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Nature Has Value. Could We Literally Invest in It?

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“Natural asset companies” would put a market price on improving ecosystems, rather than on destroying them.Picture this: You own a few hundred acres near a growing town that your family has been farming for generations. Turning a profit has gotten harder, and none of your children want to take it over. You don’t want to sell the land; you love the open space, the flora and fauna it hosts. But offers from developers who would turn it into subdivisions or strip malls seem increasingly tempting.One day, a land broker mentions an idea. How about granting a long-term lease to a company that values your property for the same reasons you do: long walks through tall grass, the calls of migrating birds, the way it keeps the air and water clean.It sounds like a scam. Or charity. In fact, it’s an approach backed by hardheaded investors who think nature has an intrinsic value that can provide them with a return down the road — and in the meantime, they would be happy to hold shares of the new company on their balance sheets.Such a company doesn’t yet exist. But the idea has gained traction among environmentalists, money managers and philanthropists who believe that nature won’t be adequately protected unless it is assigned a value in the market — whether or not that asset generates dividends through a monetizable use.The concept almost hit the big time when the Securities and Exchange Commission was considering a proposal from the New York Stock Exchange to list these “natural asset companies” for public trading. But after a wave of fierce opposition from right-wing groups and Republican politicians, and even conservationists wary of Wall Street, in mid-January the exchange pulled the plug.That doesn’t mean natural asset companies are going away; their proponents are working on prototypes in the private markets to build out the model. And even if this concept doesn’t take off, it’s part of a larger movement motivated by the belief that if natural riches are to be preserved, they must have a price.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    A Fed Official’s 2020 Trade Drew Outcry. It Went Further Than First Disclosed.

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    Corrected disclosures show that Vice Chair Richard H. Clarida sold a stock fund, then swiftly repurchased it before a big Fed announcement.Richard H. Clarida, the departing vice chair of the Federal Reserve, failed to initially disclose the extent of a financial transaction he made in early 2020 as the Fed was preparing to swoop in and rescue markets amid the unfolding pandemic.Mr. Clarida previously came under fire for buying shares on Feb. 27 in an investment fund that holds stocks — one day before the Fed chair, Jerome H. Powell, announced that the central bank stood ready to help the economy as the pandemic set in. The transaction drew an outcry from lawmakers and watchdog groups because it put Mr. Clarida in a position to benefit as the Fed restored market confidence.Mr. Clarida’s recently amended financial disclosure showed that the vice chair sold that same stock fund on Feb. 24, at a moment when financial markets were plunging amid fears of the virus.The Fed initially described the Feb. 27 transaction as a previously planned move by Mr. Clarida away from bonds and into stocks, the type of “rebalancing” investors often do when they want to take on more risk and earn higher returns over time. But the rapid move out of stocks and then back in makes it look less like a planned, long-term financial maneuver and more like a response to market conditions.“It undermines the claim that this was portfolio rebalancing,” said Peter Conti-Brown, a Fed historian at the University of Pennsylvania. “This is deeply problematic.”The Fed did not provide further explanation of Mr. Clarida’s trade when asked why he had sold and bought in quick succession. Asked if the Fed stood by previous indications that the move was a rebalancing, a spokesperson did not comment.The correction to the disclosures was released late last month and came after Mr. Clarida noticed “inadvertent errors” in his initial filings, a Fed spokesperson said, noting that the holdings were in broad funds (as opposed to investing in individual stocks). Mr. Clarida did not comment for this article.The extent of Mr. Clarida’s transaction is the latest development in a monthslong trading scandal that has embroiled top Fed officials and prompted high-profile departures at the usually staid central bank.Financial disclosures released in late 2021 showed that Robert S. Kaplan, the former Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas president, had made big individual-stock trades, while Eric S. Rosengren, the Boston Fed president, had traded in real estate securities. Those moves drew immediate and intense backlash from lawmakers, ethics experts and former Fed employees alike.That’s because Fed officials were actively rescuing a broad swath of markets in 2020: In March and April, they slashed rates to zero, bought mortgage-tied and government bonds in mass quantities, and rolled out rescue programs for corporate and municipal debt. Continuing to