Christmas Holiday Market Hours

Please be advised that BTR Trading Group’s offices will be closed on Monday December 26, 2011 in observance of the Christmas holiday.  Our offices will reopen on Tuesday December 27, 2011.  Please be advised of the following holiday hours for various commodity exchanges.

**Open Out-Cry Markets** 

CME/IMM

http://www.cmegroup.com/tools-information/holiday-calendar/files/2011floorholidaycard.pdf

ICE FUTURES/U.S.

https://www.theice.com/marketdata/calendar/CalendarView.shtml?calendar=Holiday&calendar=SpecialTradingHours&markets=ICE%20Futures%20Europe&markets=ICE%20Futures%20Canada&markets=ICE%20OTC&markets=ICE%20Futures%20U.S.&markets=ICE%20Trust%20U.S.&markets=ICE%20Clear%20Europe%20CDS

NYMEX & COMEX

http://www.cmegroup.com/tools-information/holiday-calendar/files/New_York_Floor_Holiday_Calendar_2011.pdf

KCBOT

http://www.kcbt.com/calendar_2011_holiday.html

NYSE LIFEE US

http://www.nyse.com/pdfs/33-2010.pdf

MGEX

http://www.mgex.com/documents/2011HolidayScheduleMemo.pdf

**Overnight and Electronic U.S. Markets**

CME GLOBEX

http://www.cmegroup.com/tools-information/holiday-calendar/files/2011-christmas.pdf

NYMEX & COMEX

http://www.cmegroup.com/tools-information/holiday-calendar/files/2011-christmas.pdf

NYSE Liffe U.S.

http://www.nyse.com/pdfs/33-2010.pdf

ICE FUTURES/U.S.

https://www.theice.com/marketdata/calendar/CalendarView.shtml?calendar=Holiday&calendar=SpecialTradingHours&markets=ICE%20Futures%20Europe&markets=ICE%20Futures%20Canada&markets=ICE%20OTC&markets=ICE%20Futures%20U.S.&markets=ICE%20Trust%20U.S.&markets=ICE%20Clear%20Europe%20CDS

**Overnight and Electronic Non U.S. Markets**

ICE Europe

https://www.theice.com/marketdata/calendar/CalendarView.shtml?calendar=Holiday&calendar=SpecialTradingHours&markets=ICE%20Futures%20Europe&markets=ICE%20Futures%20Canada&markets=ICE%20OTC&markets=ICE%20Futures%20U.S.&markets=ICE%20Trust%20U.S.&markets=ICE%20Clear%20Europe%20CDS

ICE Canada

https://www.theice.com/marketdata/calendar/CalendarView.shtml?calendar=Holiday&calendar=SpecialTradingHours&markets=ICE%20Futures%20Europe&markets=ICE%20Futures%20Canada&markets=ICE%20OTC&markets=ICE%20Futures%20U.S.&markets=ICE%20Trust%20U.S.&markets=ICE%20Clear%20Europe%20CDS

LIFFE

http://www.nyse.com/about/newsevents/1176373643795.html

TSE

http://www.tse.or.jp/english/about/calendar.html

SGX

http://www.sgx.com/wps/wcm/connect/mp_en/site/trading_on_sgx/derivatives_market/derivatives_trading_hours_and_calendar/2008+Trading+Schedule?presentationtemplate=design_lib/PT_Printer_Friendly

TOCOM

http://www.tocom.or.jp/guide/calender/2011.html

TGE

http://www.tge.or.jp/english/whats/b_cal/b_cal_201104.shtml

Happy holidays!

Regards,

BTR Trading Group

info@btrtrading.com

800-453-4474

BTR Client Notice – December 19, 2011

Dear Clients & Associates –

72% “True-up” Bulk Transfers have started
Due in part to the efforts of the Commodity Customer Coalition (and BTR’s John Roe), the SIPC Trustee began bulk transfers to true-up holders of US-domiciled balances and values last week. BTR clients should check their statements at RJ O’Brien to verify they are being restored properly. Please note that these transfers do not include foreign denominated balances or positions held on foreign exchanges, as those amounts are not yet under the Trustee’s control. Customers who experience any issues with the transfer process should email giddens@hugheshubbard.com and cc info@btrtrading.com with a description of their problem.

