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Small M&A deals are predicted to boost derivative exchange business in the coming months.
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Chicago is pre-empting threats to high-speed trading.
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An increase in electronic trading during 2011 has contributed to new records for CME Group.
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Technology news from Trading Technologies, Cinnober, SunGard, Exegy and ISE.
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This week's new appointments at CBOE, EEX, the SEC and Hong Kong Securities Institute.
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FOWi's analysis of global trading volumes in November.
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Good symbol management and interoperability can promote competition in both buy and sell side services, explains Mark Woolfenden.
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In 2002, almost as many equity and index options were traded in Europe as in the US. Europe had 12 markets, the US five. Now, the US market is three times as big as Europe’s. Many believe the difference is that while the US industry has moved with the times and become more competitive, Europe’s has changed little. As David Wigan reports, both the incumbents and new entrants want to innovate – but have to struggle with an entrenched structure of isolated exchanges.
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Magnus Böcker, chief executive of the Singapore Exchange, today (January 18) insisted the bourse had not contemplated altering the terms of its merger with the Australian Securities Exchange, despite rising opposition from Australia.
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Read FOi's weekly research report on December volumes at the world's exchanges in interest rate and currency futures and options. Or download our comprehensive report with graphs and tables.
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PHLX, the US options platform owned by Nasdaq OMX, shot to the top of the rankings in US options trading in December. But how much of this is due to dividend arbitrage trading – large market makers placing lots of call orders in the run-up to a company declaring its dividend?
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November’s global derivatives trading volumes were dominated, in sheer numbers terms, by the huge and surprising surge in Kospi 200 Options trading.
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Trading figures are still filtering in from derivatives exchanges around the world but it is already clear that 2010 was a record year for trading around the world – and by a mile.
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The power derivatives market is unlike most other derivatives markets. Some of the reasons for this stem from its fragmented nature, as infrastructures and fundamentals vary widely between EU member states. Siân Williams casts light on this fragmented and complex commodity market and asks if consolidation is on the cards – and what has been keeping it for so long.
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Rising markets capture the attention of many market participants – excited by the possibilities of profiting from new opportunities. The Middle Eastern derivatives exchanges launched with much celebration. However, the conditions for exaggerated growth seemingly vanished when the global financial crisis hit in 2008. Despite the region being rich in natural resources, it was not immune to the global financial crisis. Colin Packham investigates the development of the Middle East futures and options market, examining the impact of the global recession, the proposed enhanced exchange landscape, and the prospects for the region.
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ELX Futures has written to the Securities and Exchange Commission to protest against some of the proposed rules governing New York Portfolio Clearing. The exchange, which is trying to break into the US interest rate futures market in competition with CME Group, is now worried about competition from NYSE Liffe US.
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The commodities boom, the Indian FX wonder, the remarkable reopening of Chinese financial derivatives, Brazil, colocation, OTC clearing, algo trading, movie futures, dividend futures – early 2010 wasn’t short of action. The second half of the year, however, focused mostly on regulation. The US marched ahead with Dodd-Frank, the EU is following, but the outcome for the industry is still unclear. Mareen Goebel looks back over a busy 2010 and asks leading industry professionals what they expect from the year to come.
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The Commodity Futures Trading Commission yesterday (December 16) delayed an expected vote on its proposal to limit the number of open positions a trading firm can hold in commodity derivatives.
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Hans-Bernd Menzel, the European Energy Exchange’s chief executive, has said that although market coupling is a step in the right direction towards European power market integration, the system as it stands is too complex.
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The Securities and Exchange Commission released on Wednesday December 15 a proposal to allow end users of security-based swaps an exemption from clearing requirements under the Dodd-Frank Act.
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The VXX exchange-traded note, which aims to track futures on the CBOE Volatility Index, has more than $1bn of investors’ cash. But if you put $100 in at the beginning, you’d struggle to pay for a round of cappucinos with what’s left. That’s why the wires have been humming with bile about the product. Theo Casey dons his judge’s wig and tries to give it a fair trial.
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The Singapore Exchange’s FTSE Xinhua China A50 future has soared in popularity over the past four months and could become “absolutely huge”, according to one head of futures in Singapore.
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Execution Noble, the stockbroker-turned-investment bank that has just merged with Banco Espírito Santo de Investimento, has an unusual model for its derivatives business. Nick Tranter, head of derivatives, explains the strategy to Jon Hay and outlines some of the firm’s plans for growth.
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The most hotly contested part of FOW's 2010 Awards was those for IT and Software companies. We split the Awards into four categories, each of which received many entries: Trading and Execution, Options, Connectivity Services and Risk Management. Read Tom Osborn's full reports.
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Is bringing liquidity to a stilted market the definition of financial innovation? Read full reports on the best derivatives-related innovations by banks, brokers and FCMs, and by law firms.
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High frequency trading has soared in Asia, but the trading method has been under the regulatory spotlight in recent months because of its role in the 'flash crash' of May 6 in the US markets. Mike Gilbert, Newedge’s global head of professional trading groups, explains to FOi what’s driving the growth in Asian algorithmic trading, which countries are next for expansion, and what the fallout from US regulatory intervention entails.
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In 2009 ICE Trust swept the board in FOW's Awards for Best Innovations by Clearing Houses. This year it was the turn of other firms. Read our full reports here.
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The innovations made by exchanges in 2009-10 that most impressed our judges, from US interest rates to agricultural markets in India. Clearing, risk management and new products are all commended. Read our full reports on the innovations of the year.
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Regulations proposed in the consultation paper on the EU’s Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (Mifid) are likely to have a serious impact on algorithmic trading, which is one of the strongest sources of growth for many derivatives exchanges.
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The drive for mandatory exchange trading of standardised derivatives means the major exchanges will be the biggest beneficiaries of the MiFID review, a senior London-based consultant told FOi on Thursday December 9.
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The leak of a European Commission report may “make the Commission’s position significantly weaker” when it comes to getting proposed derivatives regulation voted into law, according to Anthony Belchambers, chief executive of the Futures and Options Association.
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The London Stock Exchange Group has received permission from Consob, the Italian markets regulator, to launch international single stock futures on the Italian Derivatives Exchange Market. The new products are ready for launch, and will go live in the coming months.
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The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has approved draft rules that would require market participants to report swap transactions in “real time”, while block trades of standardised swaps executed at an exchange would need to be reported within 15 minutes of being executed.
