Ahhh! How fast time flies! Because of my preoccupation to give my family a good life, I simply did not notice the time go by so quickly. It’s so shocking to suddenly wake up to the reality that what used to be my four adorable babies are now four grown up “ghoulies’ (what I fondly called my kids) who’d leave me anytime to seek their own destinies in this world. This poem by Wallace Waldo Williams captures the swirling thoughts rising within the depths of my inner self as I try to grapple with the thought that I have now grown old and have wasted so much precious time which otherwise I should have spent enjoying the days of their growing up years.

Our Lives

When they are a baby, can’t wait for them to grow up
From diapers and a bottle, to drinking from a cup
First they say some words, and then they start to talk
Take the first few steps, and then they start to walk
They were just a baby, it seems just like last year
Where has time gone to, rolling down a tear

Pictures tell their story, each one a different age
You can’t get time back, their memories on every page
Every time you turn around, they’re into something new
And suddenly you realize, how fast they really grew
There was kindergarten, helped overcome their fear
Where has time gone to, rolling down a tear

Still get into trouble, they may get out on a limb
Every time you see them, you see yourself in them
Can’t help but love them, to you they are the best
Made you proud, when they got an A on any given test
You wanted to slow down, they shift it up a gear
Where has time gone to, rolling down a tear

The time in the school play, when they were the star
Taught them to ride a bike, now they drive a car
Each day they grow older, now you become older too
You want your babies back, but there’s nothing you can do
Used to want to play, now they’re planning a career
Where has time gone to, it’s rolling down a tear

Wallace Waldo Williams

If you try to do a google or a yahoo search for “forex trading” you’d be swamped with a search result spanning several pages and containing hundreds (perhaps even thousands) of companies offering on line forex trading services, all purporting to be legitimate forex brokers. But how would you really determine who is legit and who is not?

Retail spot foreign currency trading (as it is officially termed in the U.S.) or forex as it is commonly known here and about, started from the need of some major participating financial institutions to spread out the entailing risks of rapid and wide foreign currency exchange fluctuations among a wider base of participating investors. (It should be noted that foreign currency trading used to be the exclusive turf of huge banks and large financial institutions since transactions here are in volumes impossible for the ordinary investor to manage.) The introduction of the leveraged trading system (or margin trading) to the interbank spot foreign currency market opened the doors of the once exclusive foreign currency trading to ordinary individual investors. With the use of modern, internet based technology, linkages between the individual investors and participants of the interbank currency market were established using duly designated financial intermediaries such as brokers and investment houses.

However, taking advantage of the same, readily available technology and operating incognito through well designed and user-friendly web sites, boiler room operators continued to ply their trade facelessly, bleeding unsuspecting investors dry. These “scammers” uses trading platforms that simulates actual interbank trading linkages which were even designed by known software developers. The ordinary users of these trading platforms will really have no way of knowing whether or not their orders were actually executed with a participating bank or institution in the interbank currency market. For all you know, the orders may have ended up in a secretly guarded link in Macau while the invested funds remained in the hands of these scrupulous sweat shop operators. (As early as1990, the HK based company I used to work for and the other scam operators like the Solidlink Group - now SolidGold - to which the Infamous Michael Liew belonged, had set up a computerized trading network (which simulates the interbank currency market) based in some fancy office in the Portuguese Colony.

At this point, you may want to ask:

So what if it is not bank based as long as the reference rate of exchange on which a particular trade is “executed” is based on the spot market rates? True. True enough. However, the risk of investing money with a scam operator is not with the seemingly real trading being done using their platform but with the fact that they can always ran away with your money anytime and you will be left holding an empty bag with no clue as to how and where you can seek redress, as in the case of PIPC in the Philippines.

How then can we avoid these? How would we know who is a legitimate forex broker and who is not when the only information we have is what we get from their web pages? Precisely, never trade through a broker who does not provide you with the necessary information about their company.

But what information about the broker must I have to know if my money would be safe to invest through them? Among other things (like length of existence as a broker, licenses and certifications collected from legitimate financial institutions and known clients) you must also demand to know if the company or the company it is affiliated with is a member of the US National Futures Association and is registered with the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission. If they are not US based, they must instead provide you information and proof of their trading linkages with a prestigious bank or financial investment house. Make it a general rule not to deal with internet based forex broker who does not provide these information on their web pages.

