Industry news

September 4, 2013: London’s ICAP next to plan U.S. swaps trading platform; European Union launches clampdown on shadow banking; Brazilian exchange shake-up to boost IPOs

Brokerage ICAP is next in line to apply to become a swaps execution facility in the US. The EU takes its first steps toward bringing shadow banking under control, with rules intended to make the cash camps safer. Brazil’s exchange prepares to change its benchmark index rules in the hope of stepping up presently awful trading levels.

First Read

Update on fundraising and competitions for the Futures for Kids Walk to Work – Friday, September 13, 2013
by David Setters
The third annual Futures for Kids Walk to Work takes place on Friday, September 13. Over 70 walkers have now signed up for the all-day marathon, setting off at 6 AM in the morning on a 35 mile plus trek to London from commuter towns in Essex, Kent and Surrey. A separate group of intrepid FFK supporters will set off at 1 AM to complete a 50 mile route into London from Sussex, joining the Finish Line Party near St Paul’s Cathedral, sponsored by Eurex, and receive medals and awards sponsored by Traiana.

Fund raising is now in full swing and it’s a close run thing between William Knottenbelt of CME London and Charlotte Crosswell of NASDAQ OMX NLX as they vie for supremacy in the most funds raised by a London exchange head category. They have both now raised over £3000 each with Knottenbelt leading by about hundred pounds currently.

For more details on who’s contributing and signed up, read the full post on the John Lothian Newsletter blog at jlne.ws/14iStkY

To join the walkers please go to jlne.ws/1aTAB0u

To sponsor a walker and support our 4 fabulous charities please go to jlne.ws/17E4oXR

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The man who will save the world from ruin
John Arlidge | The Sunday Times
Gary Gensler remembers exactly what he was doing five years ago this month when he heard Lehman Brothers was going bust — because it cost him his job. “I was working for Barack Obama’s election campaign, encouraging chief executives to support him,” he recalls. “We were due to release the names of the executives that day. Suddenly, everything changed. It was the wrong time to do it. Months of work came to nothing.” Since that day, the world has changed dramatically — for Gensler and the millions more around the world who lost their jobs during the credit crunch. He has gone from being a political campaigner to one of the most important “fixers” in global finance.
jlne.ws/14fWirp

***** Reading between the lines: Gary Gensler would like to stay at CFTC Chairman and he wants the world to know it. There is still too much yet to be done to save the world.

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Uncertain Future For NYSE Technologies
Ivy Schmerken – Wall Street & Technology
In a few weeks, InterContinental Exchange (ICE) is expected to complete the $8.2 billion acquisition of NYSE Euronext, an event leading Wall Street to speculate on the future of NYSE Technologies, the exchange’s commercial technology division. The uncertainty arises not because NYSE Technologies has built a sprawling technology portfolio to boost tech revenues, but because the question is: Does ICE chairman Jeff Sprecher value it?
jlne.ws/17E2Vki

***** I would hang on to it. Much of it fits with other ICE efforts in technology. After all, ICE is a technology firm that runs exchanges.

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Swiss banks apologize for assisting tax cheats
Reuters
Switzerland’s banks on Tuesday issued an unusually direct apology for their role in helping tax cheats, following a landmark settlement with U.S. authorities which could threaten the existence of some firms.
jlne.ws/17E2TsA

***** We are very sorry. Please, have a chocolate.

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Proof That HFT Activity Is Increasing in Canada?
Doug Clark – TABB Forum
The Canadian equity trading landscape continues to change and evolve at an awesome rate. Over the past year we have seen marketplace consolidation – in the form of the TMX/Alpha merger – new dark liquidity rules, the adoption of “taker/maker” pricing on multiple venues, and a controversial proposal for a new exchange that will be “natural investor friendly.”
jlne.ws/17E2VAz

***** Where is the trading landscape not changing? We have SEFs registering in the US, London full of new competition, Asia getting more and more competitive and India doing its best Salad Oil Scandal impersonation on a bigger scale.

