This article originally appeared in Futures Magazine. BY DANIEL P. COLLINS The MF Global bankruptcy not only gave a black eye to the futures industry, it shattered the claim that futures customers have never lost money due to the failure of a broker — a claim that withstood the Lehman Brothers failure — which distinguished it in American financial circles.

This article originally appeared in Futures Magazine. BY DANIEL P. COLLINS An interesting discourse went on at last week’s Senate Agriculture Committee hearings on recent failures to protect customer funds in the futures industry between the two MF Global trustees. The hearings were titled, “Examining the Futures Markets: Responding to the Failures of MF Global and Peregrine Financial

This article originally appeared in the Wall Street Journal. By Jamila Trindle WASHINGTON–CME Group Inc. (CME), operator of the world’s largest futures exchange, Wednesday defended the current regulatory system for the futures industry, which has been criticized after alleged fraud at Peregrine Financial Group Inc. left futures customers short of funds for the second time in

This article originally appeared on HuffingtonPost.com. by Catherine New On a Tuesday morning earlier this month, Farhan Khan sat down for his milk and toast at his home in the Dallas suburbs. The 32-year-old engineer opened an app on his smartphone, expecting to see $380,000 in his brokerage account, nearly all his life savings. Instead his account was

This story originally appeared in the Des Moines Register.   Written by DONNELLE ELLER AND VICTOR EPSTEIN CEDAR FALLS, IA. — The FBI has launched an investigation into an investment firm here accused by two regulatory agencies Tuesday of misappropriating at least $200 million in client funds. Peregrine Financial Group and its founder, Russell Wasendorf Sr.,

This article originally appeared in Business Insider. Rob Wile | Jul. 10, 2012, 10:54 AM We’ve been reporting since yesterday on the unfortunate, disturbing situation at Peregrine Financial Group, the Iowa-based investment firm that’s been charged with misrepresenting customer account shortfalls on the order of $200 million and whose CEO was hospitalized after apparently attempting suicide.  In an interview

John Roe, partner at BTR Trading, a high-frequency futures group, says: “We are aghast of the regulators who are supposedly protecting customer property. The only thing that protects against this type of fraud is account insurance.” Read the rest of the story at FT.com http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c57f34be-caab-11e1-89be-00144feabdc0.html#axzz20GExiahb

This article originally appeared in Futures Magazine. BY DANIEL P. COLLINS, MICHAEL MCFARLIN The PFGBest revelation raises serious questions about the safety of the U.S. Futures industry. One of the themes that had been struck throughout the MF Global mess is that the safety of segregated funds had been absolute up until that “one-off” event. Now, apparently customer segregation

This article originally appeared as a Reuters dispatch. By David Sheppard and Tom Polansek NEW YORK/CHICAGO | Tue Jul 10, 2012 12:08am EDT (Reuters) – Less than nine months after MF Global’s collapse sent shockwaves through U.S. futuresbrokerages, news that more than half the customer funds at Iowa-based PFGBest are missing is threatening to shatter the fragile confidence