Monthly Archives: March 2012

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Sign on Letter: AFR Stands with Public Interest Groups Against the JOBS Act

As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to vote this week on the JOBS Act, consumer and investor groups from around the country wrote to urge the House not to adopt this anti-investor bill. The legislation would roll back important investor protections, undermine market transparency, and, as a result, drive up the cost of capital for the small companies it purports to benefit. The groups warned that it is more likely to harm the economy than to produce sustainable jobs growth.

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AFR and CFA Letter: Oppose Anti-Investor “Capital Formation” Bills

Last week, Senate Majority Harry Reid announced that the Senate would be developing its own jobs bill based on reducing barriers to capital formation. CFA and AFR wrote to the Senate detailing their concerns about the various “capital formation” bills. They warned that the bills, as drafted, threaten to undermine regulations vital to protecting investors and the integrity of the capital markets, and they urged the Senate to revise the bill to restore important protections.

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AFR in the News: Not What Paul Volcker Had in Mind

“The Volcker rule, a crucial provision of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, is supposed to stop banks from doing the sort of risky trading that was one of the big causes of the financial meltdown. The banks hate the rule because less speculation means less profit and lower bonuses for traders and bank executives. …Some advocates also warn that the regulations could still be read as allowing proprietary trading that is longer term in nature, including high-risk arbitrage trades that attempt to profit on price differences among similar assets.”

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AFR in the News: Protect your investments from oil shocks

“The last time we saw this speculative feeding frenzy was in 2008, when in July, amidst the meltdown in the credit and housing markets, speculators wildly ran up the price of crude oil to over $140 per barrel. Was the steroidal price explosion in 2008 due to increased demand or a significant reduction in supply? Trading volume was nearly 15 times world oil demand that year, according to research compiled by Americans for Financial Reform.”