Industry news


Date: Apr 26, 2013

April 26, 2013: Regulators see risks from exchange technology; CBOE identifies software glitch that halted trading; CME, ICE rivalry enters biofuel arena

Federal regulators, in a report that was prepared before yesterday, outline technology and platform risks as being significant to the health of the financial system. Yesterday, CBOE became the latest of many companies to highlight that trading on electronic systems is not 100 percent guaranteed. In the energy sector exchanges CME Group and ICE prepare to go head-to-head with new biofuels contracts.

First Read

Options leaders opposing tax reforms and transaction tax
By Jim Kharouf
Options exchange leaders at the Options Industry Conference in Las Vegas voiced strong opposition to proposed tax reform and transaction tax proposals.

Steve Crutchfield, who heads NYSE Arca and NYSE AMEX, said that the proposal at tax reform would issue a tax on regular retail investors who are looking to cover their stock positions. The 60/40 tax treatment is also under fire, under the proposal. Crutchfield said that the proposal is “a severe deterrent to investors to manage their risks.”

“Just buying some downside protection while I own stock, would cause the stock position (with) a long put as part of my portfolio would be treated as ordinary income for the purpose of any gains that are seen, not even realized, during the time that option is held, sold or expired,” Crutchfield said. “Just holding an option in the books will negatively impact the tax treatment for equity investors if this proposal goes into effect.”

There are also several proposals in Congress and another in the Illinois State Legislature that call for various transaction taxes. Gary Katz, CEO of International Securities Exchange, said the concept of taxing the financial industry is popular in Congress, as well as in Europe.

“Right now financial transaction taxes sound great to group people who don’t think of themselves as investors in the market,” Katz said. “The only thing we can do is to continue to educate. And it will do the exact opposite of what Dodd-Frank intended to do, which is to drive volume in the over-the-counter derivatives market into the lit market, the exchange traded market. These are the things we have to pound home.”

While all oppose a transaction tax, one exchange leader said it may be the lesser of two evils that is coming, like it or not. Tony McCormick, CEO of BOX Options Exchange, said that the transaction tax may be the better of the two deals, tax reform and transaction tax, being proposed.

“But it’s coming, it’s down the road,” McCormick said. “The tradeoff down the road is the transaction tax. Don’t think this is going away if we dodge this bullet, because the need (from Congress) is there.”

Crutchfield, however, said a transaction tax would raise the price of transactions and lower execution quality – a double whammy against investors who would likely have a tax passed down to them and get poorer fills from market makers.

Retail brokers also have pushed to oppose the tax reform bill, proposed in late January by Sen. Dave Camp. Katz urged conference attendees to get involved to oppose the bill and help educate Congress about unintended consequences.

++++

It’s Friday, Friday…
Jon Matte
Another week in the bag; time to change the guest editor box and fade back into the news-ninja shadows again. Grab your bat, Walt Lukken (CEO, Futures Industry Association), you’re up next! See you Monday.

++++

Portfolio Margining 101: A Conversation with CME Group’s Laurent Paulhac
Doug Ashburn – JLN via MarketsReformWiki
As the global regulatory storms known as Dodd-Frank, EMIR and Basel III reach the financial community, there is a mad scramble to adapt to the new environment. Perhaps the most critical change is in the area of capital requirements. By some estimates, the new regulatory regime will lead to an industry-wide collateral shortfall estimated from $800B to upwards of $2 trillion.

One recent innovation to help firms efficiently use capital is portfolio margining of OTC derivatives and futures. While most market participants have heard the term, and the phrase has become quite the buzzword at conferences and in interviews, it seems that many do not fully understand portfolio margining, how it works, and the extent of its effectiveness.

John Lothian News Editor-at-Large Doug Ashburn sat down with Laurent Paulhac, senior managing director, financial and OTC products and services at CME Group, to discuss the “nuts-and-bolts” of portfolio margining, why it is important, and how effectively it can reduce capital requirements. According to Paulhac, several of its clients have called portfolio margining “the single most important part” of CME’s overall value proposition.