SPECIAL NOTICE to BTR CLIENTS:  ALL CUSTOMERS MUST FILE A CLAIM FORM. Otherwise, you risk having all funds and property you received via interim distributions taken back from you. If you have engaged an attorney, including James L. Koutoulas, Esq., you MUST provide your attorney a copy of your completed claim form and proof that you submitted it. Due to the limited resources of BTR we cannot review or file individual claims. Claim preparation and filing is the responsibility of each customer.

Claims Form Guide Released
The claims form guide for the Commoduity Customer Coalition has been released.  You may download it here:

http://commoditycustomercoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Claims_Form_Guide1.pdf

Please be advised that this FAQ is by no means a complete guide to completing the claims form, but it is provided on an informational-only basis to answer some common questions. If you have specific questions about your individual claim, please email giddens@hugheshubbard.com and cc info@typhoncap.com.  The proper preparation of the claims form is your responsibility.  Also, please be advised of these additional FAQs from the CME and Trustee:

CME FAQ:  http://goo.gl/s6Fh5
TRUSTEE FAQ:  http://goo.gl/olrXa

A Note on Customers Who Maintain General Liability Policies
We recommend that customers who have general liability policies discuss with their insurance agents the possibility of filing claims for theft with those policies.  As MF Global failed to provide proper custody of the funds, it is possible that customers may be able to tap their general liability policies due to a suspected theft of property.  Please discuss this with your insurance agent as soon as possible. Please note that BTR is not an expert on insurance issues and all discussion regarding the applicability of coverage should be discussed with your agent.

Paperwork for Accounts 
The bankruptcy process has produced yet another wrinkle which will require your attention.  In the second bulk transfer of cash accounts, the Trustee did not release client account paperwork.  As far as we have been informed and for reasons unknown to us, the Trustee does not intend to release client paperwork.  So, in order to proceed with RJ O’ Brien, you will need to complete RJ O’Brien paperwork.  You may do so online or by printing account forms and scanning or faxing them.  Instructions are as follows:

Link to Complete Account Paperwork Online – For Individual & Joint Account Holders Only
http://www.rjobrien.com/esign/index.php?id=40890
PLEASE NOTE:  Email info@btrtradiing.com and let us know you have submitted an online account request.  RJO is very backed up right now in this process and we can aide in speeding this along if we are aware you’ve submitted the paperwork online.

Link to Download Printable Account Forms
https://www.rjobrien.com/esign/download.php
Please scan and email these forms to info@btrtrading.com or fax them to 312-212-4073.

Please contact BTR if you have ANY questions about the paperwork process.  We can assist you in the proper completion of these forms.

If you have any questions please contact us at info@btrtrading.com or call 800-453-4474.

Regards,

The BTR Trading Team

BTR Client Notice – December 10, 2011

Dear Clients & Associates –

As we predicted, the bankruptcy court has ordered the Trustee’s motion to true-up all accounts in the coming weeks to the same percentage.  All clients holding US positions will receive 72% of their account values, most in the next couple of business days though some could take as long as 4 weeks to process.  You do not need to fill out a claims form to take part in this third bulk transfer of funds.  You will still need to submit a claims form for your account.  Please jump to the heading on claims forms below for more information.

The bankruptcy process has produced yet another wrinkle which will require your attention.  In the second bulk transfer of cash accounts, the Trustee did not release client account paperwork.  As far as we have been informed and for reasons unknown to us, the Trustee does not intend to release client paperwork.  So, in order to proceed with RJ O’ Brien, you will need to complete RJ O’Brien paperwork.  You may do so online or by printing account forms and scanning or faxing them.  Instructions are as follows:

Link to Complete Account Paperwork Online – For Individual & Joint Account Holders Only
http://www.rjobrien.com/esign/index.php?id=40890
PLEASE NOTE:  Email info@btrtradiing.com and let us know you have submitted an online account request.  RJO is very backed up right now in this process and we can aide in speeding this along if we are aware you’ve submitted the paperwork online.