But they can always falsify these information? you can easily check them out with NFA. Accredited members of NFA proudly display their membership id in their web sites. Whether they provide you with the id or not, you can always check on them easily at the NFA website (http://www.nfa.futures.org/basicnet/welcome.aspx). Again, if they or their affiliate is not US based, they must provide you with verifiable documentation of their bank or financial institution’s linkages.

Two years after the PIPC scam and still no concrete steps have been taken by
the SEC and the members of the Philippine Congress. Are they still waiting for another scam to blow up in their faces before they take some really good measures to stop them? See what the US-CFTC is doing with forex scams in their country.

Release: 5530-08

CFTC Announces Formation of Retail Foreign

Currency Fraud Enforcement Task Force

Washington, DC— The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has formed a special task force charged with investigating and litigating fraud in the off-exchange retail foreign currency (forex) market.

The creation of the task force within the Division of Enforcement comes in the wake of Congress’ passage in June 2008 of “The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008” that clarified and strengthened the CFTC’s jurisdiction over this market. The task force will focus on fraud in the retail forex market and will work cooperatively with other federal and state regulatory and criminal authorities.

“The formation of the CFTC’s new Forex Enforcement Task Force reaffirms our agency’s commitment to stopping unscrupulous individuals working in this space. Not only do forex fraudsters prey upon unsuspecting citizens, but their illegal activities taint the reputations of those working honestly in the futures industry,” said CFTC Commissioner Michael Dunn, head of the agency’s Forex Education and Outreach Task Force. “This announcement sends a clear signal that the CFTC is on the beat, and that our continued and increased cooperation with law enforcement authorities will help put these forex dealers where they belong – in jail.”

“Forex fraud impacts investors of all stripes,” CFTC Acting Director of Enforcement Stephen J. Obie said. “With the creation of the retail forex task force, the CFTC has committed the resources necessary to expand its efforts to identify and prosecute those who commit fraud in the retail forex market.”

Since enactment of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act in 2000, the CFTC has filed nearly 100 enforcement actions against firms and individuals selling illegal forex futures and option contracts. To date, the CFTC has obtained judgments in these enforcement actions for civil monetary penalties of approximately $560 million and restitution of investor losses totaling $450 million.

I picked up this all important update from the website of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (http://www.cftc.gov/customerprotection/fraudawarenessandprevention/forex/index.htm).

The Philippine’s Securities Exchange Commission and the Philippine Congress must take the cue from this if they want to put a stop to the likes of Michael Liew in the country: Learn from the past and learn your lessons well.

UPDATE: On May 22, 2008, the Congress passed H.R. 6124, the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (also known as “the Farm Bill”) which contains several amendments to the Commodity Exchange Act (“CEA”). In particular, Title XIII of the Farm Bill (1) clarifies that the CFTC’s anti-fraud authority applies to certain retail off-exchange foreign currency transactions, (2) creates a new registration category for retail foreign exchange dealers, (3) requires registration for those who solicit orders, exercise discretionary trading authority and operate pools with respect to retail off-exchange foreign currency transactions, and (4) imposes minimum capital requirements for futures commission merchants and retail foreign exchange dealers that act as counterparties to such transactions. Parts of the legislation, particularly those confirming the Commission’s anti-fraud authority, were effective upon passage. Other parts of the legislation, such as those requiring the registration of parties engaged in these transactions and minimum capital requirements, will only be effective upon the Commission’s issuance of final regulations. Any such changes to the information below will be accomplished through notice and comment rulemaking and will be made available in the Federal Register section of CFTC.gov.

A complete description of the amendments to the CEA effected by Title XIII of the Farm Bill can be found in the Joint Statement of Managers, pp. 291-299, which can be accessed through the House Agriculture Committee’s Farm Bill Homepage. Interested parties should monitor the Commission’s website as well as the National Futures Association’s website, for developments.

The CFTC has witnessed increasing numbers, and a growing complexity, of financial investment opportunities in recent years, including a sharp rise in foreign currency (forex) trading scams.

The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 (CFMA) made clear that the CFTC has jurisdiction and authority to investigate and take legal action to close down a wide assortment of unregulated firms offering or selling foreign currency futures and options contracts to the general public. The CFTC also has jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute foreign currency fraud occuring in its registered firms and their affiliates. The CFTC issued an advisory in 2001 that discussed these CFMA amendments to the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), 7 USC 1, et seq.

