Streetwise Professor

Matt Leising has an interesting story in Bloomberg about a consortium of insurance companies that will offer an insurance policy to clearinghouses that will address one of the most troublesome issues CCPs face: what to do when the waterfall runs dry.  That is, who bears any remaining losses after the defaulters’ margins, defaulters’ default fund contributions, CCP capital, and non-defaulters’ default fund contributions (including any top-up obligation) are all exhausted.

Proposals include variation margin haircuts, and initial margin haircuts.  Variation margin haircuts would essentially reduce the amount that those owed money on defaulted contracts would receive, thereby mutualizing default losses among “winners.”  Initial margin haircuts would share the losses among both winners and losers.

Given that the “winners” include many hedgers who would have suffered losses on other positions, I’ve always found variation margin haircutting problematic: it would reduce payoffs precisely in those states of the world in which the marginal utility of those payoffs is particularly high.  But that has been the industry’s preferred approach to this problem, though it has definitely not been universally popular, to say the least.  Distributive battles are never popularity contests.

This is where the insurance concept steps in.  The insurers will cover up to $6 to $10 billion in losses (across multiple CCPs) once all other elements of the default waterfall-including non-defaulters’ default fund contributions and CCP equity-are exhausted.  This will sharply limit, and eliminate in all but the most horrific scenarios, the necessity of mutualizing losses among non-clearing members via variation or initial margin haircutting.

Of course this sounds great in concept.  But one thing not discussed in the article is price.  How expensive will the coverage be?  Will CCPs find it sufficiently affordable to buy, or will they decide to haircut margins in some way instead because that is cheaper?

As I say in Matt’s article, although this proposal addresses one big headache regarding CCPs in extremis, it does not address another major concern: the wrong way risk inherent in CCPs.  Losses are likely to hit the default fund in crisis scenarios, which is precisely when the CCP member firms (banks mainly) are least able to take the hit.

It would have been truly interesting if insurers would have been willing to share losses with CCP members.  That would have mitigated the wrong way risk problem.  But the insurers were evidently not willing to do that.   This is likely because they are concerned about the moral hazard problems.  Members would have less incentive to mitigate risk if some of that risk is offloaded onto insurers who don’t influence CCP risk management and margining the way member firms do.

In sum, the insurers are taking on the risk in the extreme tail.  This of course raises the question of whether they are able to bear such risk, as it is likely to crystalize precisely during Armageddon Time. The consortium attempts to allay those concerns by pointing out that they have no derivatives positions (translation: We are not AIG!!!)  But there is still reason to ponder whether these companies will be solvent during the wrenching conditions that will exist when potentially multiple CCPs blow through their entire waterfalls.

Right now this is just a proposal and only the bare outlines have been disclosed.  It will be fascinating to see whether the concept actually sells, or whether CCPs will figure it is cheaper to offload the risk in the extreme tail on their customers rather than on insurance companies in exchange for a premium.

I’m also curious: will Buffett participate.  He’s the tail risk provider of last resort, and his (hypocritical) anti-derivatives rhetoric aside, this seems like it’s right down his alley.

One interesting part of the Cœuré speech was his warning that the clearing business was coming to be dominated by a few large banks, that are members of multiple CCPs:

Moreover, it appears that for many banks, indirect access is their preferred way to get access to clearing services so as to comply with the clearing obligation. Client clearing seems thus to be dominated by a few large global intermediaries. A factor contributing to this concentration may be higher compliance burdens, where only the very largest of firms are capable of taking on cross-border activity. This concentration creates a higher degree of dependency on this small group of firms.

There are also concerns about client access to this limited number of firms offering client clearing services. For example, there is some evidence of clearing firms “cherry picking” clients, while other end-users are commercially unattractive customers and hence unable to access centrally cleared markets.

These are all developments that I believe the international regulatory community may wish to carefully monitor and act on as and when needed.

And wouldn’t you know.  He supports a longstanding SWP theme: That Frankendodd and EMIR and Basel create a huge regulatory burden that is essentially a fixed cost.  This increase in fixed costs raises scale economies, and this inevitably leads to an increase in concentration-and arguably a reduction in competition, in the provision of clearing services.