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R.J. O’Brien Appoints Ardizzone Global Head of FX Sales
R.J. O’Brien & Associates, the oldest and largest independent futures brokerage and clearing firm in the United States, announced today that Matthew Ardizzone, a 20-year veteran of the foreign exchange industry, has joined the firm as Global Head of FX Sales. Ardizzone is charged with growing the firm’s institutional FX presence, particularly among commodity trading advisors, hedge funds and FX portfolio managers.
jlne.ws/15D4rQK

***** We have yet to announce that RJO is our newest Partner level sponsor of MarketsWiki. Oops! OK, here we go with the unofficial announcement. “We are pleased to have RJ O’Brien join our esteemed list of sponsors of MarketsWiki at the Partner level. RJO, as they are known affectionately, is the oldest and largest independent futures brokerage and clearing firm in the United States. We are very happy to have them aboard to support the educational efforts of MarketsWiki and John Lothian News.” ~John J. Lothian

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Three top talents kick off Cinnober’s new trainee program
Cinnober’s first-ever group of trainees has just begun a one-year program in Umeå, Sweden. The newly created cinCube program, specializing in financial IT, has attracted enormous interest and many highly qualified applicants.
jlne.ws/17E2XIX

***** This is like having the first three choices in the NFL draft, but in this case the Technology draft.

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tradeMONSTER Announces 2nd Annual “I Want To Be A Trader” Educational Web Series
tradeMONSTER, the online brokerage industry’s leader in user experience, announced today that it is launching its fall 2013 “I Want To Be A Trader” educational program September 10th. The series of free educational investing webinars, taught by a collection of accomplished third-party trading educators, will be offered at no cost and available to any individual investor motivated to increase his or her trading and investing acumen.
jlne.ws/17E2VAB

***** Their previous educational series was “I Want To Be A MONSTER.”

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Ravi Sheth to leave Financial Technologies board; NSEL defaults for third time
The Economic Times
Jignesh Shah will soon lose a long-time and trusted shareholder director from the board of Financial Technologies (India), the promoter of the tainted bourse National Spot Exchange and anchor investor of the country’s only listed exchange MCX. Ravi K Sheth, who joined the board of FT in 1994, a year before its listing, confirmed he would quit as a director.
jlne.ws/17E2TsC

***** Do you know the rat theory? That is where the first rats to jump off a sinking ship are the ones who know how to swim. I have a feeling Jignesh Shah does not know how to swim.

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It’s 10 PM: FCMs, SDs, MSPs — Do You Know the Status of Your Firm’s 2013 Annual Compliance Report Preparation?
Gary DeWaal and Associates
Now that summer is almost over, Chief Compliance Officers (CCO) of swap dealers (SD), major swap participants (MSP), and future commission merchants (FCM) should be well underway in the process that ultimately will lead to the preparation of their firm’s Annual Compliance Report for the fiscal year ending 2013, and the certification of the report by the CCO or the Chief Executive Officer of their firm.
jlne.ws/1dGbSzy

****** Yes, it is time to pay attention. The regulators are not playing nice over even self-reported errors.

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LinkedIn Unveils Follow-On Offering Worth at Least $1 Billion
Matt Jarzemsky – MoneyBeat – WSJ
LinkedIn just announced plans to sell $1 billion in stock, which would mark the biggest equity raise by a U.S.-listed Internet company since Facebook’s initial public offering in May 2012.
jlne.ws/17E2TsD

***** It must be nice to be LinkedIn.

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Paid Vacation’s Decline
CATHERINE RAMPELL – NYTimes.com
Americans working in the private sector are less likely to have paid vacation days than was the case 20 years ago, according to a recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
jlne.ws/17E2VAC

***** I don’t understand why the staff included this story. It hardly advances their interests. You guys feeling OK?

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MarketsWiki

MarketsWiki Page of the Day
China Financial Futures Exchange
jlne.ws/19fcmaL

MarketsWiki Recent Updates

People

Carol Kennedy; Farhan Husain; Tim Bennett; Linda Thomsen; Larry A. Dyekman; John Nixon; Alexandra Gorbokon

Companies, Organizations and Groups

TradeMONSTER; China Securities Index Co., Ltd.; ICAP; New Zealand Exchange; China Financial Futures Exchange

Miscellaneous

Mortgage-backed securities; Asset-backed securities

Statistics

43,373,026 pages viewed, 7,640 articles, 164,165 edits
MarketsWiki Statistics

Lead Stories

London’s ICAP next to plan U.S. swaps trading platform
By Douwe Miedema – Reuters via Yahoo! News
Britain’s ICAP Plc said on Tuesday it planned to set up a trading platform for swaps, satisfying a requirement from regulators who are rewriting the rules for the derivatives that helped cause the 2007-09 credit crisis.
jlne.ws/17E2TsG