Read the interview on MarketsReformWiki here: |jlne.ws/12oypJm

++++

CBOE Preaches to Vegas Choir as ‘Glitch’ Crashes Exchange
Nikolaj Gammeltoft – Bloomberg
As Ed Provost took the stage at the Green Valley Ranch Resort & Spa in Las Vegas to explain how a software malfunction had shut the Chicago Board Options Exchange for three-and-a-half hours, he was surrounded by people who were victims of similar disruptions.
jlne.ws/15LZlXN

***JM: Relevant question: “Do we consider our trading platform and support systems to be ‘mission critical’, in the same sense as life support systems in hospitals and guidance systems on spacecraft?” If yes, there’s a lot of work to do around the globe. If no… pop a beer, financial industry, you’re almost home.

++++

Comment: Like airlines, exchanges hit turbulence in consolidation
Philippe Carré – FT.com
Recently I travelled to Madrid, having booked a flight on British Airways. I found myself flying Iberia. Of course, these two “national carriers” are now part of the same company, listed primarily on the London Stock Exchange and Bolsas y Mercados Españoles, its counterpart in Madrid. But the parallels between the two extend far beyond my journey.
jlne.ws/15LZkmy

***JM: A system of slow, rolling waves. Small things consolidate to large, creating a vacuum to be filled by new and different things.

++++

Visual Programming: Cooking the Spaghetti
Trade Talk
As further indication that Chicago is becoming increasingly recognized as a legitimate hub for tech talent in the U.S., the GOTO international software conference came to Chicago for the first time this week. The conference included speakers from many top names in the industry discussing the latest advancements in the software development community. Trading Technologies was proud to be a sponsor of the inaugural GOTO Chicago conference, and I was thrilled to have the opportunity to give a talk on visual programming languages (VPLs), and how TT has managed to utilize this technology in the algorithmic trading community with our ADL (Algo Design Lab)
jlne.ws/Of7LQ5

***JM: When I was a kid, I taught myself to program on a mainframe teletype terminal that had a roll of paper instead of a screen. Now I use Visual Studio for programming and I love it… but ADL is so friggin’ cool, it almost makes me cry. It’s like building Lego spaceships without even touching the pieces.

++++

Currency Trading Getting Equitized
Gregg Wirth – Traders Magazine
Foreign exchange and equities are two distinct asset classes, each with their own set of trading procedures, customer demands and levels of execution. But that is not stopping trading desks at the nation’s largest asset management firms from nudging the two closer together. Often at the behest of clients, asset managers are coming to the realization that trading in these seemingly disparate types of financial instruments needs to be at least synchronized, if not also overseen by the same trading desk.
jlne.ws/15LZlXO

***JM: What if you could trade anything, anywhere in the world, from one single pipeline? …whoa, sorry, lost my mind there for a minute…

++++

Liffe’s battle with TOM has bigger implications
William Mitting – FOW
When the Chicago Mercantile Exchange launched its first equity index futures contract (and the world’s second, by a matter of weeks) on the Standard & Poor’s 500 index back in April 1982, S&P was not going to charge the exchange for the licence.
jlne.ws/14T8T3H

***JM: How far does IP reach? As far as you can stretch your hand before somebody slaps it.

++++

Liquidnet’s Founder, on Saying Goodbye to Titles
ADAM BRYANT – NYTimes.com
This interview with Seth Merrin, founder and chief executive of Liquidnet, the trading network, was conducted and condensed by Adam Bryant.
[...] “Well, first of all, we don’t have any titles. And the reason is that I do not want a junior vice president to be at a meeting and not say anything because they have a senior vice president in the room, which I believe happens quite often.”
jlne.ws/15LZme5

***JM: I like it! I change my title regularly to make it more interesting. Was going to use “nyheterlemen” for this week’s guest editor stint, but then I remembered that John is still reading the newsletters and uses Google Translate when he sees me writing in Norwegian…

++++

The Options Industry Council Announces Investor Education Day In The Chicagoland Area May 11
The Options Industry Council (OIC) today announced that its second Investor Education Day (IED) for 2013 is taking place in Schaumburg, IL on May 11.

The Investor Education Day offers two different tracks for attendees based on their investment experience and skill level – Options Basics or Advanced Strategies. Options Basics will examine fundamentals, such as basic strategies and the risks and rewards of using options, while Advanced Strategies will focus on more complicated concepts such as butterflies, condors and the Greeks.

