Industry news

May 3, 2013: CME Favored in U.S. Swaps-Data Plan, Competitor Suit Says; Tech Issue Delays Options Trading at CBOE; Hedge funds find salvation in Japan’s Abenomics

Clearing company DTCC files a lawsuit, taking aim at regulator CFTC for creating a rules it says inappropriately favors competitor CME Group. Exchange CBOE suffers its second (though this time more limited) operational fault in a week. Hedge funds, struggling to find a decent place to sit and be profitable for a while, look to Japan for the first time in a while as economic policy shifts there make the country more intriguing.

First Read

Back to the garage — without a scratch
Walter Lukken – FIA
To quote Carol Burnett: “I’m so glad we had this time together…” But now it is time for me to go back to my day job. I want to express my sincere appreciation to John Lothian and team for allowing me the opportunity to be guest editor for a week. As I mentioned at the beginning of the week, I felt like I had been handed the keys to a Ferrari but now it is time to return the car and go back to a car that is better suited to my pace. Like my very first car, a light-blue Datsun 210 hatchback, 4-cylinder engine under the hood, which died an untimely death in Portland Oregon 25 years ago by spontaneously catching fire. But I digress…

What a week it was. We had lawsuits, hearings, enforcement actions, new rules, proposed taxes, market glitches, and general mudslinging. Insert Honey Boo Boo and we would have a reality TV show. In just five days I have grown to appreciate what John and team do week after week and the real value of what they do for our industry. And it was great seeing John in Washington this week at the TAC meeting, up and about after his knee surgeries. He looked great and seems rested and ready to climb back into the driver’s seat.

It is apropos that the week I take the wheel of a social media platform is the same week that the news has been focused on the role of Twitter and social media in market events and regulation. Should we regulate social media in some way, as hinted by one CFTC commissioner? Is it even possible to regulate this means of sharing information in some meaningful way? As Chairman Gensler correctly commented, we need to be resilient as technology continues to evolve. While today everyone is talking about Twitter, tomorrow the technology will be something completely different. We should be focusing our attention on the real threat of information cyber security, rather than one specific technology for disseminating that information.

Hope to see many of you at FIA’s Law & Compliance conference in Baltimore next week. It is now safe to unbuckle and exit the ride…

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Crossing the finish line
Jon Matte
Thanks, Walt, for stepping in as guest editor this week! Glad to have you here. And, uh… about the things you left in the glove box… somebody sort of ate that little package of Oreos, but you can claim the rest of the stuff next time you come by.

Also, a big thank you to Jeff Bergstrom, Jim Kharouf and a new temporary JJLCO intern named John Lothian for covering the behind-the-curtain editing and publication process for me yesterday, as I had to sneak away for a day. I promise I won’t do that to you guys ever again, until next time.

Finally, I checked the calendar and there’s another week next week, and we have ONE MORE guest editor left to go: come on over, Patrick Thornton-Smith of Traiana. See you Monday!

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JLN Options: Sun rises on Miami Options Exchange
By Jim Kharouf, JLN
The much anticipated Miami Options Exchange launched December 7, 2013, making it the 11th options exchange in the United States. Jim Kharouf, editor-in-chief of John Lothian News, spoke with Shelly Brown, senior vice president, strategic planning and operations with MIAX Options, and Doug Schafer, executive vice president, chief information officer and director of the exchange at the Options Industry Conference in Las Vegas last week.

They say MIAX’s 72-person team has two things that differentiate it from the pack – speed and a regulator approval-pending order function that’s designed to tighten quotes and reward market makers for tighter quoting. They also touched on its next two exchanges that will be based in Miami, with a Latin American view.