European Union launches clampdown on shadow banking
Reuters
Special funds used by big companies to park billions of euros of cash face stricter rules to make them safer, the European Commission said on Wednesday, taking a first step to reform unregulated finance known as shadow banking.
jlne.ws/17E2TIX

Brazilian exchange shake-up to boost IPOs
Samantha Pearson in São Paulo – FT.com
Brazil is set to change the formula behind its benchmark stock index for the first time in 45 years as part of a series of measures to counter one of the worst market slumps since the onset of the financial crisis.
jlne.ws/17E2TIZ

Myanmar’s 2015 Stock Exchange Deadline at Risk
Takako Taniguchi & Kyaw Thu – Bloomberg
Myanmar is running behind schedule for starting a stock exchange by 2015 after delays in getting the legal framework in place, said an executive at Japan Exchange Group Inc., which is assisting on the project.
jlne.ws/17E2VAF

S.& – P. Calls Federal Fraud Suit Payback for Credit Downgrade
REUTERS
Standard & Poor’s on Tuesday denounced a $5 billion fraud lawsuit by the United States government as retaliation for its 2011 decision to strip the country of its AAA credit rating.
jlne.ws/17E2TJ1

Offshore tax-dodger dragnet widens with U.S.-Swiss bank deal: lawyers
Reuters
The U.S. government, stepping up its pursuit of American offshore tax dodgers worldwide, stands to gather an abundance of leads through a bank information-sharing deal between the United States and Switzerland, tax lawyers said on Tuesday.
jlne.ws/17E2TJ2

Singapore Exchange to launch coking coal swaps contract: sources
Platts
The Singapore Exchange is likely to launch coking coal swaps based off The Steel Index’s premium hard coking coal FOB Australia reference price in the first quarter of 2014, market sources told Platts Tuesday. SGX confirmed it was considering coking coal swaps, without elaborating further.
jlne.ws/17E2TJ5

Are we ready for the next meltdown?
Allan Sloan, senior editor-at-large – Fortune
Okay, folks. It’s been five years since Lehman Brothers failed, setting off a chain of unanticipated consequences that came within inches of melting down the world’s financial system. Had the Federal Reserve, other central banks, and the U.S. government not intervened and thrown trillions of dollars at the crisis to keep financial markets afloat, we would be talking about Great Depression II.
jlne.ws/17E2VAO

NSEL task force reviews actions against exchange
Business Standard
The first meeting of the high-powered task force constituted by the government under the chairmanship of economic affairs secretary Arvind Mayaram on the crisis surrounding the National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL) today deliberated on the various actions being taken against the exchange for violation of law and also the progress made so far in the investigations.
jlne.ws/17E2TJ9

NSEL issues notices to 14 defaulters
Business Standard
In the first decisive move towards recovering money from defaulters, the beleaguered National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL) has issued notices to 14 for bounced cheques pertaining to settlements estimated at Rs 500 crore.
jlne.ws/17E2TJd

How Bitcoin Spreads Violate a Fundamental Economic Law
Forbes
When transaction costs are low, identical items should trade at nearly identical prices. Otherwise, arbitrageurs would step in to buy cheap and sell dear until the price gap narrows. But that isn’t happening.
jlne.ws/17E2TZr

Regulatory

JPMorgan Case Tests U.S. Law on Buying Influence Abroad
PETER J. HENNING – NYTimes.com
Reports that JPMorgan Chase hired scores of children of powerful government officials throughout Asia have put the bank squarely in the sights of the United States government for violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. An investigation will test how broadly the law applies to almost commonplace conduct by firms seeking any small advantage over rivals to win business from foreign governments.
jlne.ws/17E2VR3

SEC won’t appeal ruling vs disclosing payments abroad
Reuters
U.S. securities regulators said on Tuesday they would not appeal federal court’s decision from July to toss out a new rule requiring oil, natural gas and mining companies to disclose the payments they make to foreign governments.
jlne.ws/17E2VR4

National Futures Association: NFA’s Committee Structure – Proposed Amendments to NFA’s Bylaws and NFA Compliance Rule 3-17
jlne.ws/17E2TZs

Webcast: Implementing Emir
Financial News
Derivatives trade reporting, a key component of the G20 regulatory reform agenda, is being implemented in Europe through the European Market Infrastructure Regulation, or Emir.
jlne.ws/17E2VR7