It now seems rather quaint that there was a debate over whether CCPs should be required to lower the minimum capital threshold for membership to $50 million.  That’s not the barrier to entry/participation.  It’s the regulatory overhead.

It’s actually an old story.  I remember a Maloney and McCormick paper from the 80s-hell, maybe even the late 70s-about the effects of the regulation of particulates in textile factories (if I recall).  The cost of complying with the regulation was essentially fixed, and the law essentially favored big firms and they profited from it.  It raised the costs of their smaller rivals, led to their exit, and resulted in higher prices and the big firms profited.  Similarly, I recall that  several papers by the late Peter Pashigian (a member of my PhD committee) found that environmental regulations favored large firms.

The Cœuré speech suggests this may be happening here: note the part about client access to a “limited number of clearing firms.”

And it’s not just pipsqueaks that are exiting the clearing business.  The largest custodian bank-BNY Mellon-is closing up shop:

More banks are expected to follow BNY Mellon’s lead and pull out of client clearing, as flows have concentrated among half a dozen major players following the roll-out of mandatory clearing in the US last year.

The decision of the world’s largest custodian bank to shutter its US clearing unit was the first real indication of how much institutions are struggling with spiralling costs and complexity associated with clearing clients’ swaps trades – a business once viewed as the cash cow of the new regulatory regime.

You might recall that BNY Mellon was one of the firms that complained loudest about the high capital requirements of becoming a member of ICE Trust and LCH.  Again: it’s not the CCP capital requirements that are the issue.  It’s the other substantial cost of providing client clearing services, and regulatory/compliance costs are a big part of that.

Ah yes, another Gensler argument down in flames.  Remember how he constantly told us-lectured us, actually-that Frankendodd would dramatically increase competition in derivatives?  That it would break the dealer hammerlock on the OTC market?

Remember how I called bull?

Whose call looks better now?  Sometimes I wonder if JP Morgan, Goldman, Barclays, etc., weren’t playing the role of Brer Rabbit, and Gensler was playing Brer Fox. For he done trown dem into dat brer patch, sure ’nuff.

Though it must be said that this was not Gensler’s biggest contribution to reducing competition in derivatives markets in the name of increasing competition.  His insane extraterritoriality decisions have fragmented the OTC derivatives markets, with Europeans reluctant to trade with Americans.  The fragmentation of the markets reduces counterparty choice in both Europe and the US, thereby limiting competition.

This is not just a matter of competition.  There are systemic issues involved as well, and these also make a mockery of the Frankendodd evangelists.  They assured the world that Frankendodd and clearing mandates would reduce reliance on a few large, highly interconnected intermediaries in the derivatives markets. That is proving to be another lie, on the order of “if you like your health plan, you can keep your health plan.”  The old system relied on a baker’s dozen or so large, highly interconnected dealers.  The new system will rely on probably a handful or two large, highly interconnected clearing firms.

The most important elements in the clearing system are a small number of major banks that are clearing members at several global CCPs.  The failure or financial distress of any one of these would wreak havoc in the derivatives markets and the clearing mechanism, just as the failure of a major dealer firm would shake the bilateral OTC markets to the core.

Just think about one issue: portability.  If there are only a small number of huge clearing firms, is it really feasible to port the clients of one of them to the few remaining CMs, especially during times of market stress when these might not have the capital to take on a large number of new clients?

What happens then?

I don’t want to think about it: there’s only so much I can handle.

But Cœuré assures us the regulators are on top of it.  Or at least they are thinking about getting on top of it: “the international regulatory community may wish to carefully monitor and act on as and when needed.”  “May wish to act as needed.”  Sure. Take your time! What’s the hurry? What’s the worry?

I won’t dwell on the  irony of those who advocated the measures that got us into this situation pulling their chins and telling us this might be a matter of concern, especially since they were deaf to warnings made back when they could have avoided leading us down the path that led us to this oh-so-predictable destination.

After years of wending through to what is to an American an incomprehensible legislative process that involves a three body problem (the trialogue of the Commission, the EU Parliament, and member states), Europe has agreed on its version of the trade execution portion of Frankendodd: Mifid II.  (The clearing and OTC collateralization equivalents are covered under a different law, EMIR.)  A good summary is here.