This is an in-depth interview that gives good insight into the workings of MIAX. Read the interview in its entirety here: jlne.ws/Ypec7W

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MarketAxess Announces Monthly Volume Statistics for April 2013
MarketAxess Holdings Inc., the operator of a leading electronic trading platform for fixed-income securities, and the provider of market data and post-trade services for the global fixed-income markets, today announced total monthly trading volume for April 2013 of $56.6 billion, consisting of $36.1 billion in U.S. high-grade volume, $15.1 billion in other credit volume, and $5.4 billion in liquid products volume.
jlne.ws/ZEk6AS

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Continuum and Connamara Establish FIX Bridge for Third-Party Connectivity
Continuum today announced its partnership with Connamara Systems, LLC, a Chicago-based consulting firm, to develop and deploy FIX bridge solutions. Through FIX bridge technology, CQG‘s Hosted Exchange Gateways can be connected to third-party applications to provide traders access to CQG’s order execution infrastructure through their current trade systems and applications.
jlne.ws/ZEk8ZI

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BlackRock to hire 300 lawyers to handle regulation ‘mess’
Reuters via Yahoo! News
BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest money manager, plans to hire another 300 lawyers to help it deal with fragmented global regulation, particularly of banks. “We’re probably hiring another 300 lawyers and I’m not the one being regulated, I’m not a bank,” BlackRock Chief Executive Laurence Fink told the St Gallen Symposium, an annual conference at the university in the eastern Swiss town.
jlne.ws/ZEk6AU

**JK – There’s a bad “How many lawyers does it take to handle Dodd-Frank?” in here somewhere.

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[Video] Professor David Cliff Discusses High Frequency Trading
HFT Review via YouTube
In this video, recorded at the TradeTech Europe 2013 HFT Focus Day in London, Professor David Cliff of the University of Bristol talks to Mike O’Hara of HFT Review about high frequency trading
jlne.ws/ZEk8ZJ

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SEC cross-border rules an improvement on CFTC proposals, say lawyers
Risk.net
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken a different approach to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in its cross-border rules, proposing a narrower definition of ‘US person’ that will limit the extraterritorial reach of Dodd-Frank, lawyers say.
jlne.ws/ZEk6AZ

***JM: Doug Ashburn‘s got a fresh new page on MarketsReformWiki that summarizes, explains, clarifies, schedules and collects documents all together for this issue. Check it out at: http://jlne.ws/17zTKSi

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Ring around the clearer, acts like a mirror. Default! default! They all fall down
Lisa Pollack | FT Alphaville
“What happens when one bank defaults across six CCPs? The remaining members will have to pick up the bill. Given that they are almost certainly members of the other CCPs, this will result in a default contribution bill so large it could potentially lead to their failure also.” That’s Gary Dunn, senior manager for regulatory and risk analytics at HSBC, being quoted by Risk at Isda’s AGM last week.
jlne.ws/ZEk6B2

***WL: Don’t let the cheeky headline fool you, this is a thoughtful exploration of a serious topic. Well worth reading – although I admit I have a bias for articles about clearing!

**JK – Cheeky headlines bad (and this one is one of the worst), cheeky comments, eh, not so bad.

***JM: Well, I LIKE the headline, and the article is great. So there.

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Diamond’s Next Life
New York Times
Robert E. Diamond Jr., who as former chief executive of Barclays was arguably responsible more than anyone else for transforming the British finance industry, has had a pretty spectacular fall.
jlne.ws/ZEk6B3

***WL: A great entry in the “Where are they now” category.

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Who’s in the house? Warren Buffett sends first tweet
MSNBC
“Warren is in the house.” Warren Buffett – the beloved Oracle of Omaha, sage of Wall Street – dispatched those five simple words in his first tweet around noon on Thursday and within three hours collected more than 131,000 followers.
jlne.ws/ZEk6B4

***WL: Did he move markets?

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Global Exchange and Clearinghouse Leaders To Assemble in Busan, S. Korea For WFE-IOMA Annual Derivatives Conference
Leaders of many of the largest exchanges and clearinghouses will assemble 6-7 May for the annual derivatives conference of the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) and the International Options Market Association (IOMA). The 30th annual meeting will focus on market and regulatory issues currently changing the world’s derivatives landscape.
jlne.ws/ZEk9g1

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MarketsWiki

MarketsWiki Page of the Day
European Central Bank
jlne.ws/bEkXJ3

MarketsWiki Recent Updates

People

Nicole M. Kuchera; Christopher H. Mendoza; Adam Sheldon; Joseph T. Pucci

Companies, Organizations and Groups

European Central Bank; Advantage Futures; Henderson & Lyman; NASDAQ OMX PSX; Bionic Trader Systems