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C2, the new US options platform owned by the Chicago Board Options Exchange, has yet to match its rivals' trading volumes, but activity in recent days hints that the new entrant could soon step up to the mark.
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Febraban, the Brazilian banking federation, has launched a voluntary registration system for companies to report their outstanding derivatives positions, with the information made available to the country’s banks.
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Comissão de Valores Mobiliários, the Brazilian regulator, is set to pass a directive next month that should make it easier for banks to market OTC credit derivatives to retail investors.
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New York Portfolio Clearing has said there is no need for the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission to delay its decision on whether NYPC can be registered as a derivatives clearing organisation.
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The Dodd-Frank Act is a paradise for lawyers – but not for ordinary mortals, argues Philip McBride Johnson. A nasty trap lies waiting for firms that help process swap transactions. Meanwhile, CCPs are getting a bashing in the press.
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To cope with today’s fast-evolving market, exchanges regularly upgrade their technology. Tanzeel Akhtar examines the challenges and opportunities exchanges face when overhauling their systems. How good are they at making these decisions and handling transitions and what could they do to improve?
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Managing currency as a source of alternative alpha as well as for the purpose of risk management has come to the forefront of investors’ minds over the last 10 years. As businesses continue to grow across borders, managing the risk associated with currency has taken on a more central role. The retail sector has also taken note. Elise Coroneos reports.
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ELX Futures has pleaded with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to conduct a six month review into New York Portfolio Clearing, saying it has concerns that NYSE Euronext’s planned clearing house contravenes US competition law in several ways.
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The Singapore Exchange’s metals futures, settled against prices from the London Metal Exchange, could prove popular in Asia, as a side-effect of the booming demand for metals in the region.
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Singapore Exchange recently became the latest exchange to offer a clearing service for interest rate swaps, but with LCH.Clearnet enjoying a commanding position in the market, it will not be easy to break in. However, Muthukrishnan Ramaswami, president of SGX, tells Colin Packham why the exchange’s AsiaClear service will fulfil a need, even though Asian countries have not mandated clearing, and why interoperability is just a matter of time.
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Europe has come a step closer to unifying its electricity market with the joint launch of the Central West European price market coupling and Central West European-Nordic tight volume coupling on November 9.
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RFQ-hub, the multi-dealer platform for listed and OTC derivatives, is selling a minority stake to Deutsche Börse, hoping to gain “neutral investment with the benefit of operational synergies”.
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Central and eastern Europe’s derivative markets are patchy. With liquidity scarce, it makes sense to pool it. Warsaw Stock Exchange thinks it should be the hub – but Wiener Börse has acquired three CEE exchanges and wants to unify their markets. Which market has the most credible claim to be the regional champion? Mareen Goebel reports.
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Intercontinental Exchange will scale down the Chicago Climate Exchange in 2011, the exchange’s chief executive officer has said. Jeff Sprecher said ICE had decided to downsize its US carbon exchange because momentum to introduce a mandatory cap and trade scheme in the US had slowed.
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ELX Futures, the exchange offering US interest rate futures in competition with CME Group, has completed a capital increase in recent days.
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The big mover among commodities contracts in September was the Zhengzhou Commodity Exchange's Cotton No 1 Future, whose volume quintupled from the previous month, shattering all records.
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This week’s launch of a new multilateral trading facility for cleared contracts for difference could be the first step in a big shake-up of the futures markets, as CFDs emerge as an increasingly important tool for institutional investors.
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The Securities and Exchange Board of India has said exchanges will be permitted to offer European-style stock options, as an alternative to the already permitted American-style options. However, each exchange must offer only one kind of option, not both.
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Newedge is one of the leading futures brokers in Asia, but is not satisfied with that position. Laurent Cunin, who took over as Asia Pacific head in January, tells Colin Packham how he plans to grow the business and what areas he will be hiring in.
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The king of US interest rate futures, CME Group, has faced down a string of pretenders to its crown in recent years. Now a new array of rivals is arming for battle. As David Wigan discovers, CME shows no sign of being worried – but this time the uprising may be a lot more serious.
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SwapClear’s chief executive Michael Davie has said that hype surrounding the competition to provide services for interest rate swaps has been blown out of proportion.
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Europe has a listed derivatives market and an OTC one. But there’s a third, vibrant and highly profitable sector: retail contracts for difference. Simon Brown of Cambridge Quants argues that the historic separation of this market owes more to cultural divides than rationality. More importantly, these markets are about to merge. It could lead to one of the biggest shake-ups in financial derivatives since trading began.
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CME Group’s long-awaited move into interest rate swaps clearing finally went live this week, as it began clearing over-the-counter contracts through CME Clearing House.
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Asia’s derivatives success story is one that has long captivated traders from the US and Europe. Keen to gain access to the liquidity of some of the world’s most actively traded contracts, players from the US and Europe have often been left frustrated by regulatory restrictions which prevent access to international participants.
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After US options trading set a new record in May, June has been quieter, with 311.2m contracts cleared by the Options Clearing Corporation – 2% less than in June 2009 and 23% down from the 405.9m traded in May.
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May was a record month for the global futures and options markets – and by a huge margin. Now that nearly all derivatives exchanges have reported their trading volumes, FOi’s database reports that 2.204bn contracts changed hands in the month.
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The time for dire predictions is over. Over the counter derivative specialists are now soberly getting to grips with a new US regulatory regime. The rules are still not fully formed, but their shape is becoming clear. As Elise Coroneos reports, some market experts still think the law likely to be passed by Congress is too intrusive, while others relish the opportunities it will bring. All, however, are privately working out how to live with it.
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Proprietary trading carries its own risks and rewards. But do the risks – and returns – look different from 31 floors up Dubai’s Jumeirah Lake Towers? Tom Osborn meets Middle Eastern trading arcade, the Dubai Professional Trading Group.
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Czarnikow, the world's largest sugar merchant, has today (February 16) raised its forecast for a global sugar deficit for the 2009/2010 growing season.
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NYSE Euronext has announced bullish trading volumes for January, as well as better financial results for 2009.
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Gauging how many derivatives staff lost their jobs in the financial crisis, and what effect that had on pay is not easy, as many firms do not give separate figures. Hugo Cox discovers that while there were certainly some redundancies and depressed pay, some segments of the market have remained bullish. Specialists are even forecasting a big rise in bonuses for this quarter.
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With the launch of Singapore Exchange’s Fuel Oil Futures just days away, market participants have told Futures and Options Intelligence that the Asian bourse could succeed where two others have tried and failed.