It contains many of the objectionable features of Frankendodd, namely, a mandate that swaps be executed on SEF-like entities (Organized Trading Facilities, or OTFs, in Euro parlance), and commodity position limits.  The former were pretty much a done deal after the Pittsburgh G20 meeting, the latter a reflection of the global suspicions of “speculation” in commodities, but intensified by European NGO convictions that speculation in food is evil.  (The shade of Adam Smith is shaking his head, noting that his observation about the equivalence between the popular terrors and suspicions against speculation and  the popular terrors and suspicions involving witchcraft is as apt today as it was in 1776.  Except that witchcraft is probably much more socially acceptable these days.)

But the EU has added its own idiosyncratic idiocies to its law.  Two things stand out.

First, the EU has mandated open access to derivatives exchange CCPs, in an attempt to demolish the vertical silo model.  Yes, the mandate is delayed-by as much as 5 years-but “I will wait 5 years to be stupid” hardly seems to be much of  a defense.  As I’ve written for years-a year or two before SWP began, in point of fact-the vertical silo makes economic sense (from a transactions cost economics perspective), and the pro-competition justification for it (namely, to encourage competition in execution) is inconsistent with what economists have known since the 1960s (the “one monopoly rent” theorem).

Second, and even more inanely, Mifid II caps the dark pool share in the trading of any individual equity at 8 percent.  Overlooking the operational difficulties of enforcing a collective constraint on volume across multiple venues, this reflects a suspicion of dark pools (a pejorative name in itself) that is again not grounded in good economics.  In a second best world, where competition between exchanges is imperfect, off-exchange venues (block markets in the old days, internalization, dark pools) can be welfare enhancing.  The fact that many market participants find them the lowest-cost venue to transact in should at least give pause to regulators, and ask them to inquire why this is true, and do the appropriate cost-benefit analysis of the trade-offs involved.  But no, fools rush in.

It strikes me that the  Euros have created a new Pixar character.  Buzz Darkpool: “To stupidity and beyond!” Derivatives trading mandates and position limits are stupid, but they’ve decided to go beyond that.

Meaning that the US can perhaps adopt what I’ve often said is the Russophile motto: “Not the worst!”

One of the annoying things about the debate over HFT, particularly related to the quality of liquidity supplied by HFT traders, is the lack of any historical context.  HFT firms are criticized for pulling liquidity suddenly, particularly when volatility ticks up, thereby exacerbating price moves and the impact of order flow on prices.

The thing is, that market makers/liquidity suppliers have been doing this since time immemorial. Liquidity suppliers have always chosen flight over fight.

I’ve written about that in the past (focusing, for instance, on Black Monday).  This recent blog post provides some excellent historical color that illustrates the point quite well.

Having traded the markets since 1985, I would like to explain what market liquidity actually meant in the pre-electronic days and what it means in the world of electronic trading.

During the 1987 October crash, Black Monday, I was a junior trader in government bonds and futures. Black Monday was not a crash which was over in seconds or minutes; no, the world stopped turning actually for days. The mini crash of 1989 had a similar pattern. Chernobyl 1986, Gorbachev crisis in 1991 and UK election day in 1992, were all similar liquidity gap events seen by market traders.

The beauty of those days (the late 80s) for a trader, was that markets were very often in a ‘fast market’ condition. This meant that one was able to trade at any price and all rules were thrown overboard until the board officials were able to control the pit again. Without computers, we simply could not deal with the enormous amount of activity in the markets at those times and simply stopped (or delayed) sending price information out, not just for seconds, but minutes and even (during the week of Black Monday) days. Clearers had backlogs to clients for days.

What investors, customers, institutions looked at in those days were screen prices on systems like Reuters or Bloomberg: feeds fed by the voice of the official. If the official did not yell a price in the mic, the data group would not enter a price, and the world would never see this price. Under fast markets no prices were entered and the screen would just read ‘fast’ (if you were lucky). Future and option prices on screen were seen as tradeable prices and in slow markets they may have been pretty close to the truth. In fast markets they were inaccurate and it was not possible to trade the price indicated on the Reuters screen. Yet the world still thought this was the correct price.

