Industry news

May 6, 2013: CBOE defers start of extended trading day after recent outages; EU rules risk driving London Metal Exchange to Hong Kong; LSE on target to win Italian bond platform EuroTLX

In the wake of two technical faults in two weeks, exchange CBOE decides to hold off a bit on its plans to extend its trading day. Customers at the London Metal Exchange make dark suggestions that if the EU insists on pursuing aggressive regulatory reform, the LME’s business might very well head to Hong Kong instead. The London Stock Exchange is on track with its future acquisition of the Italian retail bond platform EuroTLX.

First Read

Chariots of Fear
Patrick Thornton-Smith – Traiana
Picture the scene. A squad of 6 of the world’s greatest sprinters has been hand picked to run a 700 meter sprint relay exhibition in front of a huge stadium audience. For the first 600 these highly tuned athletes, at the top of their profession, sped around the track with slick and faultless handovers. The crowd sensed they may be watching a world record in this rarely run yet prestigious event. The penultimate leg was a dazzling one by the Usain Bolt of the day, our own Walt Lukken, a vision in lycra. The crowd anticipated a final hand-over and blistering final leg. The expectation was huge, the atmosphere electric, who on earth can take over from Walt the Bolt? At this point, dear reader, the fatal mistake of the team’s management became all too apparent. By some ridiculous mistake (or possibly John’s surgeon had mistaken a knee cap for his frontal lobe) the final leg was to be run by someone whose athletic prowess peaked during the Edwardian era of cinder tracks, baggy shorts and the essential use of long luncheons as part of physical conditioning.

So on Friday I looked down the last few yards of the penultimate bend with Walt already holding the baton out. I glanced over my shoulder to the finishing line with tunnel vision, heart racing, parts of my body tightening for the final burst, John Vangelis theme music to Chariots of Fire in my ears and, flicking the butt of my cigarette away, hoped that I would not let the team down. Off I took and felt the cold aluminum of the baton in my hand and the last sight I saw was Walt mouthing, ‘What the …’

I have to cover 100 meters without tripping or being helped over the line, that’s 20 meters a day, here we go…

Seriously that’s what it feels like. To follow Steve, Andy, Veronica, Gary, Ed and finally Walt is a great honor, and I can only hope I don’t let them and the JLN team down. A bit like first day at school.

Less readers today I’d imagine given that it’s May Day in the UK. For those outside the United Kingdom this national Bank holiday celebrates (allegedly) the start of summer. Originally a pagan festival, but in recent times a day to celebrate workers rights. It’s a bit of an odd one, and for those of you who think eccentricity is on the wane I quote to you from the Interweb, ‘Morris dancing is associated with May Day Bank holiday. This type of dancing is nearly always carried out exclusively by men who dress in white with bells on various parts of their costume and carry scarves, long wooden sticks which they use to strike the other dancers sticks. The dancing is a mixture of hopping, skipping and arm in arm twirling and is accompanied by loud accordion music’. Go figure, as they say.

I sense I have turned the JLN motto of ‘Irreverent but never irrelevant’ on its head a bit already.

Facts of the day: This day in 1954 Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile which is, incidentally, about the time I expect to take to finish my leg. And on May 6th 1626 the Dutch bought a 22 mile island in North America from local Indians for the equivalent of $24. It was called Manhattan so at least land and house prices are on the move at long last.

Here we go with an attempt at some pithy, erudite and insightful one liners, ideally relevant…

***JM: Welcome, Patrick! You’re off to a great start. To revise and extend your remarks on “relevance”, I’ll add that Morris dancers evidently come in groups of eight: six to dance, one to play a little accordion, and one to hold an umbrella over the musician so the delicate wood-and-leather squeezebox doesn’t get rained on.