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The US derivatives market is set to stage a strong recovery in 2010, thanks to a renewed corporate focus on risk management and a recovery in long term interest rate futures, a report by markets research firm Tabb Group argues today.
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When planning FOW’s awards for innovation, we felt it was only right to consider the regulators – a category of market participant that probably bulks larger in the futures and options world than it does in many other areas of financial services.
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The oil price rollercoaster of 2008 was a frightening ride for Mexico, the world’s sixth biggest crude producer, where oil revenues make up nearly 40% of public sector income.
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IntercontinentalExchange has scooped both prizes for clearing houses in FOW’s Awards for Innovation 2009, while its legal adviser Shearman & Sterling has taken the law firm Award.
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FOW, the parent publication of FOi, is beginning to reveal the results of its Awards for Innovation 2009. Over the next week on FOi, the Awards for Exchanges, Clearing Houses and Law Firms will be published. Then in December, the Awards for Banks, Brokers and FCMs and for IT and Software Companies will be declared.
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NYSE Liffe has told Futures and Options Intelligence that it will list two and five year Gilt futures “as soon as possible”.
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Does it make sense that less than a year after CME Group was forced to close FXMarketSpace – an aggressive move to expand its foreign exchange business – it is trying to prise open the market again? Michael Halls investigates.
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John Mathias has resigned as chief business officer at the Singapore Mercantile Exchange, less than a year after joining the soon-to-be-opened bourse.
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The evolution of the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism is likely to pave the way for more trading products, but it would be best to avoid fragmentation in the market, participants have told Futures and Options Intelligence.
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With international trade of nearly 900m tonnes a year, iron ore is one of the biggest bulk commodities in the world that is not traded on exchanges. Only recently has the market’s established pricing system come under strain, hastening the dawn of derivatives. Agnieszka Troszkiewicz looks at the nascent iron ore swap market, prospects for growth, and perhaps eventually a listed futures market.
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Intercontinental Exchange has dismissed CME Group’s plan for introducing hard single exchange position limits in energy commodities.
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CME Group has intervened in the debate about controlling energy speculation by publishing a detailed paper on the merits of imposing position limits. The 14 page document is at once a tactical retreat and a vigorous defence of CME’s view that speculation is entirely beneficial to markets.
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Thomson Reuters has entered the equity index market for the first time with a global range of 800 equity indices, intended to help investors monitor global markets, benchmark specific countries, regions, and sectors, and develop investment vehicles.
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Tokyo Commodity Exchange has unveiled a series of initiatives, including a remote membership programme, designed to propel it to the status of “primary derivatives exchange in Asia”.
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Singapore Mercantile Exchange intends to go live for trading before the end of 2009. John Mathias, chief business officer at SMX, told Futures and Options Intelligence that the exchange would launch its suite of commodity contracts before the end of the year.
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Bill Brodsky, chairman of the World Federation of Exchanges, has hammered home his view that regulators must cooperate and harmonise rules, both domestically and internationally.
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Tightening regulation of commodity futures is no simple matter, warned market leaders on Thursday September 10 at the Swiss Futures and Options Association’s annual conference in Interlaken.
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NYSE Euronext Liffe is looking overseas for growth, senior executives emphasised at a dinner they hosted in Interlaken during the Swiss Futures and Options Association’s annual conference.
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Other derivative markets have faltered in 2009, but carbon trading has gone right on booming. Participants are enthusiastic about the EU market, which is set to flourish. But the real challenge is to implement these ideas elsewhere – first in the US and then the wider world. As Siân Williams reports, the specialist firms are eager to start, but there will be no market until politicians, industry and the public overcome their fears.
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Bolsa Mexicana de Valores, the owner of Mercado Mexicano de Derivados (MexDer), has entered talks with CME Group, which could involve selling a minority stake in the BMV Group to the Chicago exchange. BMV said in a statement today (September 8) that it was conducting discussions of "a preliminary nature".
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The Taiwan Futures Exchange is planning to launch single stock futures in the fourth quarter of this year, Peter Chiu, senior executive vice-president at the exchange, said today (September 8).
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The Futures and Options Association has warned the European Commission that its proposal for reforming derivatives oversight could harm the over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market.
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Intercontinental Exchange has cemented its position as the front runner in providing central counterparty (CCP) clearing for credit default swaps. ICE revealed its US and European clearing houses have cleared more than 24,000 contracts worth $2.2tr. It also announced that BNP Paribas has joined as its 13th member in the US.
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The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission held a joint meeting for the first time ever on Wednesday September 2, under the rubric ‘Harmonisation of Regulation’.
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The London Metal Exchange has reached what it called the “milestone” of $1bn of trades in its Steel Billet Futures since they were launched in February last year.
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Gary Gensler’s hearings on commodity speculation at the CFTC have explored every angle of the subject and shown the world just how little agreement there is about how the markets work. FOi pokes a stick at the hornet’s nest.
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Cetip, Brazil’s clearing house for over-the-counter financial instruments, has revived its plan to sell up to 50% of its capital in an initial public offering.
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Boston Options Exchange has said it will abolish its make or take pricing scheme for options quoted in one-cent increments from September 1. The US exchange said it had decided to eradicate the pricing scheme after it had failed to increase the bourse’s market share.
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A paper criticising the influence of speculators in the oil market has been published by Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.
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Russia has suffered keenly in the global financial turmoil, and its derivatives market – booming until a year ago – is no exception. Volume in some products collapsed almost overnight. But as the world begins to talk of green shoots, is the Russian futures and options market showing signs of recovery? Agnieszka Troszkiewicz discovers that there is plenty of vigour in the market, with new contracts and hopes of regulatory and tax improvements.
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Speculators in futures and options are a much bigger beast than they used to be, but are US regulators right to attack them? Derivative markets depend on this capital, argues Philip McBride Johnson, and if regulators try to classify some participants as less deserving than others, they may just end up tying themselves in knots.
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In the US and Europe, regulators have been quick to seize on central counterparty (CCP) clearing as a solution to some of the frightening risks they perceived in the over-the-counter derivatives markets. But as we draw closer to the moment when crucial decisions are made, Kevin White, lead financial services partner at Ineum Consulting, argues that the authorities should be careful what they wish for.
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Slapping position limits on traders in OTC energy markets would be punishing the innocent, argues Michael Cosgrove of GFI Group. Markets do need to operate under rules, but rules must be based on understanding, he contends – in an article responding to the editorial published by FOi on July 17.