trade in affected securities for their own portfolios throughout the year could have given them room to profit from their privileged knowledge. At a minimum, it created an appearance problem, one that Mr. Powell himself has acknowledged.Mr. Kaplan resigned in September, citing the scandal; Mr. Rosengren resigned simultaneously, citing health issues. Mr. Clarida’s term ends at the close of this month, which it was scheduled to do before news of the scandal broke.Mr. Clarida’s trades, which Bloomberg reported earlier, also raised eyebrows among lawmakers, including Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who has demanded a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into Fed officials’ 2020 trading. But many ethics experts had seen the transaction as more benign, if poorly timed, because it happened in a broad-based index and the Fed had said it was part of a planned and longer-term investment strategy.The new disclosure casts doubt on that explanation, given that Mr. Clarida sold out of stocks just days before moving back into them.“It’s peculiar,” said Norman Eisen, an ethics official in the Obama White House who said he probably would not have approved such a trade. “It’s fair to ask — in what respect does this constitute a rebalancing?”It is unclear whether Mr. Clarida benefited financially from the trade, but it was most likely a lucrative move. By selling the stock fund as its value began to plummet and buying it back days later when the price per share was lower, Mr. Clarida would have ended up holding more shares, assuming he reinvested all of the money that he had withdrawn. The financial disclosures put both transactions in a range of $1 million to $5 million.The sale-and-purchase move would have made money within a few days, as stock markets and the fund in question increased in value after Mr. Powell’s announcement. The investment would have then lost money as stocks sank again amid the deepening pandemic crisis.But the fund’s value recovered after the Fed’s extensive interventions in markets. Assuming they were held, the holdings would ultimately have appreciated in value and turned a bigger profit than they would have had Mr. Clarida merely held the original investment without selling or buying.The Fed was aware of the reputational risk around trading as the pandemic kicked into high gear — the Board of Governors’ ethics office sent an email in late March 2020 encouraging officials to hold off on personal trades — but notable transactions happened in late February and again as early as May in spite of that, its officials’ disclosures suggest.Mr. Powell has acknowledged the optics and ethics problem the trading created, saying that “no one is happy” to “have these questions raised.” He and his colleagues moved quickly to overhaul the Fed’s trading-related rules after the revelations, releasing new and stricter ethics standards that will force officials to trade less rapidly while banning many types of investment.The individuals in question also faced censure. They are under independent investigation to see if their transactions were legal and consistent with internal central bank rules. The S.E.C. declined to comment on whether it has opened or will open an investigation into Mr. Clarida’s trades and his colleagues’, as Ms. Warren had requested.While the officials who came under the most scrutiny for their trades have left or will leave soon, the new disclosure could cause problems for the Fed’s remaining leaders — including Mr. Powell, whom President Biden recently renominated to a second term as chair.Mr. Powell will appear before the Senate Banking Committee next week for his confirmation hearing, as will Lael Brainard, a Fed governor, whom Mr. Biden nominated to replace Mr. Clarida as vice chair.Both could face sticky questions about why a Fed culture permissive of trading at activist moments was, until recently, allowed to prevail. Mr. Powell led the organization, while Ms. Brainard headed the committee in charge of reserve bank oversight.Jerome H. Powell and his colleagues moved quickly to overhaul the Fed’s trading-related rules after the revelations.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesThe trading scandal has also resurfaced longstanding concerns about whether the Fed is too cozy with Wall Street, and whether its officials are working for the public or to profit from their own actions.If he is asked about the scandal, Mr. Powell is likely to point to the tougher ethics guidelines that the Fed unveiled in October. Mr. Clarida’s apparently rapid transaction would most likely have been trickier under the new rules, which require officials to give 45 days’ notice before buying an asset, and which prevent trading during tumultuous market periods.The updated disclosures do show that Mr. Clarida was “in compliance with applicable laws and regulations governing conflicts of interest,” based on the Fed ethics officer’s assessment. But that alone is unlikely to prevent scrutiny.Regardless of legality, “the public would be concerned if it turned out that he bought shares of the fund before a major announcement by the Federal Reserve potentially affecting the value of his shares,” Walter Shaub, a former government ethics official now at the Project on Government Oversight, said in an