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CBOE Holdings, Inc. Reports Record First Quarter Financial Results For 2013
CBOE Holdings, Inc. today reported first quarter 2013 net income allocated to common stockholders of $41.8 million, or $0.48 per diluted share, compared with $32.9 million, or $0.37 per diluted share in the first quarter of 2012. On an adjusted basis, net income allocated to common stockholders was $43.9 million, or $0.50 per share, compared with $33.0 million, or $0.37 per diluted share, in the same period last year. Operating revenues of $142.7 million for the first quarter increased 18 percent compared with $121.4 million in the first quarter of 2012.
jlne.ws/10x86wv

***PTS: Always nice to see growth returning to the industry.

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ABN AMRO Clearing announces new CEO of Chicago office
ABN AMRO Clearing Chicago LLC}ABN AMRO Clearing announces the appointment of John M. Ruth as Chief Executive Officer of its Chicago office with immediate effect. Mr Ruth joins from Goldman Sachs & Co, where he was a Managing Director and Branch Manager of Goldman Sachs Execution & Clearing in Chicago.
jlne.ws/13Ye9yo

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Regulators should beware of dark pool generalisations
Seth Merrin – FT.com
Global regulators are right to examine the various types of off-exchange venues as they monitor recent developments in equities trading. They have a broader responsibility to regulate for fair and orderly markets in order to instill and maintain investor confidence. In that vein, any regulation should be underpinned by an effort to understand the entities that make up today’s markets and the value that they bring in terms of capital formation, liquidity and investor confidence.
jlne.ws/13Ye7GG

***PTS: Key words in this article-’investor confidence’-we need more of that.

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Australian Exchange Developer Woos Investors
Gillian Tan – MoneyBeat – WSJ
Money Market and Debt Exchange Pty Ltd. is rattling the tin ahead of its launch of an electronic exchange in Australia in August, according to an investor presentation seen by MoneyBeat.
jlne.ws/13Ye9yp

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Wealth managers flock to Singapore as Switzerland suffers
Sarah Krouse and Mike Foster – Financial News
Wealth managers are stepping up their search for staff to expand in Asia as Singapore starts to overhaul Switzerland as the world’s top private banking hub.
jlne.ws/13Ye9yq

***PTS: Gluhwein at Boat Quay? Doesn’t feel right somehow.

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FX prime brokers welcome CFTC relief
Risk.net
Prime brokers are breathing a sigh of relief after a last-minute no-action letter from the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has exempted them from certain external business conduct rules under the Dodd-Frank Act
jlne.ws/13Ye7GK

***PTS: Good.

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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

***PTS: I like news stories that include Miami and Las Vegas in them.

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Wall Street & Washington: What Is Proposed SEC Reg SCI?
Clarke Camper
Proposed Reg SCI; US equity market structure; pace of rulemaking at the CFTC; search for an alternative to LIBOR
jlne.ws/13Ye9yr

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Commodity futures market helped farmers, shows study
Business Standard
The growth of commodity futures markets in India has helped farmers dismantle powerful trading cartels in potato and mentha (mint) oil, according to a study by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences conducted in association with the Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX). It has also helped farmers take more broad-based decision on production, storage and marketing of farm produce, the study noted.
jlne.ws/13Ye7GN

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Binary Options: The Market’s Unsung Hero
By Hamish Raw, Binary Options – Advanced Trading
The Japanese Financial Services Authority (JSFA) will soon be issuing new regulatory directives for binary options providers having characterized binary options as gambling. As the author of ‘Binary Options: Fixed Odds Financial Bets,’ I would be rather pressed should I attempt to argue that binary options is never gambling. Yet to some market participants, trading and taking positions in binary options isn’t gambling but is a means of providing insurance cover to countless people and corporations around the world.
jlne.ws/ZYg6e4

***PTS: Can this be the Hamish Raw who set up FFastFill years ago? Glad to see his name in the press after some time.

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Lesson From Buffett: Doubt Yourself
JASON ZWEIG – WSJ.com
There was no big news at Berkshire Hathaway Inc.‘s annual meeting this past weekend, but there was one great lesson for investors: Perhaps the most important thing you can do when everything seems to be going right in your portfolio is to listen to somebody who insists you are wrong.
jlne.ws/13Ye7GP

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MarketsWiki

MarketsWiki Recent Updates

People

Blythe Masters

Companies, Organizations and Groups

MIAX Options Exchange; OptionsCity Software Inc.; European Central Bank; Advantage Futures; Henderson & Lyman