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38,729,244 pages viewed, 7,470 articles, 158,446 edits
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Lead Stories

CME Favored in U.S. Swaps-Data Plan, Competitor Suit Says
Tom Schoenberg & Silla Brush – Bloomberg
CME Group Inc. (CME)’s regulatory approval to have information about swaps routed to its own database is being challenged in federal court by a rival alleging the arrangement is anticompetitive and lessens transparency.
jlne.ws/ZEk9g3

***WL: This looks like one of those situations where the CFTC was damned if they did, damned if they didn’t. If the policy had come out one way, CME likely would have sued. And since it came out the other way, now DTCC is suing. You can see why Larry Fink (See Blackrock story above) is grumbling about having to hire so many more lawyers.

3rd UPDATE: Tech Issue Delays Options Trading at CBOE
Jacob Bunge – Dow Jones
The Chicago Board Options Exchange suffered more system problems early Thursday that hit trading in some stock-options contracts, a week after severe technical issues closed its markets for more than three hours. The latest problems saw around 300 classes of stock options hosted on an exchange “business cluster” run by the CBOE open 10 minutes late Thursday, after the exchange reported system issues ahead of the start of trading.
jlne.ws/YphpnX

***JM: For any piece of software more complex than “Hello World”, “fully confident” is a risky pronouncement to make.

CBOE to Hire Consultant After Glitch Delays Trading
Jacob Bunge – Dow Jones
The Chicago Board Options Exchange will hire an independent consultant to review the exchange’s technology practices after the second trading delay in a week due to systems problems at the biggest U.S. stock-options market.
jlne.ws/ZYfFAz

Hedge funds find salvation in Japan’s Abenomics
Sam Jones, Hedge Fund Correspondent – FT.com
If hedge fund managers believed in salvation, then Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe would be a prime candidate for saviour. For a $2.4tn industry whose returns for the past four years have been disappointing at best, and moribund at worst, only one trade has really mattered of late: buying Japan.
jlne.ws/ZEk9g9

Man Group Faces Further Client Outflows
MARK SCOTT – NYTimes.com
LONDON – Clients continued to withdraw money from the Man Group in the first quarter, as the world’s largest publicly traded hedge fund announced plans on Friday to buy back almost $500 million of its own debt.
jlne.ws/ZEkakf

CME Group Net Income Declines 12 Percent as Lower Fees Cut Sales
Matthew Leising – Bloomberg
CME Group Inc., the world’s largest futures market, said first-quarter profit fell 12 percent as lower non-operating revenue and fees per contract cut sales. Net income dropped to $235.8 million, or 71 cents a share, from $266.6 million, or 80 cents a share, a year earlier, Chicago-based CME said today in a statement distributed by PR Newswire.
jlne.ws/ZEk9wB

**JK – Also see ICE, Deutsche Boerse and Nasdaq reports below in Exchanges.

CME Group Vows to Oppose Trading Taxes
Jacob Bunge – Dow Jones
CME Group Inc. on Thursday downplayed the prospect of higher taxes on some U.S. derivatives trading and said the futures exchange operator was lobbying against such moves in Washington.
jlne.ws/ZEk9wC

**JK – I don’t think they should trade taxes either.

NYSE Liffe makes headway in Asian broker push
Anish Puaar – Financial News
NYSE Liffe has doubled its Asia-based customers in a sign that the London-headquartered derivatives market is making headway in the region.
jlne.ws/ZEk9gc

Nasdaq: New Companies Need the Right to Avoid Dark-Pool Trading
Jacob Bunge – Dow Jones
Newly listed companies should have the power to restrict trading in their shares to a chosen exchange and to prohibit private dealing in their stock, according to the chief executive of Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. (NDAQ). Such moves would make it easier and cheaper for investors to put capital behind small companies, said Robert Greifeld, speaking to staff of the Securities and Exchange Commission at an event Wednesday.
jlne.ws/ZEkcbC