Interested parties can obtain schedule and location details and also register through OIC’s website, optionseducation.org/ied, or by calling 1-888-OPTIONS (1-888-678-4667). Lunch and coffee breaks are included.
jlne.ws/15LZkCZ

++++

MarketsWiki

MarketsWiki Page of the Day
Laurent Paulhac
jlne.ws/14exnUr

MarketsWiki Recent Updates

People

Laurent Paulhac; Tom Haldes; Adam Sheldon

Companies, Organizations and Groups

CBOE Futures Exchange; CBOE Stock Exchange (CBSX); International Securities Exchange; Bionic Trader Systems; HTG

Miscellaneous

Designated primary market maker; Portfolio margining

Statistics

38,444,223 pages viewed, 7,460 articles, 158,059 edits
MarketsWiki Statistics

Lead Stories

Regulators see risks from exchange technology
Market Watch
Federal regulators on Thursday detailed a series of threats to financial stability, as they urged technology improvements after operational malfunctions in trading market infrastructure last year.
jlne.ws/15LZmeb

CBOE identifies software glitch that halted trading
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Board Options Exchange, which opened for trading three hours late on Thursday, said in a memo to clients that it has found the software issue at fault for the delay.
jlne.ws/15LZmec

CME, ICE rivalry enters biofuel arena
Reuters
The battle between CME Group Inc. and the IntercontinentalExchange moves to the market for biofuel credits next month. CME will launch contracts to trade renewable identification numbers (RINs) on May 13, two weeks after the ICE debuts its RIN contracts.
jlne.ws/15LZmed

FCA confirms ban on cash rebates to platforms
Jonathan Eley and Elaine Moore – FT.com
Online fund platforms, such as those run by Hargreaves Lansdown and Fidelity, will be banned from receiving ‘rebate’ payments from fund managers, from next April. Under new rules announced on Friday by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), these platforms will instead have to charge customers explicit fees for their services, which must be agreed with customers in advance.
jlne.ws/15LZmeh

Analysis: Centuries-old Vienna bourse seeks lifeline in Warsaw
By Georgina Prodhan and Adrian Krajewski – Warsaw
The venerable Vienna Stock Exchange swallowed centuries of national pride this month to enter into talks that could lead to a merger with its upstart rival in Warsaw.
jlne.ws/15LZmel

Chastened banks cuts tens of thousands of jobs
Associated Press via Yahoo! News
Banks aren’t the big jobs machines they used to be. One after another, major financial firms are trimming their payrolls. In first-quarter earnings announcements this month, Bank of America, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley revealed that they have slashed more than 31,000 jobs, or 3.5 percent of their combined workforce, in the past year.
jlne.ws/15LZmuA

CME shipments halted due to floods
Reuters
Chicago Board of Trade parent CME Group on Thursday declared “force majeure” at most terminals on the Illinois River as flooding prevented the loading of corn and soybean barges.
jlne.ws/15LZmuC

FINRA withdraws plan requiring broker disclosure link
Suzanne Barlyn – Reuters
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) has withdrawn a proposal designed to make it easier for investors to research the backgrounds of brokerage firms and brokers, but said it would refile the planned rule.
jlne.ws/14T6Hcl

The Seductive Simplicity of a New Banking Bill
PETER EAVIS – NYTimes.com
We all want to live in a world where we can stop worrying about the banks. Would a tough new piece of legislation, introduced in the Senate on Wednesday, get us there? Senators Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, and David Vitter, Republican of Louisiana, have two aims in writing their bank bill. They say they not only want to toughen the overhaul of the financial system, but also to simplify it.
jlne.ws/15LZmuD

Southern Europe’s Recession Threatens to Spread North
JACK EWING – NYTimes.com
No company symbolizes German industrial might like Daimler, the giant maker of Mercedes-Benz autos and trucks. So when the company said this week that it, too, had finally been caught in the downdraft of the European economic crisis, it was an ominous sign for all of the Continent, if not the whole world.
jlne.ws/15LZmuE