Link to Download Printable Account Forms
https://www.rjobrien.com/esign/download.php
Please scan and email these forms to info@btrtrading.com or fax them to 312-212-4073.

Please contact BTR if you have ANY questions about the paperwork process.  We can assist you in the proper completion of these forms.

CLAIMS PROCESS
As we noted in the previous update, you will need to complete a claims form to ensure you advise the Trustee of your total claim.  You may download the claims form here: http://goo.gl/2wuwF.  The claims window is open until January 31, 2012.

In conjunction with our work with the Commodity Customer Coalition, we are planning on releasing an FAQ for the claims process in the coming week.  We had planned on releasing it last week, but we had to prioritize our resources to deal with our efforts before the bankruptcy court and Congress.  We will advise you when the FAQ is ready.  In the meantime, please review the following FAQ’s for the claims process:

CME FAQ:  http://goo.gl/s6Fh5
TRUSTEE FAQ:  http://goo.gl/olrXa

If you have any questions please contact us at info@btrtrading.com or call 800-453-4474.

Regards,

The BTR Trading Team

BTR Client Notice – November 28, 2011

Dear Clients & Associates,

As of Friday November 28th, the majority 0f BTR Trading Group customers received 60% of their cash balances in the latest bulk transfer from the MFG Trustee.  These balances have been transferred to your new accounts at RJ O’Brien.  They will be made available for trading or withdrawal on December 2nd.  You should have received a statement for your account at RJ O’Brien.  Please check that statement to ensure that you did indeed receive 60% of your assets.  If you did not, please contact us at once.

Please note that this transfer was only for unencumbered cash balances.  If your account had open positions, treasury bills or physicals, your assets were not included in this transfer.

ACCESSING THE REMAINDER OF YOUR ASSETS
The Trustee has two procedures by which he is able to return your assets to you:  a claims process and a bulk transfer process.  The bulk transfer process involves transferring your assets to your new account at RJ O’Brien.  The claims process involves you submitting a claim for your assets and the Trustee returning them to you.  He has already used the bulk transfer process twice to return assets, including the most recent transfer of 60% of your cash assets.  He may use this bulk transfer process again throughout the coming weeks to provide you with a larger percentage of your assets.  However, due to the alleged shortfall in customer funds at MF Global and as it is required by the federal bankruptcy code, a claims process will be required to return a portion of your assets to you. All clients will need to submit a claims form for their assets.

The window to submit a claim will open on December 2, 2011 and close on January 31, 2012.  The Trustee has issued his claims form for commodity customers, which you may download here.  You will probably receive this form in the mail as well, but you only need to fill it out once.  You may submit the claims form via US mail, but we recommend submitting it electronically.  You may do so by emailing the form to MFGlobalClaims@epiqsystems.com.

As many of you know, BTR Trading Group partner John L. Roe co-founded an organization (the Commodity Customer Coalition or “CCC”) which is advocating on behalf of customers in the bankruptcy process.  This group will host a conference call on Thursday December 1st for customers to aid in the explanation of how to file these forms.  For conference call dial-in information, please sign up to be on the CCC email list by clicking here.

INITIATING TRADING
If you wish to resume trading, whether on a self-directed, broker assisted, system or managed futures basis, please contact BTR Trading Group so that we can set up trading for your account.  Our trading operations will likely resume on Monday December 5, 2011.