Being in the pit, one cannot keep buying or selling an instrument, so traders would hedge their positions. Hundreds of times I have been in situations where there was simply no bid or offer in the instrument to hedge in. The signal from a broker out of the futures pit simply stated, ‘no bid, no bid’, yet all the screens where showing a bid or an offer. Was this liquidity? The world clearly thought it was, but we all knew there was panic on the floor and you were lucky to trade one lot.

Yes, I know Mr. Spanbroek is talking his book.  (The EPTA represents HFT firms.)  But what he writes about the good old days on the floor are accurate.  They were good days mainly for the guys on the floor, who would supply liquidity when it was profitable, but would head for the exits when the order flow was toxic.  Ditto traders upstairs in the OTC markets.  This is a characteristic of liquidity supply and liquidity suppliers pretty much everywhere and always.

This subject always brings to mind a legendary-and I mean legendary-trader, who told me in the early-00s he was all in favor of the markets going electronic because he was “sick of getting raped by the floor.”  About 2 years ago he told me that he couldn’t compete with HFT.  I guess there was a Goldilocks “just right” era in between, say 2002-2007 or so, but the criticisms of liquidity suppliers is a hardy perennial.  And there is some justice to the charges.  The point is that it is not new, and it is not unique to HFT.  It is inherent in the economics of liquidity supply.

And there is no easy policy solution.  A policy intended to fix one problem will just create others.  Again, the problems inhere in the economics of liquidity supply.

I have studied manipulation for going on 25 years now, and one of my pet peeves is the promiscuous and imprecise use of the term.  I often quote a cotton broker, William Clayton, who in Congressional testimony said “The word ‘manipulation’ . . . in its use is so broad as to include any operation of the cotton market that does not suit the gentleman who is speaking at the moment.”

Case in point: a story from a couple days ago about the FBI investigating the trading of interest rate swaps:

Wall Street traders may be manipulating a key derivatives market and front running Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, hurting the US-owned mortgage giants in the process, according to an FBI intelligence bulletin reviewed by Reuters.

. . . .

Disclosure of the suspected manipulation and front running came in an FBI intelligence bulletin that was distributed last week by the bureau’s field office in Charlotte, North Carolina, to security officers at financial services firms.

Front running  is not manipulation.  Manipulation distorts prices, and causes them to move away from where they should be (at least temporarily, although the effects can be highly persistent).  If anything, front running causes prices to move where they were going to go anyways, but faster.   Front-running is a source of information leakage.

Front running raises the trading costs of the entity that is front run–allegedly Fannie and Freddie in this case.  It results in a redistribution of wealth away from those who are front run to the front runner.  But these effects are notably different from real manipulations, like corners and squeezes, or banging the close/settle, or the release of false information.

In the stock and futures markets, front running by a broker or specialist is a violation of the agency relationship with the client.  In securities markets in the US it is a violation of Section 10(b) of the 1934 Securities Exchange Act.  I don’t know, and don’t have time to research at the moment, whether front running of interest rate swaps falls afoul of any law or regulation.

But it ain’t manipulation, as the term should be construed as conduct that distorts prices.  Although everything that is manipulative is bad, not everything that is bad is manipulative.  But as William Clayton noted 80 odd years ago, that distinction is almost universally overlooked.  Especially now, in media coverage of financial markets.

Scott Irwin has provided his responses to David Kocieniewski.  Read the whole thing.

It’s My Turn

The responses to the recent NYT article by David Kocieniewksi certainly make interesting reading.   I don’t want to belabor points already made so well by others in response to the numerous problems with the article (especially Craig).  Instead, I want to offer some additional points that I think merit further consideration or elaboration:

