Trading
GFT deepens footprint in London
LONDON - GFT is expanding its London presence, with two hires in the city.
New Fortex FX v5 cuts trade times
REDWOOD SHORES, CALIFORNIA - Multi-asset trading platform vendor Fortex has released its fifth version of Fortex FX, which cuts average roundtrip trade times to five milliseconds from 40 while supporting 500 trades per second.
Citi's Alpha trumps Beta
LONDON - Citi's Alpha 1 foreign exchange investable index is outrunning its Beta 1 counterpart, as the market looks at more sophisticated investment strategies to mitigate risk amid heightened volatility.
Dealers report liquidity still 'patchy'
LONDON & HONG KONG - Global foreign exchange markets continued to suffer from lapses in liquidity in another week plagued by turmoil in the financial markets.
RBS launches new forex index
LONDON - RBS launched FX Radar Index, an automated index linked to 20 emerging market currencies, on October 1.
US meltdown spurs central clearer debate
LONDON & NEW YORK - The fallout from the collapse of Lehman Brothers and implosion of insurance company AIG has spurred renewed debate over the central-counterparty model for spot foreign exchange, as concerns over counterparty risk take centre stage.
IG buys 87.5% of FXOnline Japan
TOKYO - IG Group, a London-based spread-betting company is acquiring an 87.5% stake worth about $207 million in Tokyo-based margin foreign exchange trading company FXOnline Japan.
Icap's NDFs trading down but not out
SINGAPORE - Current market volatility is hurting non-deliverable forwards (NDF) trading on Icap's electronic spot-broking system EBS, but the broker is optimistic about the development of this market.
Forex hedging up in US
NEW YORK - Foreign exchange hedging ratios for 2009 year-end by US corporates reached historic levels in the third quarter, as companies sought to cover rising risk from the US dollar's upturn.
Margin FX boss Pryor leaves Cantor
LONDON - Steve Pryor, formerly director of margin foreign exchange at Cantor Fitzgerald Europe in London, has left the company.
WisdomTree adds EM ETFs
NEW YORK - WisdomTree, a New York-based guarantor, is set to introduce 25 new currency exchange-traded funds (ETFs), with a focus on emerging market currencies, as it continues to deepen its footprint in this market.
EM currencies will weather the storm
LONDON - Analysts at Barings and State Street Global Advisors (SSgA) expect emerging market (EM) currencies to continue on a trajectory of strength, despite suffering bouts of weaknesses amid the current market turmoil.
Lloyds banks on slow eurozone growth
A bearish view of the euro based on shrinking eurozone growth pushed Lloyds TSB to the top slot of this week's three-month currency forecasts rankings.
OTP in USD/RUB first
MOSCOW - OTP Bank conducted its first USD/RUB trade as a market maker on LavaFX last Monday (September 22), with Dresdner Kleinwort as its prime broker.
Senior Lehman Brothers Asia staff keep their bonuses
HONG KONG - Nomura has agreed to guarantee the 2008 cash bonuses of at least 300 of Lehman Brothers' senior managing directors and vice-presidents in Asia working in fixed income, structured products and credit, said industry sources.
JPM offers new FX platform
LONDON - JP Morgan last week launched MorganDirect, a new proprietary foreign exchange trading platform that will eventually replace the incumbent JPex system.
EPFR tests EM forex flows
BOSTON - Fund flows data vendor EPFR Global is testing a new dataset that shows money flows into and out of emerging market (EM) and global currencies.
FXPB versus CCP put to the test
With concern over counterparty credit risk at such elevated levels, some question what this will ultimately mean for the smaller banks out in the market-place.
Barclays launches forex trend index
LONDON - Barclays Capital launched the Barclays Adaptive FX Trend Index last week, the latest in its range of investable foreign exchange indexes.
NAB grows structured products in Asia
SINGAPORE - National Australia Bank's investment bank, nabCapital, has hired Peter Zeitsch as a director to build a structured products business in Singapore.
Strong Q3 for Goldman and Morgan Stanley
LONDON - Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley revealed strong third-quarter performances for their currencies operations, despite analysts casting doubt over the future of both businesses as standalone investment banks.
UniCredit hires in HK, loses in NY
HONG KONG - UniCredit has hired Danny Khoo in a senior position at its spot desk in Hong Kong.
Wacker joins JP Morgan
LONDON - JP Morgan is understood to have strengthened its senior foreign exchange salesforce in London by recruiting a former sales head from Dutch rival ABN Amro.