email.Mr. Shaub said more information was needed to know if the trade was problematic, including whether Mr. Clarida knew the Feb. 28 announcement was coming — and when he knew that.The Fed previously told Bloomberg that Mr. Clarida was not yet involved in deliberations about the coronavirus response at the time of the trade.But Mr. Clarida was in close touch with his colleagues throughout that week. He had a call with a board member and a regional Fed president on Feb. 26, his calendars show. That is the way the Fed typically lists meetings of the Fed chair, vice chair and New York Fed president — the Fed’s so-called troika, which sets the agenda for central bank policy — on its largely anonymized official calendars.Mr. Conti-Brown said that regardless of how much Mr. Clarida knew about his colleagues’ plans, the February trades were an issue that the Fed needed to explain in detail.“Richard Clarida is a decision maker,” he said. “The deliberations that happen within his brain are what matter here.” More

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    My Strange Journey in the Crypto World Creating a Hype Coin

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    I created a hype coin to show how risky an investment can be. The coin had other plans.Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.When I conducted a little experiment recently for an article to highlight a corner of the cryptocurrency world, I knew I was creating something that would live on after the piece was published. But what happened still took me by surprise.As a business reporter based in London, I have been riveted in recent months by the booming popularity of so-called hype coins. These are the down-market, volatile cousins of Bitcoin, the graybeard of the cryptocurrency world. There are more than 70,000 of these coins — with names like Klaytn, Chiliz, Helium and others you’ve never heard of — and a few dozen new ones are created each day.On its face, the hype coin phenomenon is one of the most baffling financial crazes in history. At least if you went bust during the tulip mania in the 17th century, you could end up with some tulips. Hype coins have no intrinsic value. But investors and venture capitalists have swooned for them. More than 80 have a market value in excess of $1 billion.To enlighten readers, and myself, I made my own hype coin. I spent about $1,000 of The New York Times’s money — yes, I first cleared this outlay with editors, and we discussed the legal issues of this project with Times lawyers — to create and promote it.I christened it Idiot Coin. The name was just one part of an effort to dissuade anyone from hoping it would “moon,” or soar in value. I wanted this thing to flop, and for very solid legal reasons. Two lawyers who specialize in cryptocurrency law explained to me that hype coins are securities and that anyone who markets one with the intent to get rich could earn some unwanted attention from the Securities and Exchange Commission.I made 21 million Idiot Coins and put seven million up for sale. Here’s where I really tried to sabotage this enterprise. Developers of new crypto will kick-start trading by putting money into a “liquidity pool.” The details here get complicated, but suffice it to say, most coin makers pour about $10,000 into their pools. I put up $30.I had essentially created a car that had two sips of gas, max. The point was to demonstrate how easy it is to make and promote an utterly useless commodity. Then, I would watch that commodity wobble into oblivion. That’s not what happened.After the article was published online, a few dozen people showed up in the Idiot Coin account on Telegram, an encrypted messaging platform. A handful started making very amusing memes. Someone named DragonX posted an image of a wide-eyed toddler, tonguing a window, under the words “Wen [sic] I’m not licking windows I’m buying Idiot Coin!”Others were eager for the coin to earn a fortune. “Let’s get on that idiot moon!” IceMaster0x wrote. It will never moon, I kept replying to would-be boosters. That didn’t stop a few dozen people from snapping up coins, often by the hundreds of thousands.On the morning of Aug. 10, the total market value of the coin stood at about $6,000. By that evening, it had gone up 10 fold. The next afternoon, nearly all of the coins were sold and the market value had reached $108,000. It went down, then to a new high. On Monday afternoon, it stood at $68,000.Selling the coins would probably crater the price. This modest pot could vanish in a few frenzied minutes. But if the increase persists, the money will go to charity.For now, a curious kind of camaraderie has taken shape in the Telegram account for Idiot Coin, with voices and opinions from all around the world. (Shout out to Rusty from Kazakhstan.) “Only buy if you are an Idiot,” reads a meme that keeps getting posted. Some urge stratagems that might cause the coin to appreciate. Others argue that such a notion is way off brand for a currency named Idiot Coin.As I type this, I have no idea what will happen next. What’s certain is that some people will invest in just about any venture, even one designed for failure. More

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    Money Market Funds Melted in Pandemic Panic. Now They’re Under Scrutiny.