ADDING FUNDS TO YOUR ACCOUNT
BTR is in the process of establishing all that is required to facilitate trading operations on an interim basis with FCM R.J. O’Brien.  Clients who wish to begin trading immediately can wire funds to their account as follows:

Harris Bank
111 West Monroe Street
Chicago, IL 60606
ABA #071-000-288
R.J. O’Brien Cust Seg Funds
#386-015-2
FFC: Customer Account Name
FFC: Customer Account Number

If you wish to send a check to fund or add funds to your account, please do so as follows:

Make Check Payable to:  RJ O’Brien
RJ O’Brien Treasury Department
222 South Riverside Plaza
Suite 900
Chicago, IL 60606

Please check out website frequently for updates and developments regarding the MF Global bankruptcy and the status of your account and its assets.    We thank you for your continued patience in this difficult time.  Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at 800-453-4474 or email info@btrtrading.com.

Regards,

BTR Trading Group
info@btrtrading.com
800-453-4474

BTR Client Notice – November 17, 2011

Dear Clients & Associates,

We thank you for your continued patience in this difficult time.  We hope that this notice will update you as to the status of the MF Global bankruptcy as it relates to your account at BTR Trading Group.

This morning at 11 AM EST, a hearing will be held for the Trustee’s motion to release 60% of assets held in cash only in MF Global customer accounts at the “commencement” of the Trustee’s proceeding on October 31, 2011.  The overwhelming majority of BTR Trading Group’s accounts held cash only as of October 31, 2011. We anticipate that this motion will be ordered by the bankruptcy judge, Martin Glenn.  While there is no explicit time frame for these transfers to be completed, we anticipate that they will commence almost immediately and be completed very soon after the order is granted.  We will update you once the transfers are complete.

With regard to the remainder of assets frozen in the bankruptcy process, the Trustee filed an application with the court for an ‘expedited’ claims process for the distribution of those assets.  This process would have taken several months to complete.  The Commodity Customer Coalition, a customer advocacy group co-founded by BTR Partner John L. Roe, helped convince Judge Glenn to order the Trustee to meet customer representatives today to develop a faster, more equitable process to distribute funds. That meeting is to take place after the 11 AM hearing on the motion to distribute cash assets.  We will update you as to the developments of this meeting.

BTR is in the process of establishing all that is required to facilitate trading operations on an interim basis with FCM R.J. O’Brien.  Clients who wish to begin trading immediately can wire funds to their account as follows:

Harris Bank
111 West Monroe Street
Chicago, IL 60606
ABA #071-000-288
R.J. O’Brien Cust Seg Funds
#386-015-2
FFC: Customer Account Name
FFC: Customer Account Number

If you wish to send a check to fund or add funds to your account, please do so as follows:

Make Check Payable to:  RJ O’Brien
RJ O’Brien Treasury Department
222 South Riverside Plaza
Suite 900
Chicago, IL 60606

Please check out website frequently for updates and developments regarding the MF Global bankruptcy and the status of your account and its assets.  Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at 800-453-4474 or emailinfo@btrtrading.com.

Regards,

BTR Trading Group
info@btrtrading.com
800-453-4474

BTR Client Notice – November 11, 2011

Dear Clients and Associates,

We thank you for your patience as we navigate through MF Global’s collapse.  As of this morning, all BTR Trading Group accounts, without their cash assets, have been moved to RJ O’Brien, a privately held futures commission merchant with 97 years of experience in the futures industry.  While it was BTR’s original intent to move accounts to Rosenthal Collins Group, the bankruptcy court assigned our accounts to RJ O’Brien.  In the interest of restoring trading operations quickly, BTR Trading Group has decided to stay at RJ O’Brien in this interim period.

Wiring Funds to Your New Account
Clients who wish to begin trading may do so by wiring funds via the wire instructions below.  Your five digit account number with the “R11” prefix has not changed.

Harris Bank
111 West Monroe Street
Chicago, IL 60606
ABA #071-000-288
R.J. O’Brien Cust Seg Funds
#386-015-2
FFC: Customer Account Name
FFC: Customer Account Number

Sending a Check to Your New Accounts 
Please send checks as follows:

RJ O’Brien Treasury Department
222 South Riverside Plaza
Suite 900
Chicago, IL 60606

Getting Funds from Your MF Global Account
Your cash assets on deposit with MF Global remain frozen there, pending the inquiry of the SIPC Trustee and the bankruptcy court handling MF Global’s Chapter 11 filing.  It is unknown how long it will take for those cash assets to be returned to you.  There are many efforts underway to get a portion of cash assets released to clients.

