I received this email with the attached pdf. Could someone who understands US Law/Politics comment on it as it has the stench of a scam against IB but I don't have sufficient knowledge to judge. I'd appreciate a comment from IB Staff and someone like Jim about the validity and impact of the document.
doesnt look ib has done anythin' wrong on purpose, also shuttin' down the firm cuz of a few runnin' pos statements missin? big whoop. me do not think so... edit; also nutz zo zure about the autenticity of those documents.
doc is legit, straight from NFA website http://www.nfa.futures.org/BasicNet/Case.aspx?entityid=0258600&case=06BCC00010&contrib=NFA claim is valid (I had to oversee compliance function at an IB and got pulled into numerous regulatory audits, and the internal wrangling over de-prioritizing of required compliance type fixes / searches for budgetary / resource allocation type reasons, and risking fines as a cost of doing business... doesn't pay in the end), no question... IB should upgrade its own compliance dept... however its fairly benign overall and no evidence of collusion with the unregistered pool operator cum fraudster, just plain stupidity in not closing him down forcibly ahead of NFA audit... my take: just a small fine probably and everybody can move on...
agree with 2cents. to make the long pdf short - IB had a rogue advisor customer who probably scammed/cannibalized his customers; the total nominal amount was $7mln, the damage to advisor's customers probably a fraction of this the doc states the max penalty - 250.000 USD, small change for IB A statement from IB would be nice & calm the situation down. The e-Mail looks like some form of scam because IB cannot become the next Refco, remember the Universal Acct balance sweep, the account is insured.
how does the sweep work? means if i have 5 es's i hold overnight they stay in my commodities account and aren't insured but all my other cash is? i still think ib will be bought by a fidelity or someone at some pt. they've really taken the industry by storm and shaken things up. look at this board i bet 60% of this board has at least 1 ib account
>> look at this board i bet 60% of this board has at least 1 ib account I thought so too...but from the pdf it looks like IB is a small time shop only 3000 or so customers ! this board has 50k + registered users..60% is pretty big or am I reading the pdf file wrong..also the total assets less than 100 mil makes me think that IB is not that big after all.