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    In March 2020, the Federal Reserve had to step in to save the mutual funds, which seem safe until there’s a crisis. Regulation may be coming.The Federal Reserve swooped in to save money market mutual funds for the second time in 12 years in March 2020, exposing regulatory shortfalls that persisted even after the 2008 financial crisis. Now, the savings vehicles could be headed for a more serious overhaul.The Securities and Exchange Commission in February requested comment on a government report that singled out money market funds as a financial vulnerability — an important first step toward revamping the investment vehicles, which households and corporations alike use to eke out higher returns on their cashlike savings.Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen has repeatedly suggested that the funds need to be fixed, and authorities in the United States and around the world have agreed that they were an important part of what went wrong when markets melted down a year ago.The reason: The funds, which contain a wide variety of holdings like short-term corporate debt and municipal debt, are deeply interlinked with the broader financial system. Consumers expect to get their cash back rapidly in times of trouble. In March last year, the funds helped push the financial system closer to a collapse as they dumped their holdings in an effort to return cash to nervous investors.“Last March, we saw evidence of how these vulnerabilities” in financial players that aren’t traditional banks “can take the existing stress in the financial system and amplify it,” Ms. Yellen said last month at her first Financial Stability Oversight Council meeting as Treasury secretary. “It is encouraging that regulators are considering substantive reform options for money market mutual funds, and I support the S.E.C.’s efforts to strengthen short-term funding markets.”But there are questions about whether the political will to overhaul the fragile investments will be up to the complicated task. Regulators were aware that efforts to fix vulnerabilities in money funds had fallen short after the 2008 financial crisis, but industry lobbying prevented more aggressive action. And this time, the push will not be riding on a wave of popular anger toward Wall Street. Much of the public may be unaware that the financial system tiptoed on the brink of disaster in 2020, because swift Fed actions averted protracted pain.Division lines are already forming, based on comments provided to the S.E.C. The industry used its submissions to dispute the depth of problems and warn against hasty action. At least one firm argued that the money market funds in question didn’t actually experience runs in March 2020. Those in favor of changes argued that something must be done to prevent an inevitable and costly repeat.“Short-term financing markets have been driven by a widespread perception that money funds are safe, making it almost inevitable the federal government provides rescue facilities when trouble hits,” said Paul Tucker, chair of the Systemic Risk Council, a group focused on global financial stability, in a statement accompanying the council’s comment letter this month. “Something has to change.”Ian Katz, an analyst at Capital Alpha, predicted that an S.E.C. rule proposal might be out by the end of the year but said, “There’s a real chance that this gets bogged down in debate.”While the potential scope for a regulatory overhaul is uncertain, there is bipartisan agreement that something needs to change. As the coronavirus pandemic began to cause panic, investors in money market funds that hold private-sector debt started trying to pull their cash out, even as funds that hold short-term government debt saw historic inflows of money.That March, $125 billion was taken out of U.S. prime money market funds — which invest in short-term company debt, called commercial paper, among other things — or 11 percent of their assets under management, according to the Financial Stability Board, which is led by the Fed’s vice chair for supervision, Randal K. Quarles.One type of fund in particular drove the retreat. Redemptions from publicly offered prime funds aimed at institutional investors (think hedge funds, insurance companies and pension funds) were huge, totaling 30 percent of managed assets.The reason seems to have its roots, paradoxically, in rules that were imposed after the 2008 financial crisis with the aim of preventing investors from withdrawing money from a struggling fund en masse. Regulators let funds impose restrictions, known as gates, which can temporarily prohibit redemptions once a fund’s easy-to-sell assets fall below a certain threshold.Investors, possibly hoping to get their money out before the gates clamped down, rushed to redeem shares.The fallout was immense, according to several regulatory body reviews. As money funds tried to free up cash to return to investors, they stopped lending the money that companies needed to keep up with payroll and pay their utility bills. According to a working group report completed under former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, money funds cut their commercial paper holdings by enough to account for 74 percent of the $48 billion decline in paper outstanding between March 10 and March 24, 2020.As the funds pulled back from various markets, short-term borrowing costs jumped across the board, both in America and abroad.