1. To start, it is important to clarify that the heart of the controversy is the trading activities of a new type of participant in commodity futures markets—financial index investors—during the 2007-2008 commodity price spikes.  The concern was that unprecedented buying pressure from index investors created massive bubbles in commodity futures prices, and these bubbles were transmitted to spot prices through arbitrage linkages between futures and spot prices.  The end result was that commodity prices far exceeded fundamental values during the spikes.  Dwight Sanders and I labeled this the “Masters Hypothesis” in honor (dishonor?) of the central role that hedge fund manager Michael W. Masters played in pushing this line of thinking.   It is crucial to understand the key features of the Masters Hypothesis.  First, it implies that index buying in commodity futures markets created massive price bubbles—20, 30, 50% overvaluations (take your pick).  Second, it implies the price bubbles were long-lived, measured in months if not years.  These features have driven the acrimonious debate about “speculation” in commodity markets that first erupted in 2008.  Without the charge of massive and long-lasting bubbles the intense public policy debate about speculation limits would not have taken place.
2. My position on the validity of the Masters Hypothesis has been consistent from the earliest days of the controversy.   In fact, in an ironic twist, one of my earliest publications on the controversy was an op-ed that Dwight Sanders and I jointly authored—drum roll please—yes, in the NYT in July 2008.   A few quotes:  “Over all, there is limited evidence that anything other than economic fundamentals is driving the recent run-up in commodity prices…The complex interplay of these factors and how they affect commodity prices is often difficult to grasp immediately, and speculators are a convenient scapegoat for the public’s frustration with rising prices. That’s unfortunate because curbing speculation — and hobbling the ability of businesses that rely on futures markets to reduce their risk — is counterproductive.{
3. If my work was somehow tainted by associations with “Wall Street,” then why the editorial endorsement by the Paper of Record in 2008?   It also seems convenient that this little fact was omitted in Mr. Kocieniewksi’s recent article.   I made sure he was aware of my previous NYT op-ed article when he interviewed me. I suspect he was already aware of it given his exhaustive background research on the two of us.
4. The academic research pertaining to the Masters Hypothesis since 2008 has been overwhelmingly negative.  I submit that there is very little credible academic research that is consistent with the basic tenets of the Masters Hypothesis.  That is, index buying is not associated with massive and long-lasting price bubbles in commodity futures markets.  There are no “accidental Hunt Brothers.”   Some unnamed persons (one has the initials GG) like to characterize academic research on the subject as being roughly equally divided between studies that find a positive impact of index positions on prices and studies that fail to find an impact.  This characterization is misleading.  Yes, some studies find evidence of a positive impact but the impacts are invariably small and fleeting or do not line up with the spikes of 2007-2008.  This type of evidence does not support the Masters Hypothesis.  So, when properly interpreted the evidence to date is not divided equally, but instead overwhelmingly rejects the Masters Hypothesis.  And this is what is important from a public policy perspective—small impacts do not provide much justification for costly new regulation of commodity futures markets.
5. My approach to research on the market impact of index investment has always been to go where the data lead.  My co-authors and I have sliced and diced the available data many different ways and we cannot find a smoking gun (a full list can be found here).  As I like to put it, if the Masters Hypothesis is true then the relationship between index positions and commodity futures prices should literally jump off the page.  It does not.  Importantly, there is also limited evidence of bubbles in commodity futures markets independent of whether or not they are associated with index investment.   My co-authors and I could not find evidence that bubbles have become larger or longer-lasting since index investment came on the scene.  If anything they have become smaller and less frequent.
6. If my research on speculation is slanted/biased/tainted then it sure has fooled a whole bunch of academics who serve as journal editors and reviewers.  I have published 13 papers since 2009 dealing directly with the speculation controversy in 9 different academic journals.  And several more are currently under review.  Yes, under review.  This means the articles don’t get published unless they first pass muster with reviewers and then a journal editor.  I don’t know exactly how many editors and reviewers I have dealt with on these papers (several were invited submissions but still subject to peer-review), but it is safe to say that it must be at least 20-30 people.  So, we are to believe that my biased research ran this gauntlet of editors and reviewers and the bias managed to go undetected the entire time?  Give me a break.
7. Just for the record, I want to state in public that I did not even know about the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) donations to the business school here at the University of Illinois when the donations were made.  I only became aware of them in the last year or so through conversations with our development staff.   (OK, I should actually be a little embarrassed by that last statement given my work on commodity futures markets.)   In any event, to draw an inference between the gifts to the business school from the CME and my research really is ridiculous.  I made this clear in my interviews with Mr. Kocieniewksi.