Twitter Said to Bolster Security After AP Account Hacked
Brian Womack & Chris Strohm – Bloomberg
Twitter Inc. plans to bolster security on its site after the account of the Associated Press news service was hacked and an erroneous post triggered a stock- market decline, according to a person familiar with the matter.
jlne.ws/15LZkmI

Regulatory

Swaps Reform Tops Iosco Priorities List, Chairman Medcraft Says
Matthew Leising – Bloomberg
Shepherding reforms of the $639 trillion over-the-counter derivatives market is one of the highest priorities for the International Organization of Securities Commissions, according to Chairman Greg Medcraft. The reach of rules across borders, how to unwind or shut a failed clearinghouse, the proper level for margin payments and ensuring that trade repositories are linked and interoperable are the issues being discussed now at the group that brings together markets regulators of more than 100 nations, Medcraft said today in an interview in New York.
(via email)

Derivatives Changes Blocked by Senate Resistance, Himes Says
Bloomberg
U.S. House derivatives legislation designed to roll back some Dodd-Frank Act requirements won’t gain passage because Senate Democrats will resist reopening the 2010 regulatory law, Representative Jim Himes said today.
jlne.ws/15LZmuF

SEC Fee Rate Advisory #3 for Fiscal Year 2013
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that starting on May 25, 2013, the fee rates applicable to most securities transactions will decrease from $22.40 per million dollars to $17.40 per million dollars. The assessment on security futures transactions will remain unchanged at $0.0042 for each round turn transaction.
jlne.ws/15LZkD7

FCA sets out new rules for the platforms industry
The Financial Conduct Authority has published rules to make the way that investors pay for platforms more transparent. In the future, platforms, in both the advised and non-advised market, will not be allowed to be funded by payments (commonly described as ‘rebates’) from product providers. Instead, a platform service must be paid for by a platform charge which is disclosed to and agreed by the investor.
jlne.ws/15LZmuH

Vulnerabilities from short-term funding markets pose system risks
The Wall Street Journal – Financial News
The short-term funding markets used by major Wall Street firms continue to pose a risk to financial stability, underscoring the incomplete nature of post financial crisis efforts to overhaul the financial system.
jlne.ws/15LZmuI

New CFTC Anti-Fraud Resources Released for Financial Capability Month
jlne.ws/15LZkD8

Remarks By U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob J. Lew At The Meeting Of The Financial Stability Oversight Council
jlne.ws/15LZmuO

Financial Stability Oversight Council Releases Third Annual Report
jlne.ws/15LZkDb

Statement Of Chairman Gary Gensler Before The Financial Stability Oversight Council
jlne.ws/15LZkDc

New service provider for the operation of the CSA National Systems
jlne.ws/15LZmuR

Exchanges & Trading Facilities

Oslo Børs Has Discovered Shortcomings In The Reporting Of Bond Trading
Oslo Børs has carried out investigations of reporting by exchange member firms of trades in bonds listed on Oslo Børs and Nordic ABM (formerly Oslo ABM). These investigations have identified discrepancies, in some cases significant discrepancies, between the transactions that were actually carried out and reported to Oslo Børs. Oslo Børs has requested that members change their practice and procedures for reporting of bond trades.
jlne.ws/15LZmuT

Equinix Reports First Quarter 2013 Results
Reported revenues of $519.5 million, a 3% increase over the previous quarter and a 17% increase over the same quarter last year. Reiterated 2013 annual guidance of revenues to be greater than $2,200.0 million, adjusted EBITDA to be greater than $1,010.0 million and total capital expenditures to be in the range of $550.0 to $650.0 million
jlne.ws/15LZmL7

CME Group Announces New Futures Contracts for Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs)
Press Release
CME Group, the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced the launch of nine new futures contracts for Renewable Identification Numbers (RINs).
jlne.ws/15LZmL8

Evonik Industries AG admitted to trading in the Prime Standard
jlne.ws/15LZkTy

Gemalto N.V. celebrates dual listing on NYSE Euronext Amsterdam
jlne.ws/15LZmLe

Availability of Auctions on CBOE Market
jlne.ws/15LZmLk

CHX INFORMATION MEMORANDA 2013-03: ISG and FINRA Extend Effective Date for Certain Electronic Blue Sheet (“EBS”) Data Elements
jlne.ws/15LZmLm