Regulators Name ‘Broker X’ In Nymex Trade Leak Case
Jacob Bunge – Dow Jones
U.S. futures market regulators on Thursday named Ron Eibschutz as the unidentified broker who had received leaked trading data from former employees of the New York Mercantile Exchange.
jlne.ws/ZEkcbE

Temasek to take $500m stake in Markit
Jeremy Grant in Kuala Lumpur and Philip Stafford in London – FT.com
Temasek, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, is poised to take a stake worth around $500m in Markit, the UK data provider that has become an influential force in financial markets in recent years.
jlne.ws/ZEk9wG

Dumb and dumber: Libor, ‘the rate at which banks do not lend to each other’
James Mackintosh – FT.com
Sometimes markets work. Other times they’re just dumb. Using the London interbank lending rate as the basis for $350tn of derivatives is at the dumber end of stupid ideas. Libor has become shorthand for everything wrong with the banking system after Barclays, UBS and Royal Bank of Scotland were fined $2.6bn for rigging the market, as revealed in a series of blunt emails.
jlne.ws/ZEk9wK

Bank Kingpins Ponder Their Lousy Image
John Letzing – MoneyBeat – WSJ
Leaders of some of Europe’s biggest banks gathered Friday to ponder the sorry state of their public image.
jlne.ws/ZEkcbI

Regulatory

Senior S.E.C. Officials Depart
BEN PROTESS – NYTimes.com
The Securities and Exchange Commission has a new look to it. First, Mary Jo White joined the agency as its chairwoman last month. Then, she went about filling key roles, naming co-leaders of the agency’s enforcement unit last week and hiring a general counsel, Anne Small, who rejoined the S.E.C. from the White House. Now, she has some fresh spots to fill.
jlne.ws/ZEkcbL

CFTC Issues Order of Registration for the Natural Gas Exchange Inc.
On May 2, 2013, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission issued an Order of Registration to the Natural Gas Exchange Inc. (NGX), a foreign board of trade located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Under the Order, NGX is permitted to provide its identified members or other participants located in the U.S. with direct access to its electronic order entry and trade matching system.
jlne.ws/ZEk9MY

CFTC’s Division of Swap Dealer and Intermediary Oversight Issues Time-Limited No-Action Letter Providing Relief Surrounding Certain Foreign Exchange Transactions with a Settlement Cycle of No More than Seven Local Business Days
jlne.ws/ZEk9N2

Carlo di Florio Named FINRA’s New Executive Vice President, Risk and Strategy – FINRA
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) announced today that Carlo V. di Florio, currently Director of the SEC’s Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations (OCIE), will join the organization as Executive Vice President, Risk and Strategy. In this role, di Florio will lead FINRA’s Office of Risk, Emerging Regulatory Issues, Enterprise Risk Management and Strategy.
jlne.ws/ZEkcbO

NFA Arbitrator Training Opportunity
NFA will be co-sponsoring an arbitration seminar entitled, “Securities Arbitration and Mediation Hot Topics 2013,” presented by the City Bar Center for CLE. The seminar will be held at the New York City Bar on Tuesday, June 4, 2013. NFA arbitrators may attend the seminar at a discounted rate of $127.50 (or $152.50 for walk-ins). See the attached brochure for additional information.
jlne.ws/K6lRxP

The FCA publishes findings of review into interest-only mortgages and reaches agreement with lenders to contact interest-only borrowers
jlne.ws/ZEk9N6

Canadian Securities Regulators Announce Roundtables To Receive Input On Statutory ‘Best Interest’ Duty
jlne.ws/ZEk9Na

Exchanges & Trading Facilities

ICE Reports 18% Increase in April Daily Futures Volume
IntercontinentalExchange (NYSE: ICE), a leading operator of global markets and clearing houses, today reported futures volume for April 2013. ICE’s average daily volume (ADV) for futures and options was 3,843,846 contracts, an increase of 18% from the prior April. Total volume in April 2013 was 85 million contracts.
jlne.ws/120D8zY

