Where do penson firms keep uninvested cash?

Does Penson hold it?

Penson firms don't even have money market funds you can have as a swap fund.

Where is the money held?

Remember the Ameritrade & Schwab mess where their money market broke the buck & the clients lost?

With all the stuff going on in Greece & Europe, where ARE the Penson brokers putting uninvested cash? It's pretty important to know.

 

Bingo.

I'm surprised this hasn't been discussed more, the silence is deafening. I've looked into it and it's a bit disconcerting (i.e. what some of these MM funds are invested in) due to ZIRP and the absence of any yield.

 

What have you found?

I called one penson broker & the broker had no idea. (no, I'm not kidding)

 

The only money market fund to break the buck in the 2008 mess was the Reserve Fund.

The Schwab YieldPlus funds were not money market funds.

The AmeriTrade Reserve Yield Plus fund was not a money market fund.

As of June 30, 2011 Penson had $8.5 billion in customer cash and had $3.0 billion of it out in margin loans. They had the other $5.5 billion on deposit somewhere getting interest.

 

For years in my Ameritrade account I had cash in The Reserve Fund. Just before The Reserve Fund broke the buck, Ameritrade took my cash out of The Reserve Fund and put it into bank cash with out asking or telling me in advance. Ameritrade must have known their was a pending risk with The Reserve Fund.

Some so called experts on TV and articles I have been reading lately have been saying some MM funds, pension funds and US banks have considerable exposure to western European bank debt and western European sovereign debt. I think some of the clearing firms have brokers client cash exposed to unnecessary risk while at the same time paying the brokers clients near 0 interest. I wonder about Penson Financial Services with what has surfaced recently with their race track investment with what they say was only company cash.

 

Where is somewhere?

 

It's in treasury bonds and short term high grade securities; Mostly, it's invested by their advisors through fixed income/short duration mandates.

 

Can anyone post a screen shot of the durations of the on the run treasury notes and bonds.

 

?? Why? (approx 2, 5, 7, 8.5, 15) for 2s, 5s, 7s, 10s, and 30s

 

Job interview, and I am an equity person. I have been assured that one of the questions is the current durations, yields, spreads, and economic measures.

Any suggestions or potential questions/tricks.