FCA publishes four month update on the banks’ reviews of sales of interest rate hedging products
jlne.ws/17E2VRa

[Canada] AMF part of discussions for reform of OTC market
jlne.ws/17E2TZy

[SEBI] Index based market-wide circuit breaker mechanism
Based on the recommendations of Secondary Market Advisory Committee (SMAC), it has been decided to partially modify the system of index based market wide circuit breaker
jlne.ws/17E2TZC

Exchanges & Trading Facilities

The Options Industry Council Announces August Options Volume Rose 4 Percent
The Options Industry Council (OIC) announced today that 321,976,044 total options contracts traded in August, which is up 3.55 percent compared to last year when 310,936,920 contracts were traded.
jlne.ws/17E2VRg

CBOE Holdings Reports August Volume Of Over 100 Million Contracts
CBOE Holdings, Inc. reported today that August trading volume for options contracts on Chicago Board Options Exchange and C2 Options Exchange and futures contracts on CBOE Futures Exchange totaled 101.72 million contracts. Average daily volume was 4.62 million contracts, an increase of 17 percent over August 2012 and up four percent from July 2013.
jlne.ws/15V5hwj

CBOE Futures Exchange Reports August Trading Volume
August exchange-wide trading volume at CFE totaled 3,527,672 contracts, an increase of 84 percent over August 2012 and an increase of 19 percent from July. Exchange-wide monthly ADV during August was 160,349 contracts, an increase of 93 percent over a year ago and up 19 percent from July.
jlne.ws/15BnzyB

OneChicago Announces August 2013 Equity Futures Volume Up 45% Year-Over-Year
2013 YTD Volume Surpasses 5.6 Million As Managed Futures Community Diversifies Holdings Using Single Stock Futures
jlne.ws/17E2TZJ

ISE and ISE Gemini Report Business Activity for August 2013
The International Securities Exchange today reported a combined average daily volume of 2.1 million contracts in August 2013 for its two exchanges, ISE and ISE Gemini. This represents 16.2% of U.S. equity options market share.
jlne.ws/15Bl3Z7

MGEX: August 2013 Brings Top Volume Month In Two Years
MGEX, a Designated Contract Market (DCM) and Derivatives Clearing Organization (DCO), today reports August 2013 total Exchange volume at 169,809 contracts traded, the highest volume month since August 2011 and a 27 percent increase from August 2012. This month is in the top 20 total monthly Exchange volume records and is also a top 15 record electronic volume month with 137,769 electronic contracts traded.
jlne.ws/17E2VRk

Average Daily Volume Of 6.6 Million Contracts At Eurex Group In August
In August 2013, the international derivatives markets of Eurex Group recorded an average daily volume of 6.6 million contracts (August 2012: 7.2 million). Of those, 4.5 million were Eurex Exchange contracts (August 2012: 5.1 million), and 2.1 million contracts (August 2012: 2.1 million) were traded at the U.S.-based International Securities Exchange (ISE). In total, 98.9 million contracts were traded at Eurex Exchange and 46.4 million at ISE.
jlne.ws/17E2Ug5

SGX derivatives volumes continue to grow in August
Singapore Exchange today said its derivatives volumes in August increased from a year earlier. Total securities turnover was S$27.3 billion, down 8% year on year. However securities daily average value was down 4% to S$1.4 billion due to one less trading day in August 2013 compared to a year earlier. Catalist turnover increased nearly 5 times year-on-year to S$1.4 billion. Funds raised from bond listings decreased 52% year-on-year to S$5.5 billion. The biggest bond listed was a US$1 billion bond issue by Baidu.
jlne.ws/17E2Ug9

TOCOM August 2013 Monthly Summary
The Tokyo Commodity Exchange announced today that August 2013 trading volume averaged 95,792 contracts per day, down 4.7% from July 2013. Average daily volume was lower for key commodities such as Gold, which was down 9.2% to 43,341 contracts; Platinum was down 4.7% to 14,390 contracts and Rubber was down 4.8% to 8,989 contracts. Conversely, petroleum markets saw higher volumes with Crude Oil up 13.2% to 3,971 contracts and Gasoline up 2.4% to 8,283 contracts.
jlne.ws/13deHlV