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The Commodity Futures Trading Commission held its third and final hearing on Thursday August 6 on the subject of speculation in commodity markets, with opinion once again divided on the need for position limits.
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Intercontinental Exchange has said it expects to begin clearing single name credit default swaps in September. The announcement came as chairman and CEO Jeff Sprecher said ICE’s rival, CME Group, should not decide position limits that governed the activities of ICE and other exchanges.
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The decade from 1999 to 2009 has been the most remarkable in the derivatives market’s history, with exceptionally fast growth in many markets and product lines. That was brought to a sharp halt in 2008 by the financial slump. But when the crisis eases, can the derivatives market go back to the steep upward path of the past 10 years? Colin Packham investigates.
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Radically different views on how energy markets work and how best to regulate them were aired before the Commodity Futures Trading Commission yesterday (July 28), when the regulator held the first of three hearings to discuss tighter controls on commodity trading.
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Over-the-counter derivatives will become as tightly regulated as exchange-traded products in one of the biggest regulatory reforms in US history, if Gary Gensler, new chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, gets his way.
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Gary Gensler, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, told the US Senate yesterday (July 21) that the “continued lack of convergence” between cash and futures prices for wheat was “unacceptable”.
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The Tel Aviv Stock Exchange is considering launching options on Israeli government bonds, and is talking to the Treasury about the project, its chief executive Ester Levanon has told Futures and Options Intelligence.
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The Commodity Futures Trading Commission should merge with the Securities and Exchange Commission to create a more efficient and streamlined regulator, said Bill Brodsky, head of the Chicago Board Options Exchange, in Congressional testimony today.
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It’s easy to be blasé about commodity prices when you’re a wealthy American or European, and say “markets will be markets”. But if a large part of your income was going on oil or food, a 250% price rise in three years might bother you. Governments cannot duck the issue of whether speculation has created unnecessary volatility in commodity prices. It is time for the futures industry to stop trying to throw the regulators off the scent and engage seriously with the issues.
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Algorithmic trading is a well recognised feature of futures and options markets, but many believe that despite its high profile, the technique is still only beginning to make itself felt. If algos are still on a steep growth curve, how has that been affected by the financial crisis? Has it made things easier or harder for the algos? And have they suffered less or more than human-driven trading firms? Vishala Sri-Pathma investigates. (This article has been re-edited since the print publication.)
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Better regulation of the financial sector is clearly needed, but the headlong rush to tighten rules is more likely to create problems, argues Philip McBride Johnson. The usual result is overlapping jurisidictions and over-complex rules, ripe for gaming.
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The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has hailed its new protocol to standardise credit derivatives as evidence of the industry’s commitment to restoring confidence in credit markets.
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Optimism may be too strong a word, but derivatives specialists will likely draw some comfort from March trading numbers at Liffe, where average daily volume was only 11% below March 2008 – suggesting that the slump in activity may be easing.
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Forts, the derivatives arm of Moscow’s Russian Trading System Stock Exchange, broke its monthly record for trading volume in March.
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Intercontinental Exchange’s new clearing house for credit default swaps, ICE Trust US, has cleared $71bn of trades on the iTraxx US indices during its first four weeks of operations.
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Leading credit default swap dealers and investors have promised the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that they will extend the use of central counterparty clearing in the market to more products and participants.
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Why did it take a financial crisis and regulatory whipping to bring the CDS market to embrace central counterparty clearing? Some people in the market clearly thought change would cost them money. Either they were right, and it will, or they were wrong, and the market is about to get more efficient. Vishala Sri-Pathma tries to find out which it is.
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Perhaps the most important choice in reforming the financial system has been all but ignored – is it better to have a few large, strong regulators, banks and exchanges – or a wider variety of smaller ones? How we answer this question could determine whether reforms succeed or fail.
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China has been the most powerful force in world commodity markets for a decade, as the biggest importer of many substances and a huge producer of others. How does this square with the secluded, even staid nature of its commodity futures markets, which are all but closed to foreign traders? As Agnieszka Troszkiewicz discovers, determined foreign firms can play in China’s markets, and there is much to commend in the authorities’ slow but steady approach.
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Eurasian Trading System, the exchange in Kazakhstan set up by Moscow’s Russian Trading System Stock Exchange and a group of indigenous investors, represented by the Regional Financial Centre of Almaty City, launched on March 30.
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Traders on Eurex overwhelmingly support a return to full tick price gradations on the exchange’s Bobl futures on five year German government bonds, a source familiar with the matter has told Futures and Options Intelligence.
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Eurex will launch its credit default swap clearing service in July, a spokesperson has confirmed. The solution is technologically ready but is undergoing testing by “a number of sell side banks”, which have expressed interest in acquiring stakes in the CDS clearing entity.
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The debate over exchange consolidation is an old one but may come to the fore again in the coming months as global policymakers debate how to re-regulate the financial system. Even today (April 2), international agreements on financial controls will be high on the agenda as world leaders meet in London for the G20 summit.
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Merger talks between LCH.Clearnet, the Anglo-French independent clearing house, and the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp, the largest US clearing firm, are continuing but there is no timetable for finalising terms of the deal, which was announced in October 2008.
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Climate change protesters are expected to gather today outside the European Climate Exchange, near Liverpool Street station in central London. The protesters are criticising the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme, which allows companies to trade permits to emit carbon dioxide.
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Far from hating short selling, regulators see it as a legitimate and necessary part of equity trading, explains Martin Wheatley, chief executive of Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission. He chaired the taskforce on short selling, charged by the International Organisation of Securities Commissions’ Technical Committee with examining how the practice should be regulated. A week after the report’s publication, Wheatley reveals to FOi’s Agnieszka Troszkiewicz why the committee believes short selling is justified, what it thinks of last year’s ban and what regulators need to do next.
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The past year has been a painful one for Spain’s financial sector, with fears of a property meltdown and the stockmarket down 50%. But for Meff, the country’s derivative exchange, it has been a great year, with volume growing and new players coming in. Vishala Sri-Pathma reports on one of Europe’s derivatives hotspots.
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FOW’s awards in 2009 will recognise innovation. Judged by an authoritative panel of industry experts, each award will be for a specific project, deal, product or initiative during the year. Find out here how to nominate your own or someone else's initiative for an award.
