MEMBER HIGHLIGHT - SER member Gontran de Quillacq recently published an article titled "Zero-Day Options, Retail Trading, and the New Risk and Litigation Frontier." He explains how the speed, volatility, and complexity of zero-day options, combined with increased participation from retail brokers, have heightened risk and made losses more frequent. He argues that supervisors and regulators are not equipped to fully understand or effectively monitor these brokers, and that litigation will become the primary path for accountability. The issue is further complicated by asymmetries in knowledge, technology, and data access, which make it difficult both to understand losses and to substantiate claims. This creates a “chicken-and-egg” problem: discovery is needed to establish the facts, yet those same facts are required to justify litigation. He concludes that cases will become more numerous and more difficult to litigate, and that expert involvement will be critical from the outset, as both traders and attorneys struggle to assess fast-moving, data-heavy trading activity without specialized derivatives expertise. Gontran is the Managing Partner of Navisink International. You can read the full article on his website along with other insights on his blog.
Members: To submit a news item to the Newsroom, first log in, then return to this page and press the button that will appear here.