“The disruptions reverberated globally, given that non-U.S. firms and banks rely heavily on these markets, contributing to a global shortage of U.S. dollar liquidity,” according to an assessment by the Bank for International Settlements.The Fed jumped in to fix things before they turned disastrous.It rolled out huge infusions of short-term funding for financial institutions, set up a program to buy up commercial paper and re-established a program to backstop money market funds. It tried out new backstops for municipal debt, and set up programs to funnel dollars to foreign central banks. Conditions calmed.A primary concern is that investors will expect the Federal Reserve to save money market funds in the future, as it has in the past.Stefani Reynolds for The New York TimesBut Ms. Yellen is among the many officials to voice dismay over money market funds’ role in the risky financial drama.“That was top of F.S.O.C.’s to-do list when it was formed in 2010,” Ms. Yellen said on a panel in June, referring to the Financial Stability Oversight Council, a cross-agency body that was set up to try to fill in regulatory cracks. But, she noted, “it was incredibly difficult” for the council to persuade the Securities and Exchange Commission “to address systemic risks in these funds.”Ms. Yellen, who is chair of the council as Treasury secretary, said the problem was that it did not have activity regulation powers of its own. She noted that many economists thought the gates would cause problems — just as they seem to have done.Of particular concern is whether investors and fund sponsors may become convinced that, since the government has saved floundering money market funds twice, it will do so again in the future.The Trump-era working group suggested a variety of fixes. Some would revise when gates and fees kicked in, while another would create a private-sector backstop. That would essentially admit that the funds might encounter problems, but try to ensure that government money wasn’t at stake.If history is any guide, pushing through changes is not likely to be an easy task.Back in 2012, the effort included a President’s Working Group report, a comment process, a round table and S.E.C. staff proposals. But those plans were scrapped after three of five S.E.C. commissioners signaled that they would not support them.“The issue is too important to investors, to our economy and to taxpayers to put our head in the sand and wish it away,” Mary Schapiro, then the chair of the S.E.C., said in August 2012, after her fellow commissioners made their opposition known.In 2014, rules that instituted fees, gates and floating values for institutional funds invested in corporate paper were approved in a narrow vote under a new S.E.C. head, Mary Jo White.Kara M. Stein, a commissioner who took issue with the final version, argued in 2014 that sophisticated investors would be able to sense trouble brewing and move to withdraw their money before the delays were imposed — exactly what seems to have happened in March 2020.“Those reforms were known to be insufficient,” Ben S. Bernanke, a former Fed chair, said at an event on Jan. 3.The question now is whether better changes are possible, or whether the industry will fight back again. While asking a question at a hearing this year, Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican from Pennsylvania and chair of the Banking Committee, volunteered a statement minimizing the funds’ role.“I would point out that money market funds have been remarkably stable and successful,” Mr. Toomey said.Alan Rappeport More

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    Why Tackling Gamestop's Wild Stock Rise Will be a Challenge for Gensler

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }GameStop vs. Wall StreetCharting the Wild Stock SwingsWhat’s GameStop Really Worth?Your TaxesReader’s GuideAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGensler Faces Big Challenge in Tackling GameStop’s Wild RideThere is broad agreement that the capital markets have been distorted but less consensus on what, if anything, the S.E.C. should do about it.Unlike the fraud or manipulation that regulators like Gary Gensler are used to pursuing, the GameStop frenzy involves investors who have publicly acknowledged the risks they are taking.Credit…Kayana Szymczak for The New York TimesFeb. 1, 2021Updated 4:13 p.m. ETWASHINGTON — During his last regulatory stint in Washington, Gary Gensler focused on reining in big Wall Street players that he believed were manipulating markets and assuming huge financial positions to the detriment of other investors.If confirmed to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr. Gensler will have to confront an entirely new spin on that same game: Thousands of small investors who have banded together to amass giant stakes in GameStop and other companies with the aim of toppling big Wall Street players.The frenzy around GameStop, whose stock has soared 1,700 percent in the last month, presents a huge challenge for Mr. Gensler and the S.E.C., which will have to reckon with a fundamental shift in the capital markets as a new breed of investor begins trading stocks in unconventional ways and for unconventional reasons.Rather than snapping up a company’s shares because of a belief in that firm’s growth potential, the investors who piled into GameStop, AMC, BlackBerry and others did so largely to see how far they could drive up the price. Their motivation in many cases had less to do with making money than with causing steep financial losses for big hedge funds that were on the other side of that trade and had bet that the price of GameStop and other firms would fall.Their ability to cause such wild market volatility was enabled by new financial apps — like Robinhood — that encourage investors to trade frequently and allow them to buy risky financial products like options as easily as they purchase a latte. Options — which are essentially contracts that give the investor the option to buy a stock at a certain price in the future — were what helped put the “short squeeze” on the hedge funds that had shorted the company’s stock.