ASX and NYSE Technologies announce new global network connection
ASX and NYSE Technologies, the commercial technology business of NYSE Euronext, today announced that they have connected their respective global networks. The linking of ASX Net Global and NYSE Technologies’ Secure Financial Transaction Infrastructure will initially provide customers of NYSE Technologies cost-effective access to ASX markets and market data services.
jlne.ws/17E2Ugb

Moscow Exchange Bolsters Management Team With New Senior Hires
Moscow Exchange has made a number of new senior hires to its management team to strengthen key operations and increase the Exchange’s international competitiveness.
jlne.ws/17E2Uge

[SIX] Start of training program for traders in Geneva
The Member Education Team of is expanding its offering by adding Geneva to the existing training locations Zurich and London.
jlne.ws/17E2XbC

Moscow Exchange Completes First Day of T+2
James Rundle – WatersTechnology
Equity and bond markets have completed their first day of trading under T+2, or settlement two days after trade date, on the Moscow Exchange.
jlne.ws/17E2W7G

TSX Block List Leaders By Volume And By Values – August 2013
jlne.ws/17E2W7K

Direct Edge Trading Notice #13-39: Additional Fee Schedule Changes For September
jlne.ws/17E2XbK

Hedge Funds & Managed Futures

Risk interdealer rankings 2013: Dealers
Tom Newton – Risk.net
Deutsche Bank retains its title in a 12-month period that was enlivened by the return of volatility to Japanese markets, recent jitters in fixed income and a continuing debate about whether regulation is making markets less liquid.
jlne.ws/17E2W7M

Hedge Funds Post Puny Profits
Philly.com
NEW YORK — Hedge fund managers finally got a break – a meager return. The Morningstar composite of nearly 1,000 hedge funds rose 1.1% in July, bringing year-to-date returns to a modest 4.0%.
jlne.ws/17E2W7Q

Citigroup Is Dialing Back Its ‘Alternative’ Holdings
The Wall Street Journal via Yahoo! Finance
Citigroup Inc. has shed more than $6 billion in private-equity and hedge-fund assets in the past month, according to people familiar with the transactions, in order to comply with new regulations limiting banks’ holdings of “alternative” investments.
jlne.ws/17E2XbM

Blackstone raises $5 billion for second rescue lending fund
Reuters
Blackstone Group LP said on Tuesday it had raised $5 billion from investors for its second rescue lending fund, underscoring how alternative asset managers are looking to displace banks in providing financing to companies in distress.
jlne.ws/17E2XbV

Norway Oil Minister Proposes Carving Out Real-Estate Fund From $750 Billion Oil Fund
KJETIL MALKENES HOVLAND – WSJ.com
Less than a week before national elections, Norway’s oil minister is proposing a significant shift for the nation’s $750 billion oil-wealth fund, suggesting a separate real-estate fund with increased exposure to U.S. property be carved out amid expectations of low returns in the global bond market.
jlne.ws/17E2Xsa

Swiss banks find a role in asset management
Mike Foster – Financial News
J. Safra Sarasin, the Basel-based private bank, is seeking to upgrade its asset management division through the hire of new managers.
jlne.ws/17E2Xsb

Hedge funds caught short by Nokia deal
Richard Milne, Nordic Correspondent – FT.com
A 34 per cent jump in Nokia’s share price was down to not just relief at the Finnish group jettisoning its lossmaking mobile business but also a short squeeze among hedge funds.
jlne.ws/17E2Xse

[Video] Democratizing Access to Hedge Fund Strategies
Bloomberg
Neuberger Berman Managing Director David Kupperman discusses offering real hedge fund solutions in a 40 Act product and avoiding manage futures. He speaks with Deirdre Bolton on Bloomberg Television’s “Money Moves.”
jlne.ws/17E2Wog

Banks & Brokers

Risk interdealer rankings 2013: Brokers
Tom Osborn – Risk.net
The usual names dominate this year’s rankings – with Icap top of the pile – but the future of the sector is unclear, and the majority of respondents to the accompanying survey expect consolidation within the next two years.
jlne.ws/17E2Woj

Deutsche Bank’s Jain says more industry consolidation inevitable
Reuters
Consolidation in the banking industry is inevitable, Deutsche Bank’s co-chief executive Anshu Jain said on Wednesday, as the costs of litigation and a raft of new rules change the economics of the financial services industry.
jlne.ws/17E2Wom

