US Treasury Will Reach Decision on Foreign Exchange Swaps by July

As an addendum to last week's post on the SEC and CFTC's new push for more transparency on real time reporting of swap trades, a new article in Reuters details how the US will be set to decide if to exempt foreign exchange swaps and forwards from these new derivatives regulations. The US government is going through all legitimate comments made by the public that argue a risk involved.

Politicians criticize that if such exemptions were to be honored it would create loopholes in the system. What do you think?

Regulators Push for More Transparency on Dimly Lit Corners of the Financial World

Until now the hedge funds, derivatives, and private equity have been highly unregulated, but now the CFTC and the SEC have stepped in by implementing hundreds of new regulations which were passed by Congress back in July as mentioned in this article in Reuters. A big focus of the proposed rules target are derivatives include credit default swaps, which as we all can remember aided in the downfall of AIG and Lehman Brothers.

Scott O'Malia, a Republican CFTC commissioner mentions "This proposal merely repeats the vague statutory direction provided in the Dodd-Frank Act." The proposal calls for real time reporting of swap trades and record keeping. Aside from swap trades, the SEC also proposed that hedge funds over $150 million be registered with the investor protection agency to root out any fraud and abuse. Time will only tell how these immediate changes will pan out in the financial world.

Alternative Investments Bring People More Reward and Less Risk

Here' s an interesting video I came across in which Jonathan Chevreau from Financial Post interviews David Kaufman, President of Westcourt Capitals. In this video David Kaufman explains how alternative investment will bring people more reward and less risk. The key is to identify alternative investments that are not exotic and risky. Make sure to check out the 5 min clip below.