Statistics

38,847,226 pages viewed, 7,470 articles, 158,461 edits
MarketsWiki Statistics

Lead Stories

CBOE defers start of extended trading day after recent outages
Reuters via Yahoo! News
CBOE Holdings Inc will defer the planned launch of a longer trading day for one of its most lucrative and popular products after software changes led to two outages in recent weeks. CBOE Chief Executive Officer William Brodsky, speaking to analysts after the company reported first-quarter results, gave no indication of how long the review of its systems would take.
jlne.ws/13Ye9yx

EU rules risk driving London Metal Exchange to Hong Kong – brokers
Reuters via Yahoo! Finance
Companies using the London Metal Exchange say new EU rules for financial markets after the 2008 crisis may prompt it to quit Britain’s capital after nearly 150 years for Hong Kong, home of its new owner.
jlne.ws/13Ye7GQ

***PTS: Leadenhall Market will never be the same.

LSE on target to win Italian bond platform EuroTLX
Tim Cave – Financial News
The London Stock Exchange Group is set for victory in the battle to acquire an Italian retail bond platform, underlining a wider shift by exchange operators into the lucrative – and increasingly electronic – fixed-income markets.
jlne.ws/13Ye7GT

***PTS: If they win, a great coup for the LSE.

CBOE outage won’t limit listing of stock-index options: new CEO
Reuters via Yahoo! News
By Ann Saphir – The Chicago Board Options Exchange outage that blocked access to contracts on two of the U.S. stock market’s most-watched indexes for a half day last week will not threaten the exclusivity of the contracts for CBOE Holdings Inc, its incoming chief executive said Friday.
jlne.ws/13Ye9ON

SEC Zeroing In on ‘Prime’ Funds
ANDREW ACKERMAN – WSJ.com
U.S. securities regulators, under pressure to address risks posed by the $2.6 trillion money-market-mutual fund industry, are considering a scaled-back approach that would tighten rules for about half of the sector that is seen as most vulnerable to investor runs, according to people familiar with staff discussions.
jlne.ws/13Ye9OO

Brussels to clamp down on ‘shadow banking’
Steve Johnson – FT.com
The European Commission has signalled a wider clampdown on the continent’s “shadow banking” sector to counter “surreptitious” increases in leverage, illiquidity mismatches and the potential for systemic risk.
jlne.ws/13Ye9OP

Sweden a Crisis Casualty No More Shows How Haven Appeal Is Won
Bloomberg
After suffering through devaluations, three years of economic contraction and a banking crisis in the 1990s, Sweden has learned how to handle financial turmoil.
jlne.ws/13Ye7GV

Portugal begins talks on further austerity measures
Peter Wise in Lisbon – FT.com
The Lisbon government will begin talks with trade unions on Monday over a controversial austerity package aimed at cutting up to 30,000 public sector jobs, raising the minimum retirement age to 66 and adding five hours to the public sector working week.
jlne.ws/13Ye9OR

A New Fed Thought for ‘Too Big to Fail’ Banks: Shrink Them
PETER EAVIS – NYTimes.com
A nagging sense seems to pervade the public’s mind that the nation’s biggest banks still pose a risk to the wider economy, despite all that has been done since the 2008 financial crisis.
jlne.ws/13Ye9OT

Buyside leads the charge into Twittersphere
Anna Irrera – Financial News
Stephen King, HSBC’s chief economist, last week participated in a discussion about the state of Canada’s economy. What made it unique, however, was that the debate was held on Twitter – and King was sharing his views with an anonymous commentator known only as @ECONOMISTHULK.
jlne.ws/13Ye7GW

Regulatory

Australian Bank Regulator Says Won’t Delay Tougher Liquidity Rules
Dow Jones
Australia’s banking regulator Monday said it won’t follow international regulators in delaying the imposition of minimum liquidity standards, in a move designed to highlight the local financial system’s strength.
jlne.ws/13Ye9OU

Survey Shows Firms Still Have Much To Do To Complete Preparations for CRR/CRD IVM
Lombard Risk Management plc, provider of REPORTER, the leading automated regulatory computation and reporting solution providing automation for COREP, FINREP and other European Banking Authority reporting requirements, conducted an on-line poll during its latest regulatory update webinar held on 19th April 2013.
jlne.ws/13Ye7Xa