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The International Securities Exchange has called for the introduction of a new Financial Markets Commission to oversee all US financial markets and trading platforms. The appeal was part of a proposal released by the options and equity exchange on March 24, which called for reform of US market oversight.
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US treasury secretary Timothy Geithner has said the Obama administration will seek new legislation to force over-the-counter derivatives to be cleared via a central counterparty.
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The new steel contracts on the Shanghai Futures Exchange have been well received on their first day of trading today (Friday March 27).
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The Ukrainian Exchange, a venture backed by Moscow’s Russian Trading System, has launched the country’s first electronic share trading system on Thursday March 26 and hopes to list Ukraine’s first derivatives by the end of the year.
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Liffe is delighted with the success of its new market-making schemes for ‘packs’ and ‘bundles’ of euro and sterling short term interest rate futures.
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Politicians are gunning for the over-the-counter markets, and some exchange-traded derivatives specialists are happy to let them take the flak, swanking that the world has finally recognised the exchanges’ virtues. But Alex McDonald, chief executive of the Wholesale Market Brokers’ Association, argues that the OTC markets, with their devolved regulation and confederated structure, actually hold the secret to a healthy lifestyle for the financial markets as a whole.
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Iosco, the world group of securities regulators, has steered a middle course between clamping down on short selling and recognising its value, in a consultation paper published on Monday March 23.
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Cathryn Lyall has left Icap, where she was chief operating officer of exchange projects, and the UK interdealer broker is reviewing its commitment to launch its own derivatives exchange.
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Shanghai Futures Exchange has begun mock trading of two new steel futures contracts, after winning approval to list them from the China Securities Regulatory Commission on February 25.
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Renewable energy is a growing market that already has a mechanism for separating the renewable ‘credit’ from the electricity itself. These credits are traded, even across borders. High time for a futures market? Siân Williams investigates the prospects.
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Platts has launched Americas Crude Marker, a crude oil price assessment intended to rival the market standard West Texas Intermediate – traded on the Nymex and ICE Futures Europe – which has been criticised recently because its price has fluctuated wildly and diverged from the cost of Brent crude.
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FFastFill, the UK electronic trading software provider, has been certified for order and market data flow connectivity to the Electronic Liquidity Exchange, which aims to launch a US Treasury futures market in June.
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MF Global, the futures and options brokerage, has pinpointed fixed income, especially cash products, as a growth sector for 2009 and has applied to become a primary US Treasury dealer.
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CME Group’s share price fared much better month-on-month than any other listed exchange during February. According to the FTSE Mondo Visione Exchanges Index, CME’s capital return was 4.9% between January 30 and February 27 – it was the only exchange in the index to rise during the period.
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(Updates and corrects earlier story, adds new information.) International Derivatives Clearing Group, the clearing house for interest rate swaps backed by Nasdaq OMX, has obtained a $100m backstop credit facility to fulfil a regulatory requirement. Commerzbank and Bank of America led the syndication and each provided $25m of the loan, which was oversubscribed by banks.
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Liffe has told Futures and Options Intelligence that it will introduce two new market-making schemes and a fee rebate to promote liquidity in its benchmark ‘short sterling’ and Euribor interest rate futures.
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The realignment among north European exchanges continued on Thursday March 12 as the London Stock Exchange announced a partnership with Oslo Børs.
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NYSE Euronext’s derivatives segment, Liffe has said it will launch soft commodity contracts on its over-the-counter clearing service Bclear on March 30. The exchange also confirmed to Futures and Options Intelligence that it intends to launch additional commodity contracts on Bclear during 2009.
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Leaders of the US futures and options market spoke out in defence of what they see as their industry’s interests at the FIA Boca conference this week, emphasising their eagerness to engage with Washington on regulatory reforms and their anxiety that policy should be made wisely.
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CME Group and Citadel Investment’s CMDX have signed agreements to license Markit’s credit default swap indices and its Reference Entity Database (Red) identifiers. The agreements are effective immediately, but the CME cannot begin clearing CDS until it gains a special exemption from the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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Interdealer brokers Icap, Tullett-Prebon and GFI have joined forces to fund a push by the Wholesale Market Brokers Association to persuade policy makers that the over the counter derivatives market still has credibility. Interdealer brokers are worried about tightening regulation in financial markets and the sense that OTC markets are being vilified as dangerous.
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The long-awaited Electronic Liquidity Exchange will begin testing its trading system in May, with a live launch scheduled for June.
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Fundamental factors, not speculation, were more likely to have caused last year’s price spikes in commodities, according to the result of an inquiry by the International Organization of Securities Commissions – but markets still need to be more transparent and better supervised.
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Eurex hopes that it might soon win its first Chinese trading members, from among the six Chinese futures brokerages that have been permitted by the China Securities Regulatory Commission to set up subsidiaries in Hong Kong.
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When cash markets are crashing down in ruins, a few products seem to thrive on the havoc. Equity derivatives were one of the financial markets’ big winners of 2008, as players of all kinds used them to reposition. Market participants are gung-ho about 2009, too – but as Vishala Sri-Pathma discovers, January’s slump in trading shows it is certain to be a bumpy ride.
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One thing will be uppermost in the minds of US and international futures executives gathering for the FIA Boca conference on March 11 – a regulatory environment more uncertain than anyone has experienced in the past 35 years.
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After decades of advances in risk management systems, the derivatives market was rocked in January 2008 by a €5bn unauthorised trading loss at Société Générale. Banks tell regulators they have all scrupulously tightened their controls since then. But many experts in the field have their doubts. As Siân Williams reports, spending on controls may be rising, but safety is ultimately a human responsibility.
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Trading of US equity options recovered in February after a dismal January when volume slumped because of extreme stockmarket volatility and the losses suffered by many types of investor.
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Intercontinental Exchange has confirmed its intention to launch a European central counterparty clearing solution for credit default swaps by the end of the first half of 2009.
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The Commodity Futures Trading Commission has said it is investigating oil trading on February 6, amid suggestions that United States Oil Fund LP, an exchange-traded fund listed on NYSE Arca, and other investors may have affected the price of oil.
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Euronext Lisbon is one of the smaller outposts of NYSE Euronext’s growing empire, but its parent Liffe is convinced that the exchange has a valuable role to play. As Agnieszka Troszkiewicz discovers, although trading volumes halved in 2008, this was largely a result of the stockmarket slump. Market participants in Lisbon are enthusiastic about the exchange and want it to thrive.
