Industry news

September 18, 2013: DRW Investments Sues to Forestall CFTC Enforcement Action; Wielding Broader Powers, S.E.C. Examines Hedge Funds in London; CME Group to increase Asia staff

DRW Investments sues the CFTC to stop the agency from taking the trading shop to court for creating a better marketplace. The SEC declares itself the boss of foreign hedge funds, at least in some ways. Exchange CME Group plans to ramp up hiring in Asia to keep pace with rising volume in that region.

First Read

Brussels plans end to self-regulation of market benchmarks
Alex Barker in Brussels – FT.com
Thousands of benchmarks underpinning markets ranging from oil, rice and cocoa to credit indices and mortgage rates and valued at more than E1,000tn would be regulated for the first time, under a sweeping Brussels proposal to set tougher EU standards in the wake of the Libor scandal. The European Commission blueprint, to be unveiled on Wednesday, goes further than any other international jurisdiction in ending self-regulation and placing tight legal obligations on all those that compile and contribute to benchmarks.
jlne.ws/1eoxqRE

***** There is action, and there is reaction. Sometimes there is overreaction.

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Enjoin This!
Streetwise Professor
Legendary Chicago prop shop DRW has sued the CFTC, asking a Federal judge to enjoin the agency from filing an enforcement action against the firm. Based on the facts alleged in the DRW complaint, CFTC should pray that the judge grants the injunction, thereby saving the agency of total humiliation at trial.
jlne.ws/1eoxsZN

***** This is a must read. If this case is brought and won by the CFTC, we will enter the dark ages of trading. Not all instruments are created equal, or are equivalent. Two months of the same contract are not even the same, which is why we have spread trading. We have arbitrage to take account of the difference between like, OR, similar instruments. Quite frankly, if DRW was mispricing something in the markets, that is an arbitrage opportunity for someone to crush them, and their bids and offers. The fact that did not happen should give the CFTC pause.

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Trading Technologies Releases X_TRADER 7.17
Trading Technologies International, Inc. today announced the release of X_TRADER 7.17, a new version of its flagship product for buy-side, sell-side and proprietary derivatives traders.
jlne.ws/1eoxsZQ

***** Personally, I am waiting for versions 7.47, 7.57 and 7.67.

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MarketsWiki Invites You!
Sarah Rudolph – JLN
We’re having a MarketsWiki party and invite you to join us on Friday, Sept. 20, in an all-day bout of wikiing. If you would like to update your company’s MW page, add in a new page for a new hire, or add information about the people, products, exchanges and issues involving the financial markets, please join us either from the comfort of your own chair or sofa, or here, live and in person at our offices at 141 W. Jackson, Suite 1602.

For those in Chicago who would like to join us at JJLCO headquarters, we will begin at noon and you can stay as long as you like. We will provide lunch to give you the energy to edit. Feel free to bring a laptop if you have one – we have a few we can provide as well.

Don’t know how to Wiki? Don’t sweat it – we’ll show you how along with all the proper wiki etiquette so you can show off to your friends and colleagues at the weekend cookout.

Everyone who contributes on that day will get a special mention in the John Lothian Newsletter the following Monday, and will be eligible to win a $50 gift card. And who doesn’t want $50?

So come join us online, or face-to-face for a day of fun and help update the best source of information on the industry – MarketsWiki.com

If you are interested, please RSVP to: SarahRudolph@johnlothian.com

What: Friday Wiki Party
When: September 20, 2013; Noon CST

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CFTC Rule 1.35: Are you kidding!
Dan Collins Report
I ran into an old friend while I was downtown this week and she made me aware of some new recordkeeping compliance rules that will come into effect before the end of the year that may cause some big problems for smaller introducing brokers and those that have branch offices. I took a look at the National Futures Association (NFA) notice on the new rules and I understood her concerns. Looking at the language in CFTC Regulation 1.35 and it seems to indicate that IBs would need to record preliminary conversations that may occur over cell phones if it relates to trading or if it starts a conversation that may lead to an order being placed.
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***DA: Before you panic, there is a small broker exemption for those with aggregate gross annual revenues less than $5 million over the last three years. It is also an experiment – if it proves to be economically unfeasible there will likely be no-action relief. If it helps root out the bad actors in the industry, I say let’s give it a go. See the MarketsReformWiki summary page for details on the regulation at jlne.ws/RBFCo5

***** There is action and then there is reaction. There is also something we call the Dan Collins Overreaction.

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The Fed At 100: Policy Debate
Clarke Camper – Inside the Beltway
With the Federal Reserve turning 100 this year, the House Financial Services Committee recently held a hearing aimed at examining the Fed’s legacy and discussing how to improve the Fed’s performance going forward. Perhaps not surprisingly, much of the debate centered on the Fed’s quantitative easing policies.
jlne.ws/1eoxtg8