States urge SEC to halt forced investor arbitrations
Reuters via Yahoo! News
By Suzanne Barlyn – State securities regulators on Friday urged the SEC to prohibit Wall Street brokerages from requiring customers to settle legal disputes through arbitration, which prevents customers from going to court, joining a chorus of groups opposing such clauses.
jlne.ws/13Ye7Xb

SEC’s White Keeps Quiet on Money-Fund Plans
Wall Street Journal Blogs
SEC Chairman Mary Jo White keeps mum on what might be done to reduce the risk of the $2.6 trillion money-market mutual fund industry.
jlne.ws/13Ye9OV

FINRA warns about misleading investors in non-traded REITs
Reuters via Yahoo! Finance
The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority is cautioning brokerage firms about the way they market some real estate investment trusts after a review by the Wall Street watchdog revealed problems
jlne.ws/13Ye7Xe

IOSCO Publishes Principles For CIS Valuation
jlne.ws/13Ye9OW

Licensees urged to review and improve recruitment of new advisers
jlne.ws/13Ye7Xf

Regulation In A Global Financial System By SEC Chairman Mary Jo White, Investment Company Institute (ICI) General Membership Meeting, Washington, D.C., May 1, 2013
jlne.ws/13Ye7Xh

U.S. Federal Reserve Governor Daniel K. Tarullo At The Peterson Institute For International Economics, Washington, D.C. – Evaluating Progress In Regulatory Reforms To Promote Financial Stability
jlne.ws/13Ye7Xi

Exchanges & Trading Facilities

Deutsche Börse opens spring conference
Deutsche Börse today opened its Spring Conference 2013 in Frankfurt am Main. The event takes place from 6 to 8 May and is aimed at listed companies from the transparency standards of Deutsche Börse and at investors and analysts. Around 70 young companies and SMEs will present their business models and the figures from their latest annual financial statements in the form of investor/analyst conferences. Presentations will cover current financing and capital market topics, which particularly affect medium-sized exchange-listed companies. There will also be a focus on the topic of corporate bonds.
jlne.ws/13Ye9OZ

At A Glance: CME Group Virtual Steel Mill Volume and Open Interest – April 2013
Overall Volume and OI Trends
* Positive volume growth in ferrous complex with new market participants entering the market
* Pick up trend in iron ore futures ahead of their launch on CME Globex on 5/13/2013
jlne.ws/13Ye7Xj

***PTS: As above, all signs of growth are good news.

BATS Global Markets U.S. Equities Market Share Rose In April; Europe Depository Receipts Trading Reached Monthly Record
BATS Global Markets (BATS) today reported increased market share for its U.S. equities segment in April, finishing at 10.9% vs 10.6% in March. BATS Options rose to 4.0% from 3.8%. Also in April, BATS Chi-X Europe set a new monthly market share record in Depository Receipt (DR) trading, with BATS Chi-X Europe earning 7.1% market share, exceeding its previous record of 5.9% set in March 2013. BATS Chi-X Europe also matched last month’s market share record in Spain’s IBEX 35 of 12.8%.
jlne.ws/13Ye9P3

NASDAQ OMX April 2013 Volumes
jlne.ws/13Ye7Xk

Monthly Trading Statements For BME Markets – The Trading Volume On The Spanish Stock Exchange In April Reaches 57.6 Billion, Up 11% From The Previous Month
jlne.ws/13Ye9P5

Irish Stock Exchange Statistics April 2013
jlne.ws/13Ye7Xl

HOMAIR VACANCES Launches Initial Bond Offer On NYSE Alternext – Largest Issue Of Its Type Since IBOs Were Introduced At The End Of 2012
jlne.ws/13Ye7Xm

International Securities Exchange Weekly Listings May 3, 2013
jlne.ws/13Ye7Xn

TSX Markets Top 20 Largest Consolidated Short Position Report – April 30, 2013
jlne.ws/13Ye7Xo

[CBOE] Trader E-News
jlne.ws/13Yea5q

Microsoft Debuts Its First Euro-Denominated Debt Securities On The Irish Stock Exchange
jlne.ws/13Ye7Xr

