Pan-American Forex Assembly Kicks Off In Washington, DC

Forex USA's third bi-annual Pan-American conference is running with the winning combination of speakers and panel discussions featured at last year's senior dealers' seminar. So far, about 110 delegates have registered for the conference, which is being held in Washington, DC, at the Mayflower Hotel and runs October 10-13 and features a trade show of 10 vendors showing their products.

The business sessions start on Friday with a presentation by John Bohn, former president of Moody's Investors Service, who will speak about how rating agencies work. He also plans to shed some light on why Moody's considered reducing its ratings on US debt and why the idea was later rejected.

The first of the conference's two panel discussions is dubbed simply "North America" and takes place at mid-morning. John Finnigan, managing director of Bankers Trust and chairman of the Federal Reserve's FX Committee, will discuss the region from a banking perspective.

Meanwhile, the other panellists include John Taylor, president of FX Concepts, representing the money manager's perspective, and David Jones, chief economist at Aubrey Lanston, will look at interest rates and the Federal Reserve. Tim Scala, president of Treasury Resources Consulting & Investigating (TRCI), is moderating.

The lunch presentation will be delivered by Jim Rogers, president of Jim Rogers Holdings, who will give his views on the economy and interest rates.

The afternoon session includes a joint presentation and discussion of Latin America. Jonathon Davis, treasurer of Mexico, will parley his views on the Mexican economy and explain the steps taken since the North American Free Trade Agreement. Paul Carroll, chief of the Mexican Bureau of the Wall Street Journal will also discuss the Mexican economy, as well as other Latin American economies.

Friday's programme ends with a speech by keynote speaker, former vice president of the US and current member of FX Concepts, Dan Quayle. Quayle will be speaking about the present political climate and its effects on the economy.

On Saturday, an interactive panel discussion on the future of foreign exchange trading is being revived from last year's conference at Key Biscayne.

"It is a subject matter that is of primary concern in our industry today," says Geoffrey Gowey, president of Forex meeting planners. "It's the subject of discussion between anyone in the industry at this present time and by bringing it into focus we can help each other out, as is our duty to do, in order to come to some sort of consensus regarding the issue."

Two of last year's panellists will be back "to take up where we left off," says Gowey. These include David Puth, Chase Manhattan Bank's managing director in charge of FX and derivatives, representing the money centre side of the panel, and Jamie Thorsen, Bank of Montreal's senior vice president and global head of FX, looks at the topic from a foreign bank perspective.

The new addition to the panel is Chris Kelson, chief executive of Lasser Marshall, representing the brokerage side. Ken Jingozian, chief operating officer of TRCI, will again be moderating this panel.

Robert Tum-Suden of the Forex planners group says the association decided to largely repeat last year's line-up because it didn't feel attendance was up to par and wanted delegates to have another chance to hear an "outstanding audience participation panel discussion".

The panel discussion has also been extended to three hours this year because of the enthusiasm shown by last year's delegates, he says.

This year's vendors include: Citibank; the Chicago Mercantile Exchange; Docupro; Dow Jones Telerate; the EBS Partnership; Market News Service; MCM; Reuters; Trade Point of America; and Trinitech.

The event closes on Saturday with a gala event, and on Sunday there will be an optional golf outing.