The Division of Trading and Markets (now Division of Clearing and Intermediary Oversight, or DCIO) issued an advisory in 2002 concerning foreign currency trading by retail customers (PDF). The advisory affirms that off-exchange trading of foreign currency futures and options contracts with retail customers by a counterparty that is not a regulated financial entity as set forth in the CFMA is unlawful. The advisory further states that, if there is a lawful counterparty to the transaction, such as a person registered as a futures commission merchant, the persons acting as intermediaries to such a transaction, that is, in the manner of an introducing broker, commodity trading advisor or commodity pool operator, would not need to register under the CEA if that is their only involvement in futures or option transactions.

DCIO issued an additional advisory in 2007 concerning foreign currency trading by retail customers (PDF). The DCIO Advisory addresses the following issues: (1) registration requirements for associated persons of firms registered as introducing brokers (IBs), commodity trading advisors, and commodity pool operators that are involved in forex transactions; (2) the permissibility of certain unregistered affiliates of a futures commission merchant (FCM) to act as proper counterparties in forex transactions; (3) claims that forex customer funds are segregated; (4) introducing entities acting as FCMs; (5) the applicability of the IB guarantee agreement to forex transactions and prohibiting guaranteed IBs from introducing forex transactions to an FCM that is not its guarantor FCM; (6) prohibiting forex account statements of an FCM’s unregistered affiliate from being included in the FCM’s account statements to its customers; and (7) prohibiting retail customers from acting as counterparties to each other in forex transactions.

I started out as a commodity futures trader in 1986. I was recruited and trained by the staff of a member-broker of the now defunct Manila International Futures Exchange for two weeks. After which, the company already let me out to solicit clients. I still had a basket full of questions that were left unanswered after the training so I had to content myself to doing a lot of research on my own to fully equip myself. Afterwards, I immediately called on close acquaintances, personal contacts, and family friends as I thought that one or two may dabble into this because of personal cognizance. And true enough, one of our family friends did! In fact, the guy was already trading in Copra futures (dried coconut meat from which coconut oil is extracted). He happened to be trading with another company ( also a member broker of MIFE) and was losing heavily. Knowing me personally, he decided to open up an account with me to try me out. We sold the 6 month forward contract of Copra futures and immediately we got caught up in a losing position. We sold the contracts at Php10 at that time when the current price of Copra was only Php6 in the real market. Both the guy and I were baffled by the way the prices at the exchange were moving…they were going up while the actual market price as well as the price of the end product (coconut oil) in the world market were going down. We went through a series of successive margin calls specially when the contract month of our holdings got nearer. What the people at the headquarters did not know was my guy was “loaded” and can absorb the uncanny rise of prices in the exchange. But the most important bit of information the headquarters did not know about my client was the fact he was one of the biggest copra trader in southern Philippines and supplies copra to large multinational companies in Manila.

When the contracts we were holding for six months became spot month, the price went all the way up to Php18 (while the actual market price was only Php5). My client and I already sensed that something was amiss. It was as if the market was doing all it can to break our resolve and get us out of the market and take our loss. So, the last time I went to my client to collect the required deposit to cover the full amount of the contracts, we both decided we will deliver. And when I served notice to the company that my client will deliver, it practically got everyone in the exchange truly worried. I received successive phone calls from my own manager asking me to discourage my client because of “the many obstacles we needed to hurdle to get our deliveries accepted by the exchange.” However, I made it very clear to my manager that my client was unwavering on his decision to make the deliveries. It didn’t make sense then to decide not to deliver because doing so will mean taking a whooping loss. Besides, the price of copra in the world market dropped to only Php5, and if we deliver to the exchange, we will get paid with the contract price of Php10 ( a reasonable profit for the 6 month ordeal the exchange made us go through, so we thought).

My manager decided to visit my client personally. I didn’t know what they talked about since they had a one-on-one session while I was sipping coffee at the hotel lobby. But after their talks, my client gave me specific instructions not to liquidate our positions without a reasonable profit.

In the next few days after that, I saw an unbelievable reversal in the price of the spot month of copra futures. From Php18 it went down to Php12. My manager started calling me again to liquidate our positions. My client and I stood firm. When the price reached Php8, my manager called me again and was practically begging me to liquidate. Sensing the utter desperation in him, I called up my client and we liquidated all our positions.

What a nerve racking experience it was for a neophyte trader like me. It was quite revealing though. I found out so early in my career as a commodity futures trader that prices in the Manila International Futures Exchange could be manipulated.

I got the chance to find out how extensive their scam operations were when I was transfered to the main office after they decided to close the branch I was working in. I shall share them with you in my next blog.

(Watch out for my succeeding blogs as they will be more revealing.)