TOM MTF Statistics Week 18 2013
jlne.ws/13Yea5u

Hedge Funds & Managed Futures

Hedge-Fund Manager Vinik to Close Firm
JULIET CHUNG – WSJ.com
Veteran stock picker Jeffrey Vinik plans to close his hedge fund after a run of poor performance that coincided with a string of changes at his firm. Mr. Vinik, who rose to prominence helming Fidelity Investments’ Magellan fund in the 1990s, plans to return several billion dollars to outside investors at the end of June.
jlne.ws/13Yea5v

Traditional investors adopt activism
Ruth Sullivan – FT.com
Traditional institutional investors are taking a leaf out of the book of more aggressive activist investor groups, which are driving change in investee companies, by adopting a more active stance in the companies in which they invest. “They are seeing activists [such as hedge funds] succeed and are stepping up their own activist activity,” says Julian Franks, finance professor and academic director of London Business School’s Centre for Corporate Governance.
jlne.ws/13Yea5w

Carlyle launches $2bn fund into land of ‘Abenomics’
Alec Macfarlane – Financial News
US private equity giant the Carlyle Group has become the first global buyout firm for five years to launch a Japan-focused fund.
jlne.ws/13Yea5x

Germany’s Eon relaunches in-house commodities trading arm
Javier Blas, Commodities Editor – FT.com
Eon, the largest German utility by sales, is relaunching its in-house trading business, aiming to build a global presence at a time when the global commodities trading industry faces headwinds after a decade-long boom.
jlne.ws/13Yea5z

Norway’s oil fund ramps up pace of property acquisitions
Richard Milne in Oslo and Ed Hammond in London – FT.com
Norway’s oil fund has sharply accelerated the pace of its property acquisitions as the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund seeks to establish itself as a big name in the real estate world.
jlne.ws/13Ye8dI

Former Xstrata chief hires Goldman to raise fund
Jennifer Thompson and Daniel Schäfer – FT.com
Mick Davis has hired Goldman Sachs to help him raise a new fund, as the former Xstrata chief executive prepares his future only days after the miner completed its $76bn takeover by rival Glencore.
jlne.ws/13Yea5B

Does BNY Mellon Really Believe Hedge Funds Are No Riskier Than Traditional Investments?
Forbes
As the former compliance director of one of the nation’s largest money managers, I was puzzled by a recent letter published in the Providence Journal by Roger Begin, former Rhode Island Treasurer and Vice President of BNY Mellon Wealth Management, defending the current state treasurer’s decision to invest 25% of the state pension’s assets in high-risk, high-cost hedge funds.
jlne.ws/13Ye8dK

Cooperman: Bill Ackman is ‘foolish’
CNN Money
Famed hedge fund manager Leon Cooperman blasts fellow investor Bill Ackman on his Herbalife bet.
jlne.ws/13Ye8dN

Berkshire Hathaway’s 2013 Shareholder Meeting
MICHAEL J. DE LA MERCED – NYTimes.com
Even with the addition of a hedge fund manager meant to inject additional skepticism into Berkshire Hathaway‘s annual meeting, Warren E. Buffett managed to escape making big news here on Saturday.
jlne.ws/13YealQ

Berkshire Hathaway Investors Line Up Early for Warren Buffett at Annual Meeting
WSJ.com
Berkshire Hathaway Inc. bear Doug Kass spent weeks sharpening his claws to dig into Warren Buffett, but he didn’t draw much blood. Mr. Buffett picked Mr. Kass in March for his contrarian views on Berkshire and invited him to ask tough questions at the company’s annual meeting, which concluded Saturday in Omaha.
jlne.ws/13Ye8dP

Charlie Munger Speaks His Mind: The Full Interview
CNBC
Warren Buffett’s long-time business partner Charlie Munger isn’t shy about saying what he thinks. Speaking to CNBC’s Becky Quick, Munger blasts bankers and high-frequency trading. Here’s the complete interview.
jlne.ws/13Ye8dR

Subscription starts for PNE WIND AG corporate bond
jlne.ws/13YealR

CFTC Commitments Of Traders Reports Update
jlne.ws/13YealU

Banks & Brokers

Scrutiny Falls on a Pioneer at JPMorgan
New York Times
Blythe Masters, who helped pioneer the use of credit derivatives, is cited in a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission document looking at the bank’s trading in the California and Michigan electricity markets.
jlne.ws/13Ye8dV