“What’s going on with GameStop has almost nothing to do with GameStop as a company,” said Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America. “When you see the markets essentially turned into a video game or turned into a casino, that actually has some pretty serious repercussions for the way we use the markets to fund our economy.”The question for Mr. Gensler and the S.E.C. will be what they can — or should — do about it.In a statement on Friday, the S.E.C. said that it was “closely monitoring” the situation and that it would “act to protect retail investors when the facts demonstrate abusive or manipulative trading activity that is prohibited by the federal securities laws.”But unlike the typical type of fraud or manipulation that regulators like Mr. Gensler are used to pursuing, the current frenzy involves investors who have publicly acknowledged the risks they are taking and even boasted about losses. Forums like Reddit’s WallStreetBets have entire threads devoted to “loss porn,” where traders post screenshots showing their portfolios in the red, to applause from other investors. (“I’m proud of you” and “Respect” are among the typical responses.)That dynamic poses a challenge for an agency whose primary mission is to protect investors by ensuring they have enough information when deciding whether to trade and to enforce securities laws that were written before many of the GameStop investors were even born.“The S.E.C. has for years worried about hedge funds coordinating their positions and coordinating bear raids and otherwise engaging in activities to move around a stock,” said Tyler Gellasch, a former S.E.C. lawyer who heads the Healthy Markets Association, an investor group. “There are reporting requirements around that. But we’ve never really thought about that being done en masse and in public. The S.E.C.’s rules haven’t thought about what happens when it’s 100,000 people coordinating via Reddit versus three people coordinating via email.”Those who know Mr. Gensler say his first move will probably be determining what actually caused the momentum and who benefited. While many big hedge funds got crushed by the trades, there is speculation among market participants and securities lawyers that other big funds may have been fueling — and making money off — some of the volatility.“First of all, the S.E.C. has got to figure out what the hell was going on,” said James Cox, a securities professor at Duke University School of Law. “The first question is going to be an empirical one — how much of this momentum was created by the hedge funds having to cover their short position and how much of the rest was the impact of the options trading — either buying the options or just executing on the options.”A bigger issue for Mr. Gensler will be figuring out corrective actions. While the stock market has always been something of a game, Mr. Cox and others say the recent events have perverted their original purpose, which is to provide a place for companies to raise capital by giving investors the information they need to determine where to put their money.“When you see what’s happening with GameStop, you ask yourself, is this manipulation, is this mass psychosis or is there something wrong in our market structure that is causing this to happen,” said James Angel, a finance professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. “This does illustrate some of the imperfections in our market structure and the real question is what, if anything, should be done about it.”Mr. Gensler has spent the past several years teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, focusing on financial technology, cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. His classes have addressed some of the knotty issues he will have to face if confirmed to the S.E.C., including the rise of new financial technology companies like Robinhood and the so-called roboadviser Betterment.In a 2019 discussion at M.I.T., Mr. Gensler said it would be “best to show some flexibility” when considering whether to regulate fintech companies since heavy-handed rules could snuff out innovation. Mr. Gensler declined to be interviewed for this article.If confirmed to the job, Mr. Gensler will have to tread carefully. The motivation behind the GameStop squeeze has been embraced by lawmakers and others, who see the trades as a welcome rebellion against the power of big Wall Street players and persistent inequities in the economy. Last week, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, a progressive Democrat, and Senator Ted Cruz, a conservative Texas Republican, both condemned efforts by Robinhood to restrict trading in GameStop and other companies, saying the firm was putting the interests of hedge funds above small investors.Other lawmakers are warning against overreacting with more regulation. “When examining this episode, regulators and Congress should tread with extreme caution and avoid needlessly inserting themselves into equity markets,” Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, said in a statement.Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, said in an interview that simply blocking retail investors from certain stocks was the wrong decision and that Mr. Gensler should look to the bigger fish — namely lightly regulated hedge funds — when looking for areas to regulate.