CHX HOLDINGS SHAREHOLDERS NOTICE 2013-03: Notice of Annual Meeting
jlne.ws/15LZkTB

Program Trading Averaged 28.9 Percent of NYSE Volume during Apr. 15-19
jlne.ws/15LZmLo

Hedge Funds & Managed Futures

Two Renaissance Technologies funds post declines
The Wall Street Journal
Two funds run by Renaissance Technologies, the giant hedge fund firm founded three decades ago by mathematician James Simon and now headed by two of his lieutenants, have stumbled in April, with one fund losing about 6% in the month.
jlne.ws/15LZkTD

Calpers Tops $260 Billion as It Recoups $95 Billion Loss
Bloomberg
The California Public Employees’ Retirement System reached a market value of $260.8 billion in assets, surpassing the high set before the global financial crisis wiped out more than a third of its wealth.
jlne.ws/15LZkTI

Archer-Daniels-Midland Wins GrainCorp Board Approval for Bid
Elisabeth Behrmann & Phoebe Sedgman – Bloomberg
Archer-Daniels-Midland Co., the largest corn processor, won agreement from GrainCorp Ltd. for its A$2.2 billion ($2.3 billion) cash bid for the rest of the Australian crop handler by clearing an A$229 million dividend.
jlne.ws/15LZn1E

Can Google Predict The Stock Market?
An analysis of changes in Google query volume for search terms related to finance reveals patterns that could be interpreted as early-warning signs of stock market moves. Tobias Preis, of Warwick Business School, Helen Susannah Moat, of University College London, and H. Eugene Stanley, of Boston University analysed changes in the frequency of 98 terms, such as ‘revenue’, ‘unemployment’, ‘credit’ and ‘nasdaq’, in Google searches from 2004 to 2011
jlne.ws/15LZkTJ

Italy Could Screw Everything Up For Hedge Fund Managers Trying To Get Money From Argentina
Business Insider
Think of it like this: You’re a teenager asking your parents if you can borrow the car to go hang out with you friends, and your little brother steps in to say that you should be driving him to a piano lesson instead.
jlne.ws/15LZn1J

Interactive Data Reports First-Quarter 2013 Results
Marketwired via Yahoo! Finance
Interactive Data Corporation today reported its financial results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2013. Interactive Data’s first-quarter 2013 revenue increased 3.2% to $223.5 million from $216.5 million in the first quarter of 2012.
jlne.ws/15LZkTM

New KKR payout policy buoys investors, profit tops view
Reuters via Yahoo! News
By Greg Roumeliotis NEW YORK – Private equity firm KKR & Co LP said on Thursday it will share 40 percent of profits from its own investments with shareholders and reported quarterly earnings that beat expectations, sending its shares to an all-time high.
jlne.ws/15LZla0

JPMorgan’s Eligible Gold Plummets 65% In 24 Hours To All Time Low
Zero Hedge
We are confident that in the aftermath of our article from last night “Just What Is Going On With The Gold In JPMorgan’s Vault?” in which we showed the absolute devastation of “eligible” (aka commercial) gold warehoused in JPM’s vault just over the Manhattan bedrock at 1 Chase Manhattan Place (and also in the entire Comex vault network in the past month), we were not the only ones checking every five minutes for the Comex gold depository update for April 25.
jlne.ws/15LZn1L

Banks & Brokers

Goldman Sachs Said to Plan $1.25 Billion Sale of Floaters
Bloomberg
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. , the Wall Street bank that generates the highest percentage of revenue from trading, is planning a $1.25 billion sale of five-year, floating-rate notes.
jlne.ws/15LZn1M

CNBC Excerpts: CNBC Exclusive: Gary Cohn, Goldman Sachs President & COO, Speaks with Mary Thompson Today on CNBCs’ “Squawk on the Street”
jlne.ws/15LZla7

Gain Capital Rebuffs FXCM Takeover, Buys Global Futures & Forex
Bloomberg
Gain Capital Holdings Inc. , a provider of online foreign-exchange trading services, rejected a proposed acquisition by FXCM Inc. and instead agreed to purchase Global Futures & Forex Ltd.
jlne.ws/15LZn1N

