of many banks still squeezing out profits from privileges about to go away.

Dodd-Frank, Volcker and Basel III are not favorite topics among bankers, but they are inevitable.  Banks paid lobbyists and waged campaigns to push back, but they know they aren't winning this tug-of-war and have begun to adapt. Compliance officers, lawyers, and business managers are combing through hundreds, thousands of pages of rules, guidelines, and capital and liquidity requirements, as they prepare for a wave of requirements set for 2014-15. Not fun, fancy tasks, but this is the new normal for the late 2010's.


Civil suits, criminal charges and legal indictments were abundant all year long, as federal prosecutors followed a determined agenda to punish those involved in insider trading.  A legal blitz on insider trading kept the mystical, aloof hedge fund SAC Capital on the front pages for much of the year--right until now, as prosecutors one by one investigate and/or indict various members of Stephen Cohen's trading circle. 


Shareholder activists charged out front and waged fierce campaigns, taking some of their battles to the front lines of the media. They pushed to get Apple to pay dividends, pushed to reshape and remake JCPenney, and battled over the legitimacy of Herbalife products--anything to boost corporate values, oust disagreeable management, wrest some value from out-dated business models, or cause fuss in equity markets. Names like Icahn, Ackerman, Einhorn and others--stubborn and persistent and sometimes irate--kept themselves busy chasing after corporate boards.


The public got used to JPMorgan Chase's billions--not quarterly profits, but a series of regulatory or legal settlements, pay-outs, charge-offs, and reserves.  A billion here, a billion there, until we saw a climatic $13 billion mortgage-related settlement that caused the public to gasp until it learned that the bank will still report handsome profits in 2013, still wields a heavy hand in banking, and its CEO  Jamie Dimon's job is not at all in jeopardy. (Recall the past springtime when a shareholder petition requested Dimon give up his chairmanship. Dimon and team, breathlessly but with confidence, waited out what was supposed to have been a close vote.)

Apple, Inc. continued to muddle over what to do with its billions in cash--billions on its balance sheet with a reluctance to reward shareholders. Investor activist Carl Icahn applied pressure, and others proposed innovative financial devices to pay shareholders. During the year, Apple relented, deciding to share the wealth via dividends with shareholders and then testing debt markets by borrowing $17 billion in a deal done mostly to show markets it could manage a debt transaction and debt payments.  Meanwhile, the company continues to amass billions more in cash from normal operations.

Twitter's IPO, in many financial circles, will be cast as the year's deal of the year. Nothing fancy about the transaction. And nothing unusual about it, even if Twitter has yet to show meaningful operating profits and long-term growth rates are uncertain (Will the fad run its course?).  Yet the deal was widely discussed and eagerly bought, if only because it signaled a comeback of sorts in the new-issue market or it proved that an IPO with high expectations can burst through starting gates without market turmoil or mechanical difficulty (like the Facebook IPO).

Other deals made headlines, too, contributing to a summer surge that flirted with bankers, who might have thought the M&A glory days had returned.  In one deal, Verizon borrowed a whopping $49 billion to make an even-more-whopping $130 billion acquisition of the portion of Verizon Wireless it didn't own. But as the fall quarter approached, banks realized corporate CEO's and strategists still harbor economic anxiety and are hesitant about making too many acquisitions too quickly.


During the year, we began to observe the slow death watch of Blackberry.  Losses continue, employees have been let go, and management--those who remain--has run out of ideas and imagination about products.  A Canadian private-equity firm had a long-running bet that things would turn around. During the year, it contemplated stepping up the bet to acquire the portions of the company it didn't own. Near the end of the year, it, too, had begun to change its mind about Blackberry.  The company stumbles, gets on its feet every few months when it announces what it perceives as a novel product offering or a strategy geared to corporates, but then it trips again.


Michael Dell had grand dreams of taking his computer company Dell private, where he could seize control of the company's strategy without the withering distractions of shareholders, research analysts, and whimsical stock prices.  Dell, however, didn't realize he had to ward off shareholder activists and prolong the process by addressing apparent conflicts of interest (with him leading both the public company and the private buy-out).

Goldman Sachs didn't make it through the year without headlines, no matter how much it preferred. It had a sideline seat in the civil trial of one of its employees (Fabrice Tourre), the one singled out as instrumental in structuring the large mortgage securities/derivative transaction that permitted hedge-fund investor John Paulson to earn billions. Goldman wasn't an accused party, but for Goldman, the trial caused headaches and reputation blemishes.

Outside courtrooms, Goldman made news when former employee Greg Smith's published his long-awaited book about why he left Goldman.  The book was widely awaited and carefully reviewed and read, although the author didn't stir up as much trouble as some might have hoped. Nor did he offer more than an insider's account of his decade working and watching Goldman drift slightly away from its firm principle of treating clients as kings and queens.

Banks, once every five or ten years, try to do something revolutionary to change the pressure-cooker culture of banking. In the past, they allowed for permissive dress codes (business casual, as it came to be) and tried to be tender-hearted about late nights and all-nighters in the workplace.  Goldman took a big step in 2013 when it announced it would forbid junior bankers (analysts) from working Saturdays t to instill a more civil, comfortable work environment.  The move was praised and appreciated, although skeptics know how little this might be enforced or how the new standard might be forgotten in the months to come. But Goldman is praised for daring to show empathy.

Cheryl Sandberg, Facebook's COO, published her  book Lean In and presented pages of advice of how women can aspire to senior roles in business and how women can confront difficult business settings with a more aggressive stance or posture. No book in business in 2013 was more talked about, tossed about, and debated than Sandberg's tome. Women on both sides of the argument of the effectiveness of leaning in weighed in. But was her book applicable to all groups under-represented in business?

