Trading
Quick, look busy! Here comes Mifid
Chip Lowry , senior managing director of State Street Global Link in Europe, looks at what Mifid will mean for the foreign exchange industry
Banks team up to launch benchmark currency indexes
LONDON & FRANKFURT – Deutsche Bank, UBS and Barclays Capital have signed up with iBoxx to launch currency indexes that they say will act as an industry-wide benchmark.
Forex fraudster fined $29 million and jailed
WASHINGTON DC & SAN DIEGO – The owner of a forex trading company has been fined $29 million and imprisoned for defrauding.
Reuters cuts EM options brokerage fees in half
LONDON – Reuters' decision to revamp its FX options matching system has increased competition for e-broking of options, with the prospect of slashed brokerage fees.
Dollar pressure is a boost for Citigroup
Citigroup has topped this week's one-month forecast rankings on the back of recent dollar weakness.
US options volume may break two billion
Chicago-based Options Industry Council (OIC) has reported both total US options volume and average daily options volume have increased by 36%.
History calls for caution on Kiwi
History suggests we may see one last squeeze higher over Christmas for the kiwi, says Rhiannon Healy, solutions specialist for ANZ in London
LiquidityHub hires chief executive, pooling banks' resources
Robert MacLeod has been made chief executive of London-based LiquidityHub, a venture that aims to electronically pool the fixed-income liquidity of 11 investment banks.
Four more currencies for JP Morgan
JP Morgan has added the forint, Czech koruna, zloty and rand to its electronic interest rate swaps trading platform.
The mixed blessings of co-operation
Co-operation in the foreign exchange industry has generally tended to bolster the market.
Citigroup launches Islamic finance products in Singapore
SINGAPORE – Citigroup has launched commodity murabaha investments denominated in the US dollar, euro, pound sterling and Singapore dollar.
TwoFour connects to FXall
Technology vendor TwoFour Systems last week teamed up with multi-bank portal FXall to offer its clients access to prices directly through its own trading platform.
More regional differentiation in 2007, says Société Générale CIBM
Expect more regional differentiation next year, said Adrian Hughes, currency strategist at Société Générale CIBM (Corporate and Investment Bank) in London.
Citigroup and GSB sign memo of understanding
BANGKOK – Government Savings Bank (GSB), Thailand's state bank, has signed a memorandum of understanding with Citigroup in Thailand to start an international banking business that will launch in the first part of next year.
Asia focus for Bank Julius Baer
ZURICH & SINGAPORE – Bank Julius Baer is understood to be transferring Fred Etheart from Zurich to Singapore, where he will develop an institutional foreign exchange sales desk.
ASIA PACIFIC NEWS: ABN Amro pays $4.5m settlement in Vietnam forex trading case
HANOI – Dutch bank ABN Amro has paid $4.5 million to police to settle a dispute over allegations by the Vietnamese government that its traders broke FX trading regulations.
FXall in ruble push
MOSCOW – Multibank platform FXall has added five liquidity providing banks to bolster trading in the Russian ruble.
Strong activity continues as dollar slides
GLOBAL – Last week again saw big moves in the major currency pairs as traders capitalised on a weaker dollar to make much-needed trading gains.
More top changes at BoA
LONDON & NEW YORK – Bank of America (BoA) is undertaking a further restructuring of its senior FX management team, as the bank seeks to drive its growth to the next level.
Algo trading to double, says Eurex
CHICAGO – "The rise in activity of algorithmic traders is impressive, and it's changing the nature of electronic trading," said Andreas Preuss, chief executive of Eurex.
Icap switches voice brokers
LONDON – Icap is moving resources from the major currencies into emerging markets, as the interdealer broker acts to reflect the changed FX landscape.
Dresdner rebuilds forex team
LONDON & NEW YORK – Dresdner Kleinwort (DK) has made three senior hires as it rebuilds it FX team after a series of departures to Merrill Lynch in September and October.