SAVE THE DATE FOR A QWAFAFEW AND PRMIA JOINT MEETING ON WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13th. The 46th meeting of Chicago QWAFAFEW (Quantitative Work Alliance for Applied Finance, Education & Wisdom) will be held on WEDNESDAY, February 13th, from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m. at the members lounge of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE), 400 South LaSalle Street, Chicago. The meeting is sponsored by Chicago QWAFAFEW, Chicago PRMIA (Professional Risk Managers' International Association) and the Structured Products Association (SPA). Four financial experts will discuss the topic “Options in 2008 - Tools to Navigate More Volatile Markets” The four panelists will be: (1) Mr. Jason Ungar, Director, at Ansbacher Investment Management in New York City. Jason specializes in the development and implementation of short volatility strategies designed to meet the needs of institutional clients. (2) Mr. Jon Yalmokas, Managing Director, UBS in Stamford, CT. Jon is Head of Flow Derivative Sales, Americas, and he has spent the last 12 years in trading and sales roles in equity derivatives. (3) Mr. Jon Najarian, cofounder of optionMONSTER in Chicago. “Dr. J” is a noted media analyst and speaker who appears daily on First Business Television, hosts a CBS Radio show, and webcasts twice daily on CBOE-TV. (4) Mr. Joe Cusick, Vice President of Education for optionsXpress in Chicago, a firm that services more than 250,000 self-directed investors, and that was named Best Online Broker by Barron's in four of the last five years. Mr. Matthew Moran of the CBOE will serve as moderator for the meeting. Trading volume on the U.S. options exchanges rose 41 percent in 2007, and more volatility in early 2008 is leading to new options volume records. Here are some of the questions that will be posed to the panelists -- -- In light of the fact that implied volatility and the volatility indexes have more than doubled over the past twelve months, how can investors and traders benefit from these big moves? -- Can investors achieve superior risk-adjusted returns with a collateralized put selling strategy as reflected by the CBOE S&P 500 PutWrite Index (PUT)? -- How are hedge funds using correlation trades and equity derivatives to add value in today's markets? -- What types of profits can be achieved with trading applications used to identify unusual activity in stock, options, and futures markets? -- Which options strategies and tools are popular with online self-directed investors in 2008? Admission is $10 in advance (or $15 at the door) with snacks and drinks provided. ********************************************************************* Other Professional Group Events in Chicago CREDIT RISK ANALYSIS, MITIGATION & TRANSFERENCE February 28 and 29, 2008 20 South Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL 60606 The Fred Arditti Center for Risk Management at DePaul University and the Professional Risk Managers’ International Association (PRMIA) are presenting a conference on credit risk. The conference is part of the PRMIA Global Event Series, which PRMIA is launching in February 2008. The conference is co-sponsored by the CME Trust and Mesirow Financial. The major theme of this conference is credit risk, in particular, its analysis, mitigation and transference.
The conference will be held in the auditorium of the CME Group in Chicago at 20 South Wacker Drive. Conference registration will open at 7:30 A.M. and the conference will begin at 8:30 A.M. on Thursday, Feb. 28. The conference will end at 3:15 P.M. on Friday, Feb. 29. The deadline for registrations is Thursday, Feb. 21, 2008. Space is limited. ********************************************************************* Chicago QWAFAFEW’s Steering Committee members are as follows (in alphabetical order): · Mr. Sanjay Arya, Morningstar; · Mr. Keith Black, Ennis Knupp + Associates; · Mr. Adam Cohen, Zacks Investment Research; · Dr. Michele Gambera, Ibbotson Associates; · Mr. Matthew Moran, CBOE; · Mr. Ranga Nathan, InvestMatrix; · Mr. David O’Brochta, UBS; A list of past meetings and their presentations appears in the Chicago section of the QWAFAFEW website,
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