Deutsche Bank Faces Pressure in Netherlands After ‘Dumping’ Clients
FOX Business
Deutsche Bank AG is under political scrutiny in the Netherlands after its plan to exit thousands of small corporate clients has caused public outcry and renewed worries about credit conditions for small firms.
jlne.ws/15LZn1O

Citigroup Names Christopher Laskowski Hong Kong Head of Corporate, Investment Banking -Memo
Dow Jones
Citigroup Inc. has appointed veteran private-equity banker Christopher Laskowski as head of corporate and investment banking for Hong Kong.
jlne.ws/15LZla9

Nomura says Italian prosecutors ordered unit’s assets frozen
Reuters via Yahoo! News
TOKYO – Nomura Holdings said on Friday that Italian prosecutors had ordered a unit’s assets in Italy frozen in relation to an ongoing legal dispute over a derivates financing deal with Italian bank Monte Dei Paschi.
jlne.ws/15LZlac

Central Banks Should Own Stocks: Goldman’s O’Neill
CNBC
As the Bank of Japan ramps up its monetary stimulus to include buying stocks, Jim O’Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, said it makes sense for central banks to own equities.
jlne.ws/15LZn1R

Barclays promises angry investors to crack down on pay
Reuters via Yahoo! News
By Steve Slater LONDON – Barclays promised a rigorous review of executive pay on Thursday, as shareholders at the bank’s annual meeting said they remain unconvinced that big bonus payouts will be abandoned by its new bosses as part of a new ethical drive.
jlne.ws/15LZlad

JPMorgan Sells Notes Tied to Hong Kong’s Biggest Property Trust
Bloomberg
JPMorgan Chase & Co. sold the first structured notes tied to Hong Kong’s largest property trust in more than 15 months, as rising rents in the city fuel gains in real estate investments.
jlne.ws/15LZlae

Morgan Stanley German M&A Head to Leave After 20 Years
Bloomberg
Kai Tschoeke, Morgan Stanley ’s chief of German and Austrian mergers and acquisitions, is leaving the New York-based bank after more than 20 years.
jlne.ws/15LZlaf

Chief of Unit Overseeing Britain’s Bailout Investments Resigns
New York Times
Jim O’Neil, who as chief of United Kingdom Financial Investments has been in charge of the British government’s stakes in two bailed-out banks, will rejoin Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
jlne.ws/15LZn1T

Wells Fargo making play for rich Chicagoans
Steve Daniels – Crain’s
Wells Fargo & Co., known for its massive consumer banking franchise, is looking to move upmarket — way upmarket — in Chicago.
jlne.ws/15LZlqw

Commerzbank loses bonus appeal
Richard Partington – Financial News
Commerzbank has lost its attempt to overturn a High Court order to pay 104 ex-Dresdner Kleinwort bankers E52m in unpaid bonuses.
jlne.ws/15LZn1U

Clearing & Settlement

ISDA Publishes 2013 Operations Benchmarking Survey
The International Swaps and Derivatives Association, Inc. (ISDA) today released its 2013 Operations Benchmarking Survey at its 28th Annual General Meeting in Singapore.
jlne.ws/15LZni9

Indexes & Products

Risk Weighted Version of the S&P GSCI Launched by S&P Dow Jones Indices
jlne.ws/15LZlqD

New State Street bond index ETF launched on Xetra
jlne.ws/17YYO3Y

Bank Of China (Hong Kong) And FTSE Group Jointly Announce Partnership To Develop A New Offshore RMB Bond Index Series
jlne.ws/15LZlqE

Technology

BAE Systems Detica Named Category Leader In The Anti-Money Laundering Solutions 2013 RiskTech Quadrant From Chartis Research
jlne.ws/15LZnic

Otkritie Securities Goes Live With Calypso Technology – Leading Russian Financial Institution Rolls Out Calypso In Front And Back Office For Repo And Securities Lending And Borrowing (SLB) Trading
jlne.ws/15LZlqF

Enforcement

SEC Seeks to Halt Scheme Raising Investor Funds Under Guise of JOBS Act
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced fraud charges against a Spokane Valley, Wash., company and its owner for misleading investors with claims to raise billions of investment capital under the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act and invest it exclusively in American businesses.
jlne.ws/15LZlqI