JPMorgan CEO Dimon to meet with OCC examiners: WSJ
Reuters
JPMorgan Chase & Co CEO Jamie Dimon is scheduled to meet next week with bank examiners from the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency in a meeting the bank requested, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.
jlne.ws/13Ye8dW

JPMorgan shareholders urged to reject three directors
Reuters via Yahoo! News
NEW YORK – JPMorgan Chase & Co shareholders should vote against the re-election of three board members because they failed to properly oversee risk-taking that led to $6.2 billion of losses on the so-called “London Whale” trades, an influential proxy advisory firm said.
jlne.ws/13YealX

Banks square up in new commodities era
Suzi Ring – Financial News
The number of major investment banks able to be successful commodities players will fall to around five by 2016, according to three heads of investment bank commodities operations.
jlne.ws/13Ye8ud

Big four U.S. brokerage firms are thriving, not diving: report
Reuters via Yahoo! News
Forecasts of a steady deterioration in profit at Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley , Wells Fargo Advisors and UBS Wealth Management Americas are highly exaggerated, analysts at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. declared in a new report on Friday.
jlne.ws/13Ye8uf

HSBC to Barclays See Rout in Fees as Banks Chase Mideast Deals
Bloomberg
HSBC Holdings Plc , the biggest bond underwriter in the Persian Gulf since 2007, and Barclays Plc said fees in the region are plummeting because of increased competition from international and local lenders.
jlne.ws/13Ye8ug

U.S. judge blocks $383 million arbitration case against Citigroup
Reuters
Citigroup Inc has won an injunction blocking a $383 million arbitration case filed by a Saudi Arabian investor who accused the bank of “virtually wiping out” his family’s wealth.
jlne.ws/13Yeam0

UBS Names Mathews to Head Wealth Management
Dow Jones
UBS AG has named John Mathews head of Private Wealth Management, a group responsible for the ultra-high-net-worth segment of UBS Wealth Management Americas.
jlne.ws/13Ye8uh

INTL FCStone physical metals team leaving for Vision -sources
Reuters
INTL FCStone Inc’s physical metals trading team plans to leave for a smaller, rival futures broker as the midsize commodities brokerage cuts its exposure to the capital-intensive business, three sources familiar with the matter said.
jlne.ws/13Yeam1

Indexes & Products

BM&FBOVESPA announces the 3rd preview for Ibovespa and other indices, valid for May-August 2013
jlne.ws/13Ye8uk

IndexIQ Announces April 2013 Performance of Its IQ Hedge Family of Investable Benchmark Hedge Fund Replication Indexes
jlne.ws/13Ye8um

Technology

Bayer Goes Live with SunGard’s Adaptiv Analytics to Help Improve Risk Calculations and Support Regulatory Compliance
Bayer AG (Bayer), a global enterprise with core competencies in the fields of health care, agriculture and high-tech materials, has gone live with SunGard’s Adaptiv solutions for risk management. Adaptiv Analytics, Adaptiv 360, Adaptiv Operations will help Bayer to conduct fast Monte Carlo-based calculations of risk measures such as value at risk (VaR), potential future exposure (PFE), credit valuation adjustment (CVA), and debt valuation adjustment (DVA) to support the firm’s global financial risk management, treasury operations from trading to hedge accounting, and adherence to the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) 13 rules.
jlne.ws/13Ye8un

FENICS AND E.SUN COMMERCIAL BANK AGREE TO EXTEND USE OF FENICS PROFESSIONAL
FENICS Software Ltd, a GFI Group Inc. company, announced today that E.SUN Commercial Bank Ltd., a leading Taiwanese Commercial Bank, has extended its license for the use of FENICS Professional. FENICS Professional provides E.SUN Commercial Bank with capabilities such as volatility surface management, Internal RFQ (request for quotes) and automatic term sheet generation. The bank has been a customer of FENICS since 2004.
(via email)

Enforcement

Ruling in Opulent hedge fund case clears father
Contra Costa Times
A panel of arbitrators has found “no evidence that a Los Gatos investor helped his son conceal losses to a hedge fund during the 2008 financial crisis.
jlne.ws/13Ye8uq

How a Charlotte hedge fund unraveled
The Charlotte Observer
An investor in a Charlotte hedge fund suspected something was wrong last year when the manager resisted his request to withdraw money.
jlne.ws/13Yeam5