Average daily volume of 9.8 million contracts at Eurex Group in April
In April 2013, the international derivatives exchanges of Eurex Group recorded an average daily volume of 9.8 million contracts (April 2012: 10.9 million). Of those, 7.1 million were Eurex Exchange contracts (April 2012: 8.3 million), and 2.7 million contracts (April 2012: 2.6 million) were traded at the U.S.-based International Securities Exchange (ISE).
jlne.ws/ZEk9Ne

Turnover at Deutsche Börse’s cash markets at 103 billion euros in April
Order book turnover on Xetra, the Xetra Frankfurt Specialist trading and Tradegate stood at E103.0 billion in April (April 2012: E99.2 billion). Of the E103.0 billion, E95.6 billion were attributable to Xetra (April 2012: E94.6 billion). E4.3 billion were attributable to the Xetra Frankfurt Specialist trading (April 2012: E4.6 billion). Order book turnover on Tradegate Exchange* totalled approximately E3.1 billion in April (April 2012: E2.7 billion).
jlne.ws/ZEkcsj

BOX Price Improvement Activity for April
In the month of April, price improved contracts on BOX Options Exchange averaged 217,146 per day, which represented a 17% increase over last month.
jlne.ws/ZEkcsk

NASDAQ OMX Nordic Trading Statistics – April 2013
NASDAQ OMX today publishes monthly trade statistics for the Nordic1 and Baltic2 markets. Below follows a summary of the statistics for April 2013:
The share trading decreased by 4.2 % to a daily average of 2.4bn EUR, compared to 2.5bn EUR in April 2012. Compared to the previous month, March 2013, the daily average increased by 4.1 %. Derivatives trading decreased by 11.6 % to a daily average of 524,919 contracts, compared with 594,106 contracts in April 2012.
jlne.ws/ZEka3v

Burgundy Monthly Report – April 2013
The average daily turnover was EUR 42.9 (70.9) million, a decrease of 39.5 percent. The total turnover was EUR 901.8 (1,417.8) million, a decrease of 36.4 percent.
jlne.ws/ZEkcsq

TMX Group Consolidated Trading Statistics – April 2013 – Toronto Stock Exchange, TSX Venture Exchange, TMX
jlne.ws/ZEkcIF

Key Figures For SIX Swiss Exchange And Scoach Switzerland April 2013: Pleasing Trend Since The Start Of The Year
jlne.ws/ZEka3C

ASX Group Monthly Activity Report – April 2013
jlne.ws/ZEkcII

ASX Compliance Monthly Activity Report – April 2013
jlne.ws/ZEka3G

Boerse Stuttgart Reports April Turnover In Region Of EUR 7.4 Billion – Trading Volume Up In Securitised Derivatives And Exchange-Traded Products
jlne.ws/ZEkcIO

Permission To Merge Oslo Børs ASA And Burgundy AB
Oslo Børs has received permission from the Norwegian Ministry of Finance to merge Oslo Børs ASA and its Swedish subsidiary Burgundy AB, with Oslo Børs ASA as the acquiring company. The merger is scheduled for 2nd quarter of 2013.
jlne.ws/ZEka3I

Market Activity Drives NZX Q1 Revenue Growth
jlne.ws/ZEkcIP

NZX April 2013 Shareholder Metrics
jlne.ws/ZEkcIS

CBOE 5/2 Systems Issue
jlne.ws/ZEkcIT

BOX: Complex Order Fees Effective May 3, 2013
Effective May 3, 2013, BOX Options Exchange has included Complex Order Transaction Fees in the Fee Schedule as a new Section III.
jlne.ws/ZEkak5

ING U.S. Celebrates its Public Debut and First Day of Trading on the New York Stock Exchange
jlne.ws/ZEkcIX

Program Trading Averaged 24.5 Percent of NYSE Volume during Apr. 22-26
jlne.ws/ZEkak7

Corporate Board Member and the Center for Audit Quality Aim to Advance Board-Shareholder Relations
jlne.ws/ZEkak9