8. I do have a long working relationship with the CME, and before that, with the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT).  This after all is my research area.   The CME has not funded any of my research since 2007.  However, I did work on a commissioned white paper for the CME in 2005 when the grain contract convergence problems first erupted.  My co-authors (Phil Garcia and Darrel Good) and I were paid a total of $15,000 for the work, which we split equally.   I did accept a position on a new Agricultural Advisory Council that the CME started in late 2013.  The council will meet three times a year at various locations around the country and serve as a sounding board for various issues that come up with regard to agricultural futures markets.  I will receive the same $10,000 annual stipend for this position as the other members of the council.   That is the sum total of my financial ties to the CME.
9. I have had numerous interactions with CME staff in recent years on a host of issues related to commodity futures markets, including, of course speculation.  Sometimes I have reached out to them and sometimes they reach out to me.  Most of the time it is the former and involves pretty obscure questions about things like how the grain delivery process works or help in getting some data.  My research would be far less interesting and useful without this help.  I have the utmost respect for the professionalism of the CME staff and I have never been asked for any type of quid pro quo.  Never.  When I have agreed to participate in presentations, write blogs, etc. I have done so because I believed my research and analysis contributed to better understanding of the issues.
10. My other research on commodity market speculation has been funded from three main sources.  First, the Laurence J. Norton Chair that I hold here at the University of Illinois provides earnings each year that go to support my research program (thank you U of I!).  Second, I have had two grants from the Economic Research Service of the USDA on commodity speculation related topics since 2008.  The first one included work directly on speculation while the second focused on convergence in grain futures contracts. Both have been completed.  Third, Dwight Sanders and I did a commissioned study for the OECD in 2010.  I lost track of the emails with the exact amount we were paid but I know it was only a few thousand dollars.
11. Yieldcast is a product of T-Storm Weather that I helped develop with a former graduate student, Mike Tannura, and Darrel Good.  Yieldcast provides “real-time” U.S. corn and soybean yield forecasts for subscribers.  My main role is to build the statistical models that form the basis of the forecasts and to prepare the weekly forecasts during the growing season.  As indicated in the NYT article I do not have direct contact with Yieldcast subscribers.  I am fortunate that side of the business is ably handled by Mike Tannura through T-Storm.  It is really laughable to think that I have somehow been rewarded through this channel by Wall Street as a payoff for my speculation research.  I know how hard Mike has worked to build the base of subscribers for this product, and if it only were that easy!  I have never seen one email, one voice mail, or absolutely anything that connects my research on speculation to taking out a subscription for Yieldcast.
12. As the NYT article indicated, Dwight Sanders and I did conduct a study in 2012 for Gresham Investment LLC on the market impact of index investment.   Given the political sensitivities surrounding the speculation issue, I gave considerable thought as to whether I ought to pursue the consulting project.  I knew some would see taking any funding from a commodity firm as being a conflict of interest.  But, the project provided access to detailed firm level position data that has previously been unavailable to researchers and this made it worthwhile in my mind.  Sure, I didn’t mind getting paid as well.  The NYT article got it wrong when it said I was paid the full $50,000.  Dwight and I split that equally so I was actually only paid $25,000.  We are working on several interesting papers based on this new dataset.
13. If the charges (really, innuendoes) in the NYT article are baseless, then readers might reasonably ask what does motivate my “defense of Wall Street”?  Good question.   I am indeed a “freshwater” economist that became convinced early in my career that commodity futures markets were an invaluable market institution that improved the discovery of prices and the ability of market participants to shift risks.  While these markets are by no means perfect (as Craig’s work on manipulation highlights), on balance, the good vastly outweighs the bad.  So, when the current speculation controversy erupted in 2008 I was struck by the similarity of the present controversy and those that have buffeted the industry in the past.  Change only the names and dates and not all that much is different.  This has been a reoccurring theme in my own writings since 2008 (including the July 2008 NYT article…could not resist).  And I admit that I made an intentional decision early on to play a more public role in the present controversy.  Three of my professional heroes are Holbrook Working, Tom Hieronymus, and Roger Gray, who spent much of their illustrious academic careers defending futures markets.  All the motivation I needed.

