Personal Account Dealing Restrictions

Hey guys, fairly new here. I just recently accepted a job at a BB, and was wondering if any of you who are in the same boat as me have come across your firms PAD policy. From what I understand, I need to get every personal investment pre-cleared prior to me buying OR selling. They also restrict "riskier" transactions such as option trading, certain low grade debt securities, etc.

Thanks!

 

Astonishing that you work at an equity fund and don't know the rules on this. You do have a compliance director, right?

As a rule, it's OK to trade individual stocks in a PA unless they're a) on the firm's restricted list; or b) would raise any sort of compliance flag although not on the restricted list.

It also depends on firm culture. At some firms everybody will trade like Gordon Gekko; at others, your elders and betters will wonder why you're researching stocks for your PA instead of for their book.

I've just kept to mutual funds in my PA, ever since this became an issue for me. No point in risking getting fired (and never hired again in the industry) trying to make a few $$ trading some stock. Not only that, you can have all kosher trades but report them incorrectly, or they lose your reporting form and blame it on you. Mutual funds are exempt from reporting, at my current firm at least.

 

while theoretically trading futures should not be an issue, because they are not company specific and you don't have access to inside information....you most likely don't want to be stuck waiting for compliance to ok a trade, since futures have so much leverage involved.

pre-clearing is a major hassle

just google it...you're welcome
 
want2trade:
while theoretically trading futures should not be an issue, because they are not company specific and you don't have access to inside information....you most likely don't want to be stuck waiting for compliance to ok a trade, since futures have so much leverage involved.

pre-clearing is a major hassle

I had thought this as well in the case of equity index futures, but what do you think about in the case of commodities & FX futures?

 

While I was at BofAML, I traded on a near daily basis. I'm an active options trader as well as individual securities. The primary issue I ran into was that there were a number of securities that were off-limits for me to own in the accounts I have with them due to internal regulations.

One thing I will say is that I placed most of my trades as limit orders prior to market open. If I placed a limit order on the minimum premium I'd be willing to accept to have an options contract assigned, and the trade hadn't been executed by lunchtime, I'd check my trade status, adjust my limits, or cancel the trade. In like manner, if I placed a limit order on an individual security and the trade hadn't executed by lunchtime, I'd either adjust my limits or I'd close out my order and wait for the appropriate entry point.

 
dm100:
While I was at BofAML, I traded on a near daily basis. I'm an active options trader as well as individual securities. The primary issue I ran into was that there were a number of securities that were off-limits for me to own in the accounts I have with them due to internal regulations.

One thing I will say is that I placed most of my trades as limit orders prior to market open. If I placed a limit order on the minimum premium I'd be willing to accept to have an options contract assigned, and the trade hadn't been executed by lunchtime, I'd check my trade status, adjust my limits, or cancel the trade. In like manner, if I placed a limit order on an individual security and the trade hadn't executed by lunchtime, I'd either adjust my limits or I'd close out my order and wait for the appropriate entry point.

So you had your limit orders pre-cleared before market open to place? I suppose working with limits & stops is the best way to do this. Maybe it will even improve me as a trader as I will have to carefully set the stops/limits if I don't want to deal with pre-clearance frequently... :P

Thanks for the responses guys.

 

Yet,

Honestly I don’t know the internal procedures per trade. When I would placed an order there was always a disclaimer that I had to agree to and the only time I was refused in order is this the security itself was off-limits to us as Merrill Lynch employees.

Personally, if I’m buying securities my typical approach is to sell puts to collect premium and get into a position at below current market value. In addition, when I was ready to exit 8 position, I would sell calls with the strike price set a cost per share that I was willing to except. Both of these strategies gave me the ability to collect premium in addition to either entering or exiting a position that the cost of I wanted it.

If I believe that there will be quite a bit of volatility on the server position, more specifically at position that I already own, but often times I would sell the straddle with the upper and lower strikes set such that I would be able to collect enough premiums on both the call and that put that I sold SERC said even if neither strike got assigned, I would still make some premium off of the trade.

One thing for me on options trading is that I prefer to keep my time frame to be either week please or monthlies. I don’t like having my capital tied up for an extended period of time. I’ve traded leaps in the past, but with limited success. Primarily because of my impatience.

Regardless, got a little off-track there, but we were constrained to all of the Finrud and Nassau regulations as well as Dodd Frank and A number of other regulatory burden is.

Best of luck in the markets going forward.

 

Sorry for all of the grammatical errors. I just read the Comment I posted while out for a walk. I was speaking into the phone, so there was obviously some miscommunication. That said, I hope I at least conveyed the basic premise of the strategies are typically employee. Pretty basic but pretty effective as well

 

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