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The US may compel over-the-counter derivatives to be traded on exchanges, if the bold policy agenda advocated by Gary Gensler, the president’s nominee to chair the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, is carried out.
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China is the biggest emerging market prize for the top firms in the world’s derivatives markets. But the market is well guarded. In the first of a series of articles on how to participate, Agnieszka Troszkiewicz looks at the easiest way in – the Hong Kong and Singapore equity futures and options.
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This plentiful metalloid element would appear to have the makings of a futures market. So why hasn’t it happened yet – and could it come? Vishala Sri-Pathma investigates.
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Which scares derivatives professionals more – the global economic downturn or rampant regulators? It should be the recession, but politicians are certainly giving futures and options specialists some sleepless nights. There is good reason for the industry to be frightened, but regulators also have plenty of cause to go on the warpath.
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Screen-based trading made derivatives markets bigger, faster, always on. But was something lost in the process? With technology came secrecy – no one could see what each other was doing. Evoi chief executive Martin Holland tells Colin Packham why he has developed a system to bring transparency to electronic markets.
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Leading credit default swaps dealers are putting IT systems in place to clear CDS through Bclear, Liffe’s clearing platform for over-the-counter derivatives, according to a senior Liffe executive. The first trades should be cleared before the end of March, he said.
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Charlie McCreevy, the EU internal market commissioner, issued a statement yesterday (Thursday February 19), hailing a deal that EU regulators appear to have struck with the credit default swap market over clearing.
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Trading arcades – where associates of a proprietary trading group trade on their own behalf – came to the fore in the late 1990s as dealers moved away from pit trading to electronic screens. Sian Williams visited one of the earliest such firms in the UK.
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Intellectual property is as much a tradable commodity as oil or metals. But can this asset class be transferred to an exchange-traded model? Agnieszka Troszkiewicz reports on the latest moves to tap this $5tr market.
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US president Barack Obama is already starting to make good his election promises on dealing with climate change. One of his first moves since his inauguration has been to reverse former president George W Bush’s climate change policies by allowing states to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars and by ordering vehicle fuel efficiency standards for 2011 to be set by March.
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Words were the greatest human invention in the field of obscuring the truth – until the creation of MBA degrees. The derivatives markets, Philip McBride Johnson argues, are suffering from an acute image problem, relative to the securities markets. This is not because derivatives are inherently riskier, but because the securities spinmeisters do a much better job.
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InterContinental Exchange hopes to launch its European central counterparty for credit default swap clearing “well in advance” of the platform planned by LCH.Clearnet, a spokesperson for the exchange group in Atlanta told Futures and Options Intelligence on Friday February 13.
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Call it investor relations spin or the facts in black and white, but CME Group and Intercontinental Exchange are putting their best pitches forward on what has happened to equity index volumes since the Russell Index futures moved from CME to ICE in September.
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Eurex is consulting members about moving back to full tick price gradations on its Bobl futures contract on five year German government bonds, the exchange has confirmed to Futures and Options Intelligence.
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Derivatives traders have told Futures and Options Intelligence that they believe Eurex is consulting market participants about whether it should abandon the ‘half-tick’ price gradations on its Bobl and Schatz futures contracts.
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Intercontinental Exchange’s fourth quarter profits of $49m were 24% down on the same period a year ago, due to higher operating costs and a writedown of its investment in India’s National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange.
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In the long chess game of hints and initatives in preparation for China launching financial futures, the China Securities Regulatory Commission has quashed speculation that some firms had been approved to begin short selling or margin trading.
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The Indian Forward Markets Commission has proposed a compromise solution to the battle for regulatory control of the country’s newly launched electricity futures market. Local sources say the Ministry of Power may be prepared to accept the arrangement.
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The early success of currency futures in India has persuaded a new exchange to appear, challenging the market leaders. The United Stock Exchange of India, a new venture backed by a consortium of public banks including the Bank of India and the Federal Bank as well as brokerage Jaypee Capital, plans to launch currency derivatives in April.
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Poland’s growing derivatives market is learning the bitter taste that comes when the products are misused. A public backlash against derivatives as dangerously risky instruments is in full swing, after scores of companies suffered heavy losses on ill-judged currency hedges.
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South Africa’s derivatives markets are growing at a remarkable rate, helped by retail interest in single stock futures. But as Vishala Sri-Pathma finds, the real challenge is trying to convey the efficiencies that futures and options markets offer to the neighbouring countries, where infrastructure is less developed.
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No one in the derivatives market expects 2009 to be easy. The global economic downturn may be deep and long, and futures and options trading is already feeling the pinch. As industry leaders tell Wyn Jenkins, they don’t know how bad it will be – but they are sure that tougher times will give them chances to shake up the industry in new and ultimately creative ways.
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Liffe’s three month Libor future, known as the ‘short sterling’, will switch back to a minimum price change of one basis point, known as a full tick, from February 23.
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Growing uncertainty about the value of the rouble has propelled trading in currency derivatives at Forts, the derivatives arm of RTS – analysts have told Futures and Options Intelligence.
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Euroclear, the largest shareholder in LCH.Clearnet, will support any bid for the London-based clearing house that offers the lowest clearing fees, a spokesperson has told Futures and Options Intelligence.
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In day two of the House Agriculture Committee hearing on the Derivatives Markets Transparency and Accountability Act of 2009, leaders of exchanges and firms that use derivatives continued to debate a bill that would severely limit credit derivatives and force all over the counter derivatives to be centrally cleared.
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CME Group’s annual profits rose 16% in 2008 and even fourth quarter earnings kept pace with those of last year, despite a decline in trading of its key asset class, interest rate derivatives, which has now lasted for nine months. But the outlook for 2009 is bleak, with sharp falls in trading volumes for all products in January.
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Terry Duffy and Michael Gooch, chairmen of CME Group and GFI Group, went into bat for the derivatives market in the US Congress yesterday (Tuesday February 3), hoping to fend off a bill that would ban the use of credit default swaps for parties that did not own the underlying bonds or loans.
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John Damgard, president of the Futures Industry Association, told a US Congressional hearing today that many elements of a bill introduced by Representative Collin Peterson would damage the US derivatives market and as such, the FIA would not support it.
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US equity options trading was 27.8% lower in January than in the same month last year, as options and futures volumes continued their slide in the wake of deleveraging and the global financial downturn. That result followed a 7% decline for December’s volume, versus the same month in 2007.