Ekinops lists on NYSE Euronext in Paris
jlne.ws/ZEkcZf

NZX Advises Results Of Resolutions At Annual Meeting
jlne.ws/ZEkcZg

NZX: Chairman’s & CEO’s Addresses
jlne.ws/ZEkakd

NZX Announces Q1 2013 Dividend
jlne.ws/ZEkcZj

Hedge Funds & Managed Futures

Bill Mahoney, Bridgewater’s Marketer in Growth Years, Dies at 55
Bloomberg
Bill Mahoney, who led global sales and marketing and became an equity partner at Bridgewater Associates LP, the world’s largest hedge fund, before retiring to pursue other interests before his 50th birthday, has died. He was 55.
jlne.ws/ZEkake

Man Group: Interim management statement for the quarter ended 31 March 2013
Press Release
Man announces its interim management statement for the quarter ended 31 March 2013. Funds under management (FUM) at 31 March 2013 of $54.8 billion (31 December 2012: $57.0 billion); Positive investment movement of $2.8 billion in the quarter; Net outflows in the quarter of $3.7 billion, comprising sales of $2.5 billion and redemptions of
$6.2 billion
jlne.ws/ZEkcZn

SAC Beset by Scandal Toughens Oversight With Clawbacks
Bloomberg
SAC Capital Advisors LP, the hedge- fund firm that agreed in March to pay more than $600 million to settle insider-trading allegations, is strengthening compliance rules, including clawing back compensation for portfolio managers and analysts who violate securities laws.
jlne.ws/ZEkakg

Hedge Fund Firm Wants to Block Cayman Transparency Reforms
HispanicBusiness.com
One of the largest hedge fund services firms in the Cayman Islands is attempting to block reforms that would make the world’s principal offshore location for hedge funds more transparent.
jlne.ws/ZEkcZr

Hedge fund Centaurus to return cash, shut Asia office: source
Reuters via Yahoo! Finance
Hedge fund firm Centaurus Capital is returning external investors all of their money after clashes with them over where the best money-making opportunities lay, a source familiar with the firm said.
jlne.ws/ZEkakh

Bedlam Asset Management looks at M&A or joint ventures
Giles Turner – Financial News
Consolidation in the UK asset management industry could be set to continue with the founder of Bedlam Asset Management saying his firm was open to carrying out acquisitions or joint ventures.
jlne.ws/ZEkdfG

Altegris Strategic Investment Conference 2013 Draws Premier Economists And Investment Experts
Altegris, provider of premier alternative investments, kicked off Wednesday with a keynote address from Paul McCulley, Chairman of the Society of Fellows of the Global Interdependence Center, and will continue today with renowned economist Niall Ferguson, DoubleLine Capital LP’s Jeffrey Gundlach and others during its 10th annual Strategic Investment Conference, running May 1-3 at the Park Hyatt Aviara Resort in Carlsbad, CA.
jlne.ws/ZEkdfJ

Hedge fund manager: Fed should rev up ‘printing press’
CNN
Hedge fund manager Dan Arbess thinks the Federal Reserve should use its ‘printing press’ to funnel money directly to the Treasury instead of simply buying more bonds
jlne.ws/ZEkdfL

Banks & Brokers

JPMorgan Energy Traders May Face FERC Case, New York Times Says
Bloomberg
JPMorgan Chase & Co. was warned by U.S. energy-market authorities that they may take action against its employees as part of an inquiry into bidding practices, the New York Times said, citing a document it obtained.
jlne.ws/ZEkdfM

Market-Maker Virtu Expands Globally as It Mulls Public Offering
Bloomberg
Virtu Financial LLC, the electronic market maker that tried and failed to buy Knight Capital Group Inc. in December, may consider an initial public offering and acquisitions as it expands, according to President Doug Cifu.
jlne.ws/ZEkaAx

Ashley Jarvis leaves Morgan Stanley
Harriet Agnew – Financial News
The global co-head of consulting for prime brokerage at Morgan Stanley is leaving the bank after two years, Financial News has learned.
jlne.ws/ZEkdfP

Credit Suisse Sues Homex for $27 Million on Derivatives Deal
Bloomberg
Credit Suisse Group AG sued Desarrolladora Homex SAB, Mexico ’s biggest homebuilder by revenue, seeking $26.7 million over a canceled derivatives transaction.
jlne.ws/ZEkaAE

