The market in AEX index options on Euronext has always been a competitive battleground. Not in the same league as the Eurostoxx options, but still tight spreads and liquid markets. No wonder the exchange is defending it by raising legal barriers of entry for TOM. In the meantime, there’s something wrong in the AEX for [...]
Back in 1995 my club AFC Ajax was the reigning champion of the Europe – of the world, to be more specific. The old stadium was still in use and the new one had yet to be build. In England the Blackburn Rovers won the title and over here FC Volendam (!) played and lost [...]
Sometimes there’s a news story in the financial markets which requires a lot of homework and flow charts to understand what’s going on. It’s seductive to skip the whole issue and spend your time on other things. The mess around Fortis is a perfect example of a running news story I’ve decided to stop following. [...]
In electronic derivative markets erroneous order entries are quite common. Confusing price with quantity, accidentally leaning on the immediate sell buttons or setting automated trading functions in motion while experimenting with different parameters, messing up calls and puts – painful. These fat finger trades can definitely ruin your day, your career or even worse. No [...]
Correcting performance for currency effects is a good thing when comparing stock indices around the globe (see here for currency adjusted performance). However, regular investors in domestic stocks don’t care about the price of the US dollar, they’re interested in the performance. For Dutch, Irish, Italian and Belgian buy-and-hold investors there’s bad news. Their national [...]