The most promising effort relates to a motion filed by traders to release a portion of customer funds.  The InterContinental Exchange, known as ICE, filed a letter in support of this motion noting “the grave systematic implications” of the precedent the court is setting in this process.  The motion will be heard by the court on November 22, 2011.  Please find the letter here:

ICE Letter in Support of Motion to Release Funds

BTR Trading Group is working with others in the industry to advocate for the former clients of MF Global.  BTR partner John Roe co-authored a white paper on this matter to provide Congress and non-financial professionals with a clear description of the background, impacts and potential solutions.  Please find it here:

White Paper on MF Global Bankruptcy

We will update this site as soon as we have more information regarding these and other developments.  For more information on what the claims process could look like should efforts to return clients’ funds more quickly fail, please review our notice of November 7, 2011:

BTR Customer Notice November 7, 2011

Clients with Bounced Checks from MF Global
Some clients requested checks or wire transfers in the days and weeks leading up to MF Global’s collapse.  Some clients received checks that bounced, while others received no checks or wire transfers, yet their account with MF Global show deductins for the checks or transfers.  It is our understanding that MF Global is in the process of crediting those funds back to the segregated fund accounts of their rightful owners.  If your account was so affected, please email slane@mfglobal.com with your account number and amount of the check or wire transfer.

Should you have any questions at all, please do not hesitate to call us at 800-453-4474 or email info@btrtrading.com.

Regards,

BTR Trading Group
info@btrtrading.com
800-453-4474

BTR Client Notice – November 7, 2011

Dear Clients and Associates,

BTR Trading Group (“BTR”) had a conference call today with an attorney for the Securities Investment Protection Corporation (“SIPC”) handling the Securities Investors Protection Act (“SIPA”) liquidation proceeding for MF Global, Inc (“MFG”). The attorney spelled out how this proceeding would handle the recovery and distribution of customer assets now frozen in MFG accounts.

We understand that there is a lawsuit being filed to separate SIPC from this matter and directly petition the bankruptcy court for the immediate release of MFG customer segregated funds.  Should this lawsuit be successful, funds may be available sooner than they will be under the SIPA proceeding.  If this lawsuit is unsuccessful, BTR understands that customer assets will flow through the SIPA proceeding now underway.  We wanted to advise clients of how this proceeding is likely to progress.

In the next week or so, the Trustee for the SIPA proceeding will petition the bankruptcy court for a set of procedures to govern the bankruptcy claim filing process. Claims will then be mailed out to MFG customers and notice of the claims process will be published in various newspapers.  This will open the window of time for claims to be filed, normally six months in length.  The assets of MF Global, Inc. will essentially be divided into four parts:

Click to Enlarge

Claims will be divided into three parts:  futures customers, securities customers and general creditors.  During the claims process, the Trustee will establish the validity of customer claims, the shortfall of customer segregated funds (if any) and then determine the haircut that clients will have to accept.  Funds will then be distributed on a pro-rata basis to all customers with valid claims.  During the claim period, it is possible that a partial distribution of customer assets will occur.  That would likely be 60% of assets or less, to provide a cushion in the event liabilities exceed the General Estate and the Fund of Customer Property has to pay the administrative fees for the SIPA proceeding.

It is our understanding that it will take one to two weeks for the claims process to be established.  Then it will take three to six months for the claims to be processed.  During that time, a partial distribution may or may not occur.  We will keep clients apprised of the bankruptcy progress and the dispensation of their assets.

BTR is in the process of establishing trading operations with Rosenthal Collins Group (“RCG”).  In the coming days, clients will be able to resume trading with new assets.  We will inform clients as soon as accounts are ready to trade at RCG.

We thank you for your patience and understanding in this matter.  We remain committed to the maximum recovery of client assets and the continuation of trading operations.  Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Regards,

BTR Trading Group
info@btrtrading.com
800-453-4474