The fund was highly leveraged to a sector that is routinely highly volatile, and there appeared to be a breakdown of risk monitoring within the firm that allowed its position to grow as large as it did.
"We are fully committed to working within a risk and compliance framework that protects our customers' and our firm's assets, " FCStone CEO Sean O'Connor said in a statement.
Chief among these are that access rights should be reviewed in conjunction with business managers at some regular interval (quarterly or monthly, depending on your risk disposition), anytime someone undergoes a significant role transfer within a firm, and most importantly when someone leaves a firm.