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London-based interdealer broker Icap has confirmed that it is part of a consortium of financial institutions interested in acquiring LCH.Clearnet, in deal which could scupper the London-based clearing house’s plan to merge with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp.
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Liffe is keen to launch a barley future – probably on higher grade malt barley – if growers and buyers can settle their disagreement on the terms.
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Bart Chilton, commissioner at the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has called on Congress to tighten regulatory oversight of over-the-counter derivatives.
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The entry of US exchanges into the credit default swaps clearing market continues to be delayed as the two front runners await regulatory approval.
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Market participants have said a merger of US regulators, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Securities and Exchange Commission may be pushed through as there is a “political will” from the new US administration. However, the same market participants believe the merger could be blocked by a “turf battle” between US House and Senate Committees.
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Indian derivatives specialists believe the Bombay Stock Exchange may be preparing a big push to revive its flagging derivatives business. The BSE acknowledged it may be ready to enter a collaborative project with the Singapore Exchange, which owns 5% of its shares.
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The Singapore Exchange has proposed changes to the structure of its clearing fund which, market participants say, are likely to require a higher levy on clearing members in order to achieve the exchange’s goals.
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Lord Turner, chairman of the UK Financial Services Authority, has hinted that regulators are preparing to take action on credit default swaps and rules for valuing instruments on trading books.
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The power struggle over regulation of India’s nascent electricity futures market was turned up a notch on January 21 as the country’s Ministry of Power revealed its support for the National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange’s view that the futures regulator should not oversee the market.
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Walt Lukken, who steps down as acting chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission today (January 20), said he hoped the new administration of President Barack Obama would completely restructure financial regulation on the lines suggested by Hank Paulson and Paul Volcker.
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Traders are becoming increasingly bearish on copper. According to data from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission analysed by UBS, speculative net short positions at Comex grew by 70 kilotons in the week ending January 13.
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Traders and analysts are questioning the credibility of the benchmark Light Sweet Crude oil future on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after the price difference between the contract and other oil futures widened further at the end of last week.
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GFMS, the UK precious metals consultancy, is predicting that gold prices could reach an all time high of over $1,000 an ounce in the first half of 2009.
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Nasdaq OMX, NYSE Euronext, Deutsche Börse and London Stock Exchange are all believed to be interested in acquiring a majority stake in the Warsaw Stock Exchange, after Poland’s Ministry of the Treasury announced last week it was changing the Warsaw bourse’s privatisation plan.
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A report initiated last year by Canada’s finance minister Jim Flaherty has called for the country’s 13 provincial securities markets regulators to be restructured as a single national body, which might also absorb the derivatives regulator.
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Chinese regulators have vowed to forge ahead with market reforms including the long-delayed introduction of financial futures, despite trying economic conditions.
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A row has flared between one of India’s commodity exchanges and the futures regulator regarding oversight of the country’s fledgling electricity futures market.
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Climate Exchange, owner of two leading carbon trading exchanges, said volume at its European Climate Exchange subsidiary rose 171% in 2008, while its Chicago Climate Futures Exchange unit reported new daily and annual records as well.
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Derivatives are supposed to remain useful in good markets and bad – but although world volumes for exchange-traded derivatives grew in 2008, the financial crisis exacted a severe toll on one branch of the market: interest rate derivatives. There is some consensus among market participants on the factors that caused the plunge – but little agreement on how fast the market is likely to recover.
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The four derivatives exchanges preparing to clear credit default swaps presented their plans at a meeting in London hosted by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association yesterday (Thursday January 8).
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Charlie McCreevy, the EU internal market commissioner, gave the financial industry another kick in the pants on Tuesday January 6 when he complained that progress towards central counterparty (CCP) clearing for the credit default swap market had been too slow – and threatened to force the pace.
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The International Derivatives Clearing Group has begun clearing over the counter interest rate swaps following its official launch on January 6.
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The election of a new US president has heightened speculation about a merger of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Philip McBride Johnson, a former chairman of the CFTC, argues forcefully here that to combine the agencies would be a grave error. Derivatives markets are different from securities markets for good reasons, and each needs different approaches, to matters ranging from short selling to insider trading.
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India’s state finance minister, Shri Pawan Kumar Bansal, has told the country’s upper house that there would be no further bans on commodity derivatives contracts in 2009 in a speech given shortly before the New Year holiday.
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The world’s largest natural gas exporters met in Moscow on Tuesday December 23 to found a formal industry body, analogous to the Opec cartel in the oil market. But the organisation’s launch was confusing, with sharply contrasting signals about its purpose and disagreements flaring between members over production cuts.
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CME Group has become the first US exchange to win approval from its main regulator to offer central counterparty (CCP) clearing credit default swaps, through CMDX, its joint venture with Citadel Investment Group.
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Leading voices in the US derivatives and financial markets have greeted Mary Schapiro and Gary Gensler – new heads of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission – with hope and enthusiasm. Industry specialists hope the pair will help restore the damaged US regulatory framework, whose credibility is lower than at any time since the 1930s.
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The prospects for diamond futures to be introduced are warming, as two online markets for trading the stones plan to open next year, and a new derivatives exchange in Botswana is working on plans for a futures contract.
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The dollar continued today (Friday December 19) the recovery it started yesterday after falling 5.3% against the euro this week after the US Federal Reserves cut its target Fed Funds rate on Tuesday to an unprecedented 0%-0.25%.
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President-elect Barack Obama has named the two most important people who will guide US financial regulation in the coming years, and piqued the interest of derivatives specialists by choosing Mary Schapiro, a former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to run the Securities and Exchange Commission.
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Roy Lavik, inspector general of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has issued warnings about the CFTC’s ability to upgrade its technology and oversee the growing list of financial marketplaces that are being entrusted to its care.
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Bart Chilton, commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has called on the US Congress to force over-the-counter credit default swaps and other “appropriate” OTC contracts to be settled via central counterparty (CCP) clearing.
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Anthony Belchambers, chief executive of the Futures and Options Association, has expressed his misgivings about a potential merger between Deutsche Börse and NYSE Euronext, after reports this week that the two exchange groups had called off talks about joining forces.
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The Vienna Stock Exchange has won official backing for its takeover of the Prague Stock Exchange, strengthening its presence in the region and boosting hopes for a more liquid derivatives market.
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The four exchanges vying to clear the US credit default swap market are ready or almost ready, but the market’s fragmented regulatory structure remains a vexing problem for Congress.