“We probably need to increase the capital requirements on short-selling for hedge funds, to make it more difficult,” Mr. Khanna said.That is an area that will be more familiar to Mr. Gensler, who spent his tenure as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission trying to stop big Wall Street firms from manipulating markets. That included bringing dozens of enforcement cases against big banks, which were accused of manipulating key rates that help determine certain prices across the financial system, including benchmark interest rates and foreign exchange rates.Dan Berkovitz, a C.F.T.C. commissioner who served as general counsel under Mr. Gensler, said breaking up “the old boy network” was a major focus during their time at the agency.“He wanted to break that whole culture up and introduce a culture of competition instead of a cozy coexistence,” Mr. Berkovitz said. “That was his philosophy, and coming from Goldman he saw from the inside how that worked.”Mr. Gensler, whose confirmation hearing has not yet been scheduled, will face pressure to bring a similar focus to the S.E.C. On Sunday, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, said the GameStop episode underlined that S.E.C. regulators needed to “get off their duffs” and work to make the market more transparent. Among other things, she said new regulations should halt company stock buybacks for the purpose of pushing up share prices.“In the long run, if we have a market that is transparent, that’s level, that helps individual investors come into that market and, frankly, helps make that market more efficient,” she said on CNN’s State of the Union. “The hedge funds, many of the giant corporations, they love the fact that the markets are not efficient.”“GameStop is just the latest ringing of the bell that we have a real problem on Wall Street,” Ms. Warren said. “It’s time to fix it.”Jeanna Smialek contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More

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    Gensler Faces Big Challenge in Tackling GameStop’s Wild Ride

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }GameStop vs. Wall StreetCharting the Wild Stock SwingsThe Man Behind the Frenzy4 Things to KnowYour TaxesAdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyGensler Faces Big Challenge in Tackling GameStop’s Wild RideThere is broad agreement that the capital markets have been distorted but less consensus on what, if anything, the S.E.C. should do about it.Unlike the fraud or manipulation that regulators like Gary Gensler are used to pursuing, the GameStop frenzy involves investors who have publicly acknowledged the risks they are taking.Credit…Kayana Szymczak for The New York TimesFeb. 1, 2021, 3:00 a.m. ETWASHINGTON — During his last regulatory stint in Washington, Gary Gensler focused on reining in big Wall Street players that he believed were manipulating markets and assuming huge financial positions to the detriment of other investors.If confirmed to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr. Gensler will have to confront an entirely new spin on that same game: Thousands of small investors who have banded together to amass giant stakes in GameStop and other companies with the aim of toppling big Wall Street players.The frenzy around GameStop, whose stock has soared 1,700 percent in the last month, presents a huge challenge for Mr. Gensler and the S.E.C., which will have to reckon with a fundamental shift in the capital markets as a new breed of investor begins trading stocks in unconventional ways and for unconventional reasons.Rather than snapping up a company’s shares because of a belief in that firm’s growth potential, the investors who piled into GameStop, AMC, BlackBerry and others did so largely to see how far they could drive up the price. Their motivation in many cases had less to do with making money than with causing steep financial losses for big hedge funds that were on the other side of that trade and had bet that the price of GameStop and other firms would fall.Their ability to cause such wild market volatility was enabled by new financial apps — like Robinhood — that encourage investors to trade frequently and allow them to buy risky financial products like options as easily as they purchase a latte. Options — which are essentially contracts that give the investor the option to buy a stock at a certain price in the future — were what helped put the “short squeeze” on the hedge funds that had shorted the company’s stock.“What’s going on with GameStop has almost nothing to do with GameStop as a company,” said Barbara Roper, director of investor protection for the Consumer Federation of America. “When you see the markets essentially turned into a video game or turned into a casino, that actually has some pretty serious repercussions for the way we use the markets to fund our economy.”The question for Mr. Gensler and the S.E.C. will be what they can — or should — do about it.In a statement on Friday, the S.E.C. said that it was “closely monitoring” the situation and that it would “act to protect retail investors when the facts demonstrate abusive or manipulative trading activity that is prohibited by the federal securities laws.”But unlike the typical type of fraud or manipulation that regulators like Mr. Gensler are used to pursuing, the current frenzy involves investors who have publicly acknowledged the risks they are taking and even boasted about losses. Forums like Reddit’s WallStreetBets have entire threads devoted to “loss porn,” where traders post screenshots showing their portfolios in the red, to applause from other investors. (“I’m proud of you” and “Respect” are among the typical responses.)That dynamic poses a challenge for an agency whose primary mission is to protect investors by ensuring they have enough information when deciding whether to trade and to enforce securities laws that were written before many of the GameStop investors were even born.