Trading
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.
OCBC cashes in on Asian DCR growth
SINGAPORE - OCBC Bank expects to see 20% growth in its dual currency returns (DCR) business in Singapore next year, following implementation of a structured deposit pricing and processing system from FinIQ, said bank officials.
SEB rises as commodities plummet
STOCKHOLM - Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB) topped this week's one-month currency forecasts rankings with expectations that falling commodity prices would positively affect the greenback.
Lehman's fall leads to liquidity drought
GLOBAL - Heightened concerns over counterparty credit risk caused a dry-up of liquidity in the currency markets last week, as dealers feared a domino effect from the collapse of Lehman Brothers on Sunday, September 14.
Volatility pushes up prices for short-dated forex options
LONDON - Short-dated foreign exchange option prices have skyrocketed as liquidity in the derivatives market dried up amid turbulent market conditions last week.
Fenics Enterprise takes off
NEW YORK & LONDON - GFI is today (September 22) announcing the launch of Fenics Enterprise through Fenics FX 11.1, the latest version of its pricing and risk management software.
FX clearing house fails
NEW YORK - An emergency third-party information clearing house established to facilitate the unwinding of open foreign exchange positions has been abandoned a day and a half after its Sept 14 launch, market sources tell FX Week .
JP Morgan replaces AIG on Currenex
NEW YORK - JP Morgan replaced AIG as the central clearer on Currenex's anonymous trading platform on September 17.
Norges holds emergency swap auction
OSLO - The Norwegian central bank stepped in on September 16 to kick-start the local money market with an emergency issue of dollar-krone swaps totaling a notional value of $5 billion.
RealStream Margin introduces forex newsfeeds
LONDON - Cognotec went live with a newsfeed feature on its web-based margin trading system RealStream Margin last month, in response to client demand for market intelligence.