BGC Partners Reports First Quarter 2013 Financial Results
Declares 12 Cent Quarterly Dividend; Conference Call to Discuss Results Scheduled for 10:00 AM ET Today
jlne.ws/ZEkdfQ

ICAP Electronic Broking: April 2013 Volumes
jlne.ws/ZEkdfS

Buffett Supports Dimon’s Dual Roles 100% at JPMorgan
Bloomberg
Warren Buffett , who has said he personally owns shares of JPMorgan Chase & Co. , is backing the bank’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon as shareholders vote this month on whether to split his roles.
jlne.ws/ZEkdfU

RBS Posts First Quarterly Profit Since 2011 as Impairments Fall
Bloomberg
Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc , Britain’s biggest state-owned lender, posted its first quarterly profit since 2011 as impairments on souring loans dwindled.
jlne.ws/ZEkaAF

Australia’s Macquarie Beats Forecasts
CNBC
Macquarie beat forecasts as cost cutting and strength in its annuity-style businesses offset weakness in capital markets.
jlne.ws/ZEkaAI

Goldman Sachs Tax Deal Saving $31 Million Reviewed by U.K. Court
Bloomberg
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. ’s deal with U.K. officials that saved the bank as much as 20 million pounds in taxes, according to an advocacy group, will be reviewed by a U.K. court at a two-day hearing starting today.
jlne.ws/ZEkaAL

Citi taps wealthy family clients to boost private bank
Reuters
Citigroup Inc , one of the world’s largest banks, is betting on wealthy Middle Eastern family firms who are in expansion mode to boost its private bank business, senior executives said.
jlne.ws/ZEkaAO

Lazard Hires Slaughter, a Former JPMorgan Deal Maker
New York Times
Lazard said on Thursday that it had hired Larry Slaughter, who was most recently a co-head of North American investment banking for JPMorgan Chase, as a vice chairman for investment banking.
jlne.ws/ZEkdfZ

Deutsche Bank Hires Three for U.S. Investment-Grade Credit Team
Bloomberg
Deutsche Bank AG , Germany’s biggest lender, hired three people for its U.S. investment-grade debt group, including an analyst and two traders.
jlne.ws/ZEkaR3

RBS says gov’t stake could be sold within year
Associated Press via Yahoo! News
LONDON — Royal Bank of Scotland says the government should be able to start selling its stake within a year, as it reported first-quarter profits of 393 million pounds — compared to a loss of 1.5 billion in the same three months last year.
jlne.ws/ZEkaR4

Clearing & Settlement

LCH.Clearnet starts E320m fundraising to meet capital needs
Philip Stafford – FT.com
LCH.Clearnet has begun a E320m fundraising to meet new capital requirements for clearing houses, after confirming on Wednesday that the deal to sell a 57.8 per cent stake to the London Stock Exchange (LSE) had closed.
jlne.ws/ZEkdwc

Statement By DTCC General Counsel Larry Thompson
jlne.ws/ZEkdwi

Indexes & Products

New db X-trackers money market ETF launched on Xetra
jlne.ws/ZEkaR9

Technology

SunGard Announces First Quarter 2013 Results
SunGard, one of the world’s leading software and technology services companies, today reported results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2013. For the first quarter, revenue was $1.0 billion, down 3% year over year.
jlne.ws/ZEkdwl

Kx Systems Expands Academic Program with Sponsorship at NYU-Poly Big Data Finance Conference
Kx Systems, the leader in high-performance database and time-series analysis, is pleased to announce its sponsorship of the Polytechnic Institute of New York University (NYU-Poly) Big Data Finance Conference on Friday, May 3, 2013.
jlne.ws/ZEkdwp

***WL: Also speaking at this conference — Scott O’Malia, the CFTC’s own big data guy!

Enforcement

SEC Charges Gatekeepers of Two Mutual Fund Trusts for Inaccurate Disclosures About Decisions On Behalf of Shareholders
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged the gatekeepers of a pair of mutual fund trusts with causing untrue or misleading disclosures about the factors they considered when approving or renewing investment advisory contracts on behalf of shareholders.
jlne.ws/ZEkdwr