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Deutsche Börse and NYSE Euronext have been very reluctant to comment on news reports that they have abandoned merger talks. But while the discussions are big news for the equity markets, their implications for derivatives are even greater.
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Hopes that the dormant China Financial Futures Exchange might at last come to life have been strengthened by a speech made by the head of one of its owners, strongly backing the establishment of an exchange-traded market for financial derivatives.
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John Damgard, president of the Futures Industry Association, has appeared before the US Congressional hearing on the credit default swap market to applaud the planned transition of clearing to systems based on central counterparties (CCP).
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The Chicago-based Intellectual Property Exchange International has said it is on schedule to launch the first intellectual property exchange next year.
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Moscow has been a boom town for derivatives, especially equity contracts – but the excitement turned to shock in October as the stockmarkets crashed and traders pulled out of the market. Agnieszka Troszkiewicz finds that the business has taken a serious knock, but participants are confident that the underlying market is sound and will recover next year.
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The extraordinary power of options has been demonstrated in recent weeks by three transactions. Sadly, two of these have also shown the lack of understanding and fear that surround derivatives.
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The price of oil continued its downturn today ahead of the next Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries meeting, scheduled for November 29.
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The downturn in the platinum market may continue for the rest of the year, precious metals analysts have told Futures and Options Intelligence.
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It will not be straightforward to introduce central counterparty clearing to the securities lending market, because of the way the market is structured, according to David Rule, a spokesman for the industry.
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The slow pace of contract introduction in China came to the fore once more on November 24 with reports that the Shanghai Futures Exchange has refused to put a timetable on the introduction of its long-awaited steel futures contract.
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The steady growth trend of trading centrally cleared carbon emissions contracts is unlikely to stop, despite recent deleveraging, according to market specialists. Speaking at a commodities outlook seminar, senior executives said counterparty risk would continue to drive volumes on to exchanges.
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CME Group, Liffe and Eurex are still pressing ahead with plans to launch clearing services for over-the-counter credit default swaps, contrary to the implication of a story published by Risk News on Thursday November 13.
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With the crumbling of the capital markets and banking systems in the form that they have taken for the past 20 years, derivatives exchanges have risen to a new height in the financial pantheon. Astride the largest of them all, CME Group, sit Terrence Duffy and Craig Donohue. They talk to Colin Packham about what exchanges can contribute to stabilising other financial markets such as credit default swaps. The CME’s chairman and CEO also explain what drew them to become involved in the industry and shape the exchange’s development, and what their plans are for its future development, after digesting CBoT and Nymex.
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The news that Mexico has locked in a price of $70 a barrel for 100% of next year’s oil exports has surprised many traders, and demonstrated the depth of the oil derivatives markets.
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The newest US futures exchange, NYSE Liffe, has a tough challenge ahead: attacking CME Group’s 98% market share. Chairman Jim McNulty and Tom Callahan, executive vice-president, explain to FOi why they believe NYSE Euronext is well placed for CDS clearing, what NYSE Liffe is doing to reduce latency and how they think volume in the futures market will evolve over the next five years.
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Whatever their political convictions, senior figures in the derivatives industry are facing the possibility of radical change after the election of Barack Obama as the next US president.
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The election of Democratic senator Barack Obama as the next US president on Tuesday November 4 has set the gears of change in motion, even in the derivatives industry.
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Oil prices hit a high of $69 yesterday (Wednesday October 29) as interest rates were cut in the US and China. The US Federal Reserve cut rates by 0.5% to 1% and the People’s Bank of China lowered rates for the third time in six weeks.
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September and October have been some of the worst months on record for investors in all kinds of assets, from shares to commodities. But what have these dizzying falls and volatility done for derivatives markets, where some traders thrive on volatility and others believe they can make money in good or bad conditions?
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As derivatives exchanges and their clearing houses jockey for position in credit default swaps clearing, some exchange members are beginning to rebel, using the Nimby argument – “Not in my backyard”.
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The old idea that the Commodity Futures Trading Commission should merge with the Securities and Exchange Commission was revived last week by senior figures in US financial regulation: Arthur Levitt, an ex-chairman of the SEC, and Christopher Cox, its present chairman. Today Philip McBride Johnson, former chairman of the CFTC, rebuts these calls. Writing for Futures and Options Intelligence, he makes a forceful case for the CFTC to remain a separate agency.
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The majority of senior managers at mainly US public companies favour temporary prohibitions on short selling, a recent survey has found.
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NYSE Euronext’s Liffe exchange believes its Bclear system is the best and most fully developed solution for clearing credit default swaps, and expects the industry to recognise that leadership in the coming weeks.
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November WTI crude oil climbed back above $70 a barrel on Friday October 17 to hit $73.39 on Nymex as global equities rallied, checking a steep decline over the past few weeks.
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The London Stock Exchange will launch in late November the first global, uniform system of identifier codes for exchange-traded derivatives.
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Russian equity derivatives trading grew strongly in September but analysts told Futures and Options Intelligence that the recent market turmoil has curbed investors’ appetite to trade on Russian derivatives exchanges.
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Foreign exchange derivative trading at CME Group reached a record high in September, showing that the unprecedented volatility in global financial markets has swelled FX trading as well as that in equities and bonds.
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A Chicago-based company has unveiled a new derivatives exchange, offering a brand new kind of derivative – Clippers, which allow market participants to cap a gain or loss from an underlying asset.
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The unprecedented spike in the oil price on Monday September 22 – the last day of trading in the October futures contract – may have been caused partly by refiners, according to oil specialists in the US and London.
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The Warsaw Commodity Exchange is close to selling a majority stake in itself, and several rival exchanges have been circling, including the Warsaw Stock Exchange and, according to market participants in Warsaw, the CME Group.
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Trading on the Mexican exchange Mercado Mexicano de Derivados has fallen 64% from 144.8m contracts in the first eight months of 2007 to 52.1m in the same period of 2008.
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After its acquisition by Chicago Mercantile Exchange, former Chicago Board of Trade chief executive Bernie Dan has joined MF Global as its new president and COO. His mission: revitalise the world’s largest derivatives brokerage. Colin Packham talked to Dan about his varied career in the market, the CBoT-CME deal and his plans for MF Global.
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Oil prices have rarely been so controversial – or surprising. As the row between US senators, Wall Street traders, consumers and businesses over the reasons for the surge in the oil price reached its height, the price began falling rapidly. Was that evidence that speculators had indeed been pushing up the price – or a sign that those pressing for tighter regulation should back off?
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