Scott Irwin

University of Illinois

Risk Magazine’s annual review issue includes a set of short contributions on the progress that has been made on the G-20 OTC derivative reforms.  (If you run into paywall problems: there are ways.  There are ways.)  The contribution by yours truly is under the category Academics (plural) even though I am the only academic in the piece.  I guess I count for double, or something.
But that’s not the best part.  The best part is the headline:

Progress and peril: Davie, Dodd, Maijoor, Pirrong and more on the G-20 reforms.

Sharing top billing with Chris Dodd!  What is the world coming to?  I guess it could be better (or worse): it could have been Barney.  Or Gary.  Or Bart.

To spare you having to scroll through all of the contributions by politicians, lawyers and people who actually work in these markets, here’s my two cents:

When the Dodd-Frank Act was passed, I thought the Sef mandate was its worst part. It has nothing to do with the act’s ostensible purpose – reducing systemic risk – and imposes a one-size-fits-all model for trading swaps that will likely decrease the efficiency of the market. The made-available-for-trade provision of the Sef rule merits the title ‘worst of the worst’. This says if a Sef applies to the CFTC to trade a particular type of swap, and it approves the application, all trading of that type of swap must occur on a Sef. This turns the ordinary competitive process on its head. In most markets, a firm introduces new products, and if it is desirable to consumers, it sells. If the product is flawed, it doesn’t. Under this rule, a firm that introduces a flawed execution method imposes this bad choice on all consumers.

The CFTC could prevent such a perverse outcome by not approving an application. However, the agency’s animus to the traditional dealer-centric trading model and its fetish for transparency means the CFTC sets very low standards for approval. It also demonstrates the CFTC’s bizarre interpretation of cost-benefit analysis: it considers only the trivial cost of filing an application, and totally ignores the massive costs that would result if traders are forced to execute in an inefficient way.

Swap market participants and transactions are diverse. There is no execution model to fit all – counterparties themselves are best placed to determine how to execute their trades. Sef mandates already constrain choice, and made-available-for-trade puts the execution decision in the hands of third parties whose interests are not aligned with those actually trading. Given the size of these markets, if the untried Sefs don’t work as hoped – even for a modest subset of traders – the dislocations and inefficiencies will be immense.

The Risk editors chopped my last line, which was: “I fear that the epitaph of the OTC swap market will be: ‘Died of a Theory.'”  (A line lifted from Jefferson Davis’s epitaph on the Confederacy.)  The Theory, of course, is that traditional means of executing OTC derivatives trades are flawed, if not evil, and that Gary Knows Best in imposing a simulacrum of a centralized, order driven market that has worked well for futures on swaps, which are different in many ways.

Felix Salmon posed several questions for David Kocieniewski about his scurrilous article about Scott Irwin and me.  And-shockingly!-David Koscieniewski refused to answer a single one.  Not. A. Single. One. So if you don’t win that Pulitzer, Dave (and we know that’s what you want, isn’t it?), there’s always the Royal Order of the Weasel ready to be claimed.  You should be a runaway. Emphasis on the Runaway!

Instead of actually answering direct questions posed to him, our dear David doubled down on insinuation, innuendo, and ad hominem.  That’s our boy: go with what you got, eh?

I will respond more fully later, through multiple channels, but a few comments are in order now.

