STATISTICS

The Royal Bank of Scotland reports a 6 per cent increase in dealing profits for the fiscal year-ended September 30 to £117 million ($189 million) from £110 million ($172 million) a year ago. Dealing profits comprise foreign exchange and arbitrage trading income, profits and losses on sales of debt securities and mark to market adjustment on debt securities held before charging funding costs and operating expenses of these activities. Earnings were converted into US dollars using the exchange rate on September 30, 1997 of 1.6180 and on September 30, 1996, of 1.5650. Rates were provided by Reuters.

Matif reports three-month Pibor contracts totalled 742,823 contracts during November and the daily average reached 41,268 contracts. Open interest at month-end stood at 273,208 positions. Volume in Pibor options totalled 110,386 contracts and daily average reached 6,133 contracts. Open interest at month-end stood at 258,292 positions. No currency options were traded during the period, but open interest at month-end stood at 795 positions. Globex volume reached 408,967 contracts or 43.2 per cent of the system's November total. Daily trading on Globex averaged 52,572 contracts including 22,720 Matif contracts.

The Tass Flash Report shows that currency managers were the top performers for November, measured by Tass Management's index. "The volatility in world currency markets provided managers with ample opportunities last month," says Nicola Meaden, chief executive at Tass Management. "Once again, it was the quantitatively oriented traders who seemed to capture the moves best. Overall, November was a reasonably good month." The top performer for the month was Dunn Capital World Monetary Assets Program with a 9.8 per cent return, followed by Friedberg Currency Only Trading Program with a 9.0 per cent return and Dean Witter Composite Foreign Currency with a 8.45 per cent return. The Tass Flash Report follows the performance of 79 futures and currency management programs, each with a minimum of $45 million under management. The Tass Flash universe totals approximately $15 billion in assets under management.

The Bank of Japan reports average daily dollar/yen turnover for the week ended December 5 totalled $13.06 billion, down from the $14.85 billion reported the prior week ended November 28. Average daily dollar/mark turnover for the same period also fell, to $3.52 billion versus $4.27 billion. The figures for the previous week reflect only four days of trading due to a holiday on November 24.