Environmental & Energy

No End to Power Rout as Carbon Market Vote Fails: Energy Markets
Bloomberg
Europe’s failure to rescue the region’s carbon market is likely to encourage utilities to burn record amounts of coal, putting power prices in Germany on course for the worst-ever sequence of quarterly declines.
jlne.ws/14Tq7xL

U.K.’s Davies Seeks Carbon Vote in EU Assembly Before End-July
Bloomberg
The European Union proposal to temporarily cut oversupply in its carbon market should be put to a new vote in the full European Parliament before the end of July at the latest, according to EU lawmaker Chris Davies.
jlne.ws/YWY2xz

EEX, Powernext to combine gas trading from May 29
Reuters
The European Energy Exchange (EEX) and France’s Powernext will combine their gas trading platforms on May 29, as they wait for regulators to approve a full merger of their gas activities, EEX said on Thursday.
jlne.ws/11IiK6r

Asia-Pacific

Japan’s Investment Banks Once Ugly Sisters Turn Into Cinderellas
Bloomberg
Investment banks are among the first and biggest beneficiaries of Japan’s new economic-stimulus policies, known as Abenomics.
jlne.ws/15LZnie

Ashmore Group makes further inroads into Southeast Asia
Money Beat, The Wall Street Journal
Investment manager Ashmore Group is making further inroads into Southeast Asia with an office in Indonesia, its second in the region.
jlne.ws/15LZnif

[OSE] Partial Amendment in Related Rules and Regulations in Connection with the Integration of Cash Equity Markets with Tokyo Stock Exchange and Clearing Organizations with Japan Securities Clearing Corporation, etc.
jlne.ws/15LZlqL

HKEx: Exchange Publishes Consultation Papers On Its Connected Transaction Rules
jlne.ws/15LZnih

Tokyo Stock Exchange To Expand “TSE Indicative NAV”(ETN) Lineup
Beginning Apr 30, 2013, Tokyo Stock Exchange, Inc. (TSE) will begin calculating and publishing Indicative Net Asset Value (Indicative NAV) per share in real time for the ETNs below.
jlne.ws/15LZlqN

HKEx Announces Temporary Holiday Risk Management Arrangements
jlne.ws/15LZnil

Hong Kong’s Securities And Futures Commission: Investor Convicted Of Manipulating Callable Bull Bear Contract
jlne.ws/15LZnim

Tokyo Financial Exchange: Rollover Of Leading Contract Month For Three-Month Euroyen Futures – Effective From 24 April 2013
jlne.ws/15LZomd

Shanghai Stock Exchange Market Closure Schedule For 2013 Labor Day
jlne.ws/15LZomf

Frontier Markets

Doha Bank and Qatar Exchange host joint SME workshop on Listing on the Qatar Exchange Venture Market
Doha Bank in partnership with the Qatar Exchange (QE) have hosted the first seminar of its kind to highlight opportunities for SMEs seeking to be part of the QE Venture Market, which joins the QE Main Market and is a revolutionary new opportunity for small and medium business to pursue their bold entrepreneurial visions and also benefit from the access to capital that being listed entails.
jlne.ws/15LZomh

SuperDerivatives to add vast mutual funds data coverage to DGX real-time market data platform
SuperDerivatives, a world leader in multi-asset real-time market data, analytics and derivatives technology including front office, portfolio revaluation and trade execution will further enhance its DGX platform and respond to strong client demand with the addition of mutual funds market data.
jlne.ws/15P8Dxv

MCX Weekly Market Report April 19, 2013 To April 25, 2013
jlne.ws/15LZoml

Miscellaneous

From ‘Fabulous Fab’ to Grad Student
JUSTIN BAER and BEN KESLING – WSJ.com
Fabrice Tourre is trying to get on with his life. Since he first emerged three years ago as the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. employee at the center of one of the most bruising regulatory battles in the firm’s history, Mr. Tourre has settled into the cloistered world of academia. He is pursuing a doctorate in economics at the University of Chicago and working as a teaching assistant.
jlne.ws/15LZniq

Read article

Contact Contango on

+44 (0)7931 372586

or email