An eventful year, but one that didn't leave the blood boiling or cause business and finance leaders to sink into an abyss of anxiety. With bits of the recession and crisis still haunting and reminding all how bad things can be, companies and capital markets proceed into 2014 with degrees of confidence. But they cling to appropriate amounts of worry, wondering if a devastating market blow looms over the horizon.

Tracy Williams

Volcker Rule: Point of No Return

Volcker's rules: Any day now

Three years have elapsed since regulators proposed new regulation to restrict proprietary trading at banks (more specifically, depositary financial institutions).  Three years of discussion, debate, rule-writing and re-writing, dissension, lobbying, and procrastination. 

And now the new rule, better known as the Volcker Rule and named for former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, who first proposed limits on bank trading during the crisis, has reached a point of no return.  Regulators--the SEC, FDIC, OCC, CFTC and the Federal Reserve--have promised to sign off before mid-December.

Banks aren't surprised. They aren't caught off guard. They knew an old era of gun-slinging, wild, volatile, frantic, but overwhelmingly profitable proprietary trading at the major banks was coming to an end.  While regulators and their lawyers sequestered themselves for years to write hundreds and hundreds of pages of rules, banks tried to push back and soften the blow. But they knew they wouldn't win much of this tuggle, although they poured resources and time into the effort.  They had already begun to scale down prop-trading activity. 

New rules will prohibit outright proprietary trading (trading for banks' own accounts using their own capital), but will permit trading for clients, trading for hedging purposes and limited hedge-fund activity. And therein lies profound complexity.   

Regulators have spent the past three years trying to define all possible scenarios of client trading, hedging, and hedge funds with such fine-tooth clarity that banks won't be able to exploit loopholes in the way they can do adeptly and profitably to their advantage--and, in the eyes of regulators, at the expense of clients and individual customers.  Regulators, worried about how banks can exploit omissions in the rules, have tried to cover every base in hundreds of rules-making pages. 

Despite regulators' attempts at clarity, banks now prepare for the burdens and chores to remain in compliance.  Banks know well that trades that look like, feel like and were booked as client trades might evolve into prohibited proprietary trading.  New rules will allow "inventory" (securities and derivatives on banks' balance sheets) to exist on banks' balance sheets as items on a shelf to sell to clients.  But Volcker rules might define inventory exceeding a certain level or inventory maintained for more than a certain number of days as illegitimate "proprietary activity" (and determine it to be out of bounds). 

Banks that choose to remain prominent in sales and trading will need to invest in an army of compliance personnel and significant amounts of infrastructure to ensure they stay within client-trading or hedge-trading boundaries. A nightmare for some banks. An onerous cost of doing business at others. 

Volcker proponents say the new rules will reduce the likelihood of another round of "Whale Trading" losses at places like JPMorgan Chase, which lost over $4 billion from credit-derivatives trades in 2012. Critics and JPMorgan argued that "Whale-related" trades would have been permitted by Volcker rules. (JPMorgan launched the first phase of these trades for hedging purposes--to hedge credit risks in its large loan portfolio. But the trades piled on top of each other and the massive positions turned into something very "proprietary.")

Now big banks across the U.S. must decide (and have decided) whether (a) to stay in the game of securities and derivatives trading and eke out profits from client-driven flows or (b) to retreat, withdraw or just get out.

The bulge-brackets, such as Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley, are fully invested, have been adapting to a Volcker world. The big banks have resigned themselves to declines in trading revenues as much as 10% (25% at Goldman, one analyst contends). They hope to turn their once-magnanimous trading desks into humming, full-throttle plays on volume and flows.  Their desks have been reorganized and restructured.  They've shuffled talent, shut down some desks, invested in automated trading systems, and allowed many traders to seek employment at hedge funds.

Other banks have withdrawn and expect to engage in a token amount of trading at modest levels and minimal volumes--all client-related or tied to risk-management hedges.

In 2014 and beyond, critics, proponents, and regulators will watch banks closely.  Some say liquidity in certain sectors of capital markets will diminish, because large well-capitalized banks won't be able to buy, sell, and hold in large amounts of securities in the way they could before.  Some (municipalities, for example) say rates on bonds may increase because of diminished liquidity, because banks will nudge margins up to account for lack of liquidity, and because banks won't be to rationalize holding any inventory. 

(Imagine scenarios where banks can rationalize economically holding large amounts of securities/derivatives in inventory even for eventual client sales, but will choose not to build up inventory for clients to avoid the risk of penalties of not complying with Volcker restrictions.) 

Some say the best talent for managing trading volumes, risks, portfolios and positions will no longer reside at banks. Some say new rules will discourage financial innovation, because banks often trade and make markets in new products in large volumes to generate interest and liquidity. (Banks don't push new trading products if the profit dynamics don't make sense.)

Yet others contend we won't see those periodic billion-dollar trading losses because banks' "prop desks took a view" of the market or tried to guess interest-rate trends, commodity prices, or economic indices in their efforts to make gobs of money from proprietary positions.

At least for a while in 2014, banks will routinely convene troops of lawyers, traders and compliance officers to figure out this new world. It won't be easy. What happens if a bank amasses a position with intents to sell to a client, but the client decides not to pursue the trade? Will a regulator slap the bank's wrist right then and there? What happens if the bank purchases certain derivatives to hedge a portfolio, but volatile markets abruptly change the hedged position into an huge, unhedged derivatives position?   

Somebody within the banks' troops will be required to spend all-nighters trying to determine the  section in the hundreds of rules pages that cover these scenarios.

Tracy Williams

See also:

CFN:  The Volcker Rules, Here They Come, 2011
CFN:  Volckerized, 2010