Dealers call for ban on downgrade triggers
Matt Cameron – Risk.net
Banks struggling to price the risk that downgrade triggers may be exercised, leading to calls for regulators to prohibit their use in derivatives documentation
jlne.ws/17E2Won

J.P. Morgan: Appropriate Ranges on Whale Trades Lost to History
Dan Fitzpatrick – MoneyBeat – WSJ
The fate of a criminal case against two former J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. traders accused of hiding losses rests on what the so-called “London whale” trades were actually worth. But J.P. Morgan acknowledged in a recent exchange with the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that it can’t reconstruct what the appropriate range of values should have been on certain days.
jlne.ws/17E2Xsk

Ex-Goldman Sachs Executive in Australia Steps Into New Role
Gillian Tan – MoneyBeat – WSJ
The former head of equity capital markets for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in Australia is back on the radar screens in the finance industry. Mike Everett, who left the Wall Street bank in January after 11 years, has been appointed as a member of Australia-listed FRR Corporation Ltd.’s advisory committee.
jlne.ws/17E2WEA

BofA exits stake in China’s CCB with $1.5 billion sale
Reuters
Bank of America Corp raised $1.47 billion by selling its remaining stake in China Construction Bank Corp, ending an eight year-old investment that generated a paper profit more than five times the original cost.
jlne.ws/17E2XIH

UK exit from EU would risk bank exodus: City of London head
Reuters
A British exit from the European Union could prompt an exodus of leading foreign banks and undermine London’s dominance of the foreign exchange markets, the head of the City of London financial district said in an interview on Tuesday.
jlne.ws/17E2XII

Clearing & Settlement

OCC Announces Cleared Contract Volume Rose 4% in August
OCC announced today that total cleared contract volume in August reached 326,697,656 contracts, representing a 4 percent increase from the August 2012 volume of 313,781,757 contracts. OCC’s year-to-date total cleared contract volume is up 3 percent from 2012 with 2,797,892,003 contracts.
jlne.ws/17E2XIL

BME: REGIS-TR And TriOptima Cooperate To Provide Portfolio Reconciliation Of Trade Repository Data
REGIS-TR and TriOptima announce that they will provide portfolio reconciliation of REGIS-TR’s trade repository data with data in TriOptima’s triResolve reconciliation service for OTC derivatives as requested by their clients.
jlne.ws/17E2XIN

CME Clearing – Performance Bond Requirements – CME Agricultural Intra Commodity Spread Changes
jlne.ws/17E2XIR

Indexes & Products

ETF Outflows Hit Record, But Records Aren’t What They Used to Be
Chris Dieterich – MoneyBeat – WSJ
Investors pulled a record amount of money out of exchange-traded funds in August, but given the growth of the ETF industry, a record isn’t what it used to be.
jlne.ws/17E2WEO

Technology

Cinnober sponsors Swedish Programming Championships
Cinnober is the main sponsor when Sweden’s sharpest developers compete in the Swedish Programming Championships. The competition is part of the Nordic championships and is open to all.
jlne.ws/17E2XZc

SWIFT Passes 100 Customers On Sanctions Screening Milestone
Today, SWIFT announced that Sanctions Screening, its centralised service for small- and medium-sized financial institutions now has more than 100 customers subscribed to the service.
jlne.ws/17E2WES

Enforcement

CFTC Orders Macquarie Futures USA LLC to Pay a $150,000 Penalty for Failing to Maintain Adequate Funds in Secured Accounts in Connection with Conversion by Exchange of Certain Off-Exchange Instruments to On-Exchange Products
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) today issued an Order filing and simultaneously settling charges against Macquarie Futures USA LLC (Macquarie), a New York-based registered Futures Commission Merchant (FCM), for failing to maintain adequate funds in secured accounts, in violation of CFTC Regulation 30.7. The CFTC Order requires Macquarie to pay a $150,000 civil monetary penalty and to cease and desist from violating CFTC Regulation 30.7.
jlne.ws/175YVtF

SEC Charges Purported Money Manager With Defrauding Investors and Brokerage Firms
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a purported money manager in New York with conducting a free-riding scheme to defraud three brokerage firms, and then bilking several investors out of nearly a half-million dollars that he stole to fund his luxurious lifestyle that included a Bentley automobile, summers in the Hamptons, and casino junkets.
jlne.ws/17E2XZk

