
Choppy markets revive quest for RFQ’s ‘magic number’
Deutsche argues for smaller, stronger panels; Citi offers better prices for 'full amount' trades

According to De La Soul’s 1990 hip-hop smash, the magic number was three – “no more, no less”, the group insisted. But for buy side foreign exchange traders, the optimum number of dealers to approach for a price may be as low as one, or higher than 10 – an old debate that’s gaining a new edge in pandemic-struck trading.
The argument for a higher number is that dealers have to give a better price if they want to win. Dealers contest this, arguing no-one wants to win a trade if a mob of losing
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