“The S.E.C. has for years worried about hedge funds coordinating their positions and coordinating bear raids and otherwise engaging in activities to move around a stock,” said Tyler Gellasch, a former S.E.C. lawyer who heads the Healthy Markets Association, an investor group. “There are reporting requirements around that. But we’ve never really thought about that being done en masse and in public. The S.E.C.’s rules haven’t thought about what happens when it’s 100,000 people coordinating via Reddit versus three people coordinating via email.”Those who know Mr. Gensler say his first move will probably be determining what actually caused the momentum and who benefited. While many big hedge funds got crushed by the trades, there is speculation among market participants and securities lawyers that other big funds may have been fueling — and making money off — some of the volatility.“First of all, the S.E.C. has got to figure out what the hell was going on,” said James Cox, a securities professor at Duke University School of Law. “The first question is going to be an empirical one — how much of this momentum was created by the hedge funds having to cover their short position and how much of the rest was the impact of the options trading — either buying the options or just executing on the options.”A bigger issue for Mr. Gensler will be figuring out corrective actions. While the stock market has always been something of a game, Mr. Cox and others say the recent events have perverted their original purpose, which is to provide a place for companies to raise capital by giving investors the information they need to determine where to put their money.“When you see what’s happening with GameStop, you ask yourself, is this manipulation, is this mass psychosis or is there something wrong in our market structure that is causing this to happen,” said James Angel, a finance professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. “This does illustrate some of the imperfections in our market structure and the real question is what, if anything, should be done about it.”Mr. Gensler has spent the past several years teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, focusing on financial technology, cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology. His classes have addressed some of the knotty issues he will have to face if confirmed to the S.E.C., including the rise of new financial technology companies like Robinhood and the so-called roboadviser Betterment.In a 2019 discussion at M.I.T., Mr. Gensler said it would be “best to show some flexibility” when considering whether to regulate fintech companies since heavy-handed rules could snuff out innovation. Mr. Gensler declined to be interviewed for this article.If confirmed to the job, Mr. Gensler will have to tread carefully. The motivation behind the GameStop squeeze has been embraced by lawmakers and others, who see the trades as a welcome rebellion against the power of big Wall Street players and persistent inequities in the economy. Last week, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, a progressive Democrat, and Senator Ted Cruz, a conservative Texas Republican, both condemned efforts by Robinhood to restrict trading in GameStop and other companies, saying the firm was putting the interests of hedge funds above small investors.Other lawmakers are warning against overreacting with more regulation. “When examining this episode, regulators and Congress should tread with extreme caution and avoid needlessly inserting themselves into equity markets,” Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, said in a statement.Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, said in an interview that simply blocking retail investors from certain stocks was the wrong decision and that Mr. Gensler should look to the bigger fish — namely lightly regulated hedge funds — when looking for areas to regulate.“We probably need to increase the capital requirements on short-selling for hedge funds, to make it more difficult,” Mr. Khanna said.That is an area that will be more familiar to Mr. Gensler, who spent his tenure as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission trying to stop big Wall Street firms from manipulating markets. That included bringing dozens of enforcement cases against big banks, which were accused of manipulating key rates that help determine certain prices across the financial system, including benchmark interest rates and foreign exchange rates.Dan Berkovitz, a C.F.T.C. commissioner who served as general counsel under Mr. Gensler, said breaking up “the old boy network” was a major focus during their time at the agency.“He wanted to break that whole culture up and introduce a culture of competition instead of a cozy coexistence,” Mr. Berkovitz said. “That was his philosophy, and coming from Goldman he saw from the inside how that worked.”Mr. Gensler, whose confirmation hearing has not yet been scheduled, will face pressure to bring a similar focus to the S.E.C. On Sunday, Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, said the GameStop episode underlined that S.E.C. regulators needed to “get off their duffs” and work to make the market more transparent. Among other things, she said new regulations should halt company stock buybacks for the purpose of pushing up share prices.“In the long run, if we have a market that is transparent, that’s level, that helps individual investors come into that market and, frankly, helps make that market more efficient,” she said on CNN’s State of the Union. “The hedge funds, many of the giant corporations, they love the fact that the markets are not efficient.”“GameStop is just the latest ringing of the bell that we have a real problem on Wall Street,” Ms. Warren said. “It’s time to fix it.”Jeanna Smialek contributed reporting.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More