JPMorgan to pay $18.3 million to settle mortgage lawsuit
Reuters
JPMorgan Chase & Co has agreed to pay $18.3 million to settle claims that documents for mortgages acquired by a unit of Bear Stearns Cos failed to disclose material information about interest rates.
jlne.ws/17E2XZn

Morgan Stanley must pay ex-trader $8 mln in flap over firing-panel
Reuters
Two Morgan Stanley units must pay $8 million to a former energy trader, who said the firms improperly terminated him for cause, after he declined to meet with New York law enforcement authorities during an investigation, arbitrators ruled.
jlne.ws/17E2XZo

[FCA] Aberdeen Asset Managers and Aberdeen Fund Management fined £7.2 million for failing to protect client money
jlne.ws/17E2XZt

Environmental & Energy

EEX Emissions Market reaches new records in August
In August 2013, EEX has achieved record volumes on its Emissions Secondary market. On the Secondary Spot and Derivatives Market for EU allowances (EUAs) a volume of 32.3 million tonnes of CO2 was traded in August which is a new monthly record (previous record: 17.2 million tonnes of CO2 in November 2012).
jlne.ws/17E2WVc

California’s ETS makes encouraging headway
Climate Spectator
As the federal government gets started implementing a national Climate Action Plan, the country’s boldest state-level experiment is making strong progress. Yesterday, California announced the results of its latest auction of carbon pollution permits, completely selling out of its permits for future carbon pollution for the first time. The increased demand for these pollution permits reflects an encouraging development: Confidence in California’s climate action program is growing, and its long-term future is becoming more and more certain.
jlne.ws/17xLDXG

**RKB — Contributor is Kevin Kennedy, director of the U.S. Climate Initiative in the Climate and Energy Program at the World Resources Institute.

EU Said to Plan Carbon-Market Aviation Adjustment in October
Bloomberg
The European Union plans to present a change to its emissions curbs on airlines in the first half of October that will take into account a decision later this month by the United Nations on whether to pursue global measures to cut pollution by the industry.
jlne.ws/1ahkZGl

Asia-Pacific

Overseas Equity Investors Head to Japan for ‘Abenomics’ Clues
Kana Inagaki – MoneyBeat – WSJ
Following a sleepy August, a record number of foreign investors are now flocking to Japan in search of fresh clues to whether “Abenomics” is still a good reason to buy Japanese stocks
jlne.ws/17E2YfI

Murex wins Asia Risk 2013 technology rankings
Clive Davidson – Risk.net
While the demands placed on banks’ technology have changed rapidly, the choice of suppliers is less volatile. A host of regionally based players has appeared for the first time on Asia Risk’s technology rankings but the list is still dominated by the established players
jlne.ws/17E2WVg

HKEx And Henan’s Financial Services Office Sign MOU
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx) and Henan Province’s Financial Services Office (FSO) today (Wednesday) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on cooperation and exchange of information.
jlne.ws/17E2YfL

Shanghai Stock Exchange Publicizes Methods For Supervising Honest Practices
jlne.ws/17E2YfN

Frontier Markets

Emerging-Market Bond Funds Suffer in August
Erin McCarthy – MoneyBeat – WSJ
August proved another rough month for emerging-market bond funds, as their returns slid into negative territory and investors continued to withdraw at a rapid clip.
jlne.ws/17E2YfR

Anjani Sinha & the art of shutting down exchanges
Business Standard
The law of the land has somehow been very slow in catching up with the National Spot Exchange (NSEL) scam. Especially, if one compares it with the zeal with which the state machinery acted in the case in which Satyam Computers’ Ramalinga Raju was arrested. Raju got 48 hours after his confession, which was then criticised as too much leeway shown by the authorities.
jlne.ws/17E2YfS

EU banks on trading knife-edge in India
Michelle Price in Hong Kong – Financial News
European and Indian regulators are hoping to reach an eleventh-hour agreement that would allow European banks to continue trading in Asia’s third-largest economy.
jlne.ws/17E2WVl

Investment puzzle as two Brics work loose
Jim O’Neill – Financial News
As we approach the 12th anniversary of the time I dreamt up the acronym Brics (Brazil, Russia, India and China), and the 10th anniversary when my colleagues and I took our first look at which economies would be the 10 largest in 2050, it is now highly fashionable to regard the whole thing as yet another bubble-type notion.
jlne.ws/17E2ZQN