1. Kocieniewski insinuates that I have violated the American Economic Association disclosure guidelines.  Fail, Dave. Pure fail.  The AEA guidelines require disclosure of any support (financial, in the form of data, etc.) on submissions to peer reviewed publications.  I have not submitted any work to a peer reviewed publication that has been supported by any party with an interest in the speculation debate.  I told you this during our interview.  So what is it?  Is David ignorant, stupid, or dishonest?  I can’t answer that.  Those are all observationally equivalent.
2. I responded to all FOIA requests, forwarded to me via the University of Houston’s general counsel’s office, in a timely fashion.  Any suggestion to the contrary is false.
3. My work for “one of the largest commodity exchanges” had nothing to do with speculation, and occurred after my positions on speculation were public.  Years afterwards.  Years.  As in plural.
4. My work for “one of the largest commodity trading houses, Trafigura” occurred years after my positions on speculation were public.  Again, years plural.  I had no contractual relationship with Trafigura until September, 2013.  Um, I testified before Congress on speculation-testimony which gives dear David the faints-in July 2008.  You know, five freaking years before. And that’s not even the best part! Trafigura is not a speculator.  It is a hedger.  It routinely sells massive quantities of futures to hedge its massive quantities of oil transactions.  But-correct me if I’m wrong (but I’m not)-Kocieniewski’s article focuses on how speculators drive prices up by buying futures.  Hedgers. Speculators. Buy. Sell.  Up. Down. Whatever, eh? It’s all the same to our Dave. So again: David Kocieniewski: ignoramus, idiot, or liar? I say again: Observationally equivalent.
5. Kocieniewski explicity refers to  the fact that “this debate [over speculation] began more than five years ago.”  Excuse me, but I wrote my first blog post on this in August, 2006.  I know you are math challenged, David (I read your piece on Goldman’s warehouse operations), but using the fingers on your left and right hands, you should be able to cipher that that works out to about 7 years (and about four months, but hey, let’s round down!).  So I weighed in on this before “the debate began.”  Just call me prescient.  But here’s the point: how did my (non-existent) consulting work on speculation years later affect my opinions?  Do you have issues with the concept that the cause must precede the effect?

More later.  I’m just getting warmed up (spits into palms, old school style).

Thanks again, Felix.  The cat caught the weasel.

David Kocieniewski of the NYT is answering questions this week about his deep thoughts on “issues ranging from the role of Goldman Sachs in the global aluminum market to academics who have reaped financial benefits while defending some of the largest players in the commodities business.”  (Bonus opportunity! Gretchen Morgenson is teaming with DK to answer!)

Have at it, folks. I am sure you have inquiring minds that want to know the answer to some questions about Kocieniewski’s journalism.

Update: Please leave a comment to this post if you ask a question and it is not answered.  Also let me know what your (unanswered) question was.

It’s New Years Eve, and perhaps a little game is in order to get ready for the turn of the calendar in about 3 hours.  Let’s play connect the dots.

• In July, David Kocieniewski writes a big-totally incoherent, but big-article in the New York Times on the aluminum warehouse controversy involving Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and others. The article focuses on Goldman’s Metro Warehouse in Detroit.
• On 1 August, 2013, the law firm Lovell, Stewart, Halebian and Jacobson LLC files suit against Goldman Sachs for violating Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act in its operation of the Metro Warehouse in Detroit.
• The Lovell, Stewart complaint cites the Kocieniewski article.  Numerous news articles state that Lovell, Stewart is the firm that filed the complaint.
• Lovell, Stewart is one of the leading plaintiffs’ law firms in the country.  It is indisputably the leader in manipulation class action lawsuits filed under the Commodity Exchange Act.  LSHJLLP has been the lead counsel or co-lead counsel in virtually every major manipulation lawsuit in the US, and has won hundreds of millions of dollars in settlements in such cases.  Its web page lists numerous past and current commodity manipulation cases, as well as other cases filed against financial institutions.
• I have worked as an expert in numerous cases for Lovell, Stewart (and its predecessor law firms) going back to 1994.  Many of these are manipulation cases.
• David Kocieniewski knew, before writing his hatchet job, that I had worked for Lovell, Stewart.
• Kocieniewski did not ask me about my work for Lovell, Stewart.  He did ask me about my work for trading firms and banks.  I did mention, on my own initiative, that I had been adverse to such firms in some of my work.
• Kocieniewski mentioned my work for trading firms and banks, but did not mention my work for Lovell, Stewart.

So there are the dots.  Help me connect them.

Seriously.  I would like you to tell me in the comments what you see when you connect those 8 dots: what inferences do you draw?  I know what I see, but I’d like to crowd-source this.  Maybe you all see something different.  Thanks in advance for your help, and have fun playing!

And to all my readers: have a Happy and Healthy New Year.  Your interest and continued support is what makes this a rewarding endeavor.  Cheers!