BCSC: Securities regulator alleges fraud, illegal distributions and making false statements
The executive director of the British Columbia Securities Commission has issued a notice of hearing alleging that a B.C. man committed fraud, illegally distributed securities and made false statements to commission investigators.
jlne.ws/13Ye8uu

ASIC bans Perth financial adviser for three years
jlne.ws/13Ye8KI

ASIC cancels licences of All Class Insurance Brokers
jlne.ws/13Ye8KM

Environmental & Energy

Nations seek flexible climate approach, but no breakthrough in Bonn
Reuters
New, more flexible ways to fight climate change were sketched out on Friday at the end of a week of talks between 160 nations, but there was no breakthrough in bridging a deep divide between China and the United States.
jlne.ws/1185DQL

**RKB — China and U.S. gap persists. The U.S. won some support in Bonn for a suggestion that the 2015 deal should be based on national promises of action, while China wants far more binding commitments by the rich.

Merkel: action needed on reforming CO2 trading
Reuters
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday economic growth assumptions behind the European Union’s carbon permit trading system no longer applied and action should be taken about backloading supply in the market after September’s election.
jlne.ws/YnXPpZ

**RKB — Carbon makes it into Merkel’s church appearance.

EU carbon market on brink of “worst case scenario” – report
RTCC
The surplus of carbon credits in the EU carbon market is approaching the European Commission’s own worst case scenario, a reportby climate campaign group Sandbag reveals.
jlne.ws/17G1C4K

Frontier Markets

Rwanda eyes more listings on fledgling bourse “soon”
Reuters via Yahoo! News
KIGALI – Rwanda expects two companies, Commercial Bank of Rwanda and the airline RwandAir, to list on the country’s fledgling stock market soon, the head of Rwanda’s Capital Market Authority said.
jlne.ws/13YeaCm

DFSA Releases Key Findings of Audit Inspections
jlne.ws/13Ye8KO

ADX Partakes In Accountability And Transparency Symposium
Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange (ADX) took part in the The Fifth Annual Research Symposium in Business and Economics organized by the School of Business and Management of the American University of Sharjah.
jlne.ws/13YeaCn

Egyptian Exchange Announces The Opening To Apply For Its New Board Elections Next May – Omran: Activating Debt Market And Supporting EGX Status As A Self-Regulatory Institution Are Of The Most Important Challenges For The New Board.
jlne.ws/13Ye8KQ

Zimbabwe lures foreign investors, bourse scales record peak
Reuters via Yahoo! News
After shunning Zimbabwe during its years of hyperinflation and political strife, foreign investors are finding the southern African country increasingly attractive.
jlne.ws/13Ye8KR

Africa Enthralls Goldman With Record Bond Sales: Credit Markets
Bloomberg
Sub-Saharan African nations outside South Africa are selling $7 billion of debt this year, more than in the past five years combined, as yields more than double those of Treasuries lure investors repelled in the past by violence and corruption.
jlne.ws/13YeaCq

Asiya Investments Launches Islamic Income Fund Filling Gap for Asian Trade Finance
jlne.ws/13Ye8KS

Tehran Stock Exchange Bulletin – February 2013
jlne.ws/13Ye8KU

Qatar Exchange Listed Companies Reported Qr 10.2 Billion Net Profits For The Three Month Period Ended March 31, 2013
jlne.ws/13YeaCv

Tehran Stock Exchange Attends FINEX
jlne.ws/13Ye8KZ

Nigerian Stock Exchange Stock Market Report For The Week Ended May 03, 2013
jlne.ws/13Ye8L0

Miscellaneous

Harvard Professor apologizes for Keynes comments
AP
Niall Ferguson, a Harvard history professor and author, apologized on Saturday for saying economist John Maynard Keynes was less invested in the future because he was gay and had no children. Ferguson said his remarks at an earlier conference were “as stupid as they were insensitive.”
jlne.ws/13YeaCz

Madoff lawyers collect $700 million in fees
CNN
It really does take money to make money. So far, lawyers and other consultants have racked up $701 million in fees as they work to recover the $17.5 billion lost to Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.
jlne.ws/13YebGp