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.”