Understanding My ETF Coverage
Following on my coverage of ETFs for The Wall Street Journal’s monthly “Investing in Funds,” I’ve been writing every few weeks at SmartMoney.com as well.
You can find my recent work stories at my author page.
Unlike the pieces I write for WSJ, the stories at SmartMoney are designed to be timely and actionable. The stories in WSJ are necessarily deeper and more about the mechanics of exchange-traded funds.
The work I’ve done over the past 1.5 years has helped inform my understanding of the situation on the UBS Delta One desk. The first thing I thought when the allegations of fraud broke was that the trade settlement and structure of European ETFs might be involved.
I was also not surprised to see ETFs at the center. Frauds are often hidden right in front of our eyes, masked by either liquidity, lax oversight or both. And, as we have seen before, they can be uncovered quickly by counter-trend or six-sigma deviations.
How a loss that large and seemingly over many positions was uncovered at $2.3 billion is the most baffling. To lose that much, you must have even more at risk.
Let’s hope that woke up every delta one desk around the world.