Two arrested in FCA insider dealing investigation
On the 30 April the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) with the assistance of the City of London Police Economic Crime Directorate executed a search warrant in West London. Two people, a man aged 41 and a woman aged 37, were arrested and questioned in connection with an investigation in to insider dealing and market abuse.
jlne.ws/ZEkdwu

Hedge Fund Trader Is Sentenced to 4 1/2 Years in Insider Case
New York Times
Todd Newman, a onetime hedge fund trader at Diamondback Capital who was convicted of insider trading, was sentenced as part of the government’s widespread crackdown.
jlne.ws/ZEkdwv

Environmental & Energy

Powernext Becomes The French National Registry For Guarantees Of Origin
Following its designation by the French Ministry of Ecology, Sustainable Development and Energy through a decree dated 15 January 2013, Powernext assumes the duties of registry for guarantees of origin of electricity since 1st May 2013. Powernext succeeds to RTE while adapting its role to the new regulatory requirements.
jlne.ws/ZEkaRd

EPEX SPOT SE: Power Trading Results In April 2013 – 15-Minute Contracts Set New All-Time High Record
In April 2013, a total volume of 27.8 TWh was traded on EPEX SPOT’s Day-Ahead and Intraday markets (April 2012: 28.7 TWh). The volume traded in 15-minute contracts on the German Intraday market reached a new all-time high for the second month in a row.
jlne.ws/ZEkdMI

UN Envoys Consider 2050 Carbon Target in Climate Deal Talks
Bloomberg
Envoys at United Nations global warming talks are considering whether to adopt a target for carbon emissions around 2050 as they struggle to work toward a deal to limit climate change that they aim to agree on in 2015.
jlne.ws/123hevS

**RKB — From the article: The U.S. submission to this week’s discussions said countries may not have in place even by 2015 their “full range” of post-2020 measures and “will need to have the flexibility to update their contributions.”

Asia-Pacific

NYSE Liffe doubles Asian membership and welcomes KGI Futures as its newest member
NYSE Liffe, the European based global derivatives division of NYSE Euronext, is pleased to announce that it has doubled its Asian membership within the last six months and today welcomes KGI Futures Co. Ltd, a leading futures brokerage in Taiwan, as a member of the Exchange’s London and Paris markets.
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***WL: Liffe now has 14 members based in Asia–very impressive!

HKEx: Changes Of Designated Securities For Short Selling
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Frontier Markets

JSE Open For SPAC Listings
Special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) may now list on the JSE thanks to a change in the JSE listings requirements effective at the end of April. A SPAC is a company consisting only of cash which is allowed to list on the Main Board or AltX on the condition that the company buys operating assets within two years.
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Lahore Stock Exchange: Capital Markets Players In SAARC Region Support The Agenda Of The Regional Financial Integration Within South Asia
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Malawi Stock Exchange Weekly Trading Report
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MCX Weekly Market Report April 26, 2013 – May 02, 2013
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Miscellaneous

Derby’s Falling Sky Shows Goldman Sachs’s Covello Spreading Risk
Nancy Kercheval – Bloomberg
Goldman Sachs (GS) Inc. partner James Covello says that when it comes to race horses, his work on Wall Street has taught him it’s all about spreading the risk. It was still a big leap in purchasing a 40 percent stake in Falling Sky, one of 20 horses scheduled to run in the 139th Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs (CHDN) in Louisville, Kentucky, in two days, Covello said.
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American Auto Industry Has Best Performance in 20 Years
Keith Naughton, Craig Trudell & Mark Clothier – Bloomberg
Detroit’s boom-and-bust history was built on a dependence on big, fuel-thirsty vehicles. Now, with freshly stocked showrooms of new cars and more-efficient trucks, U.S. automakers are gaining ground on their Asian competitors with the best lineup in a generation.
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Future finance leaders ‘to come from super hub cities’
Peter Whitehead – FT.com
The next generation of finance leaders are likely to come from a small number of “super hub” cities, which will attract the world’s best emerging financial and accounting talent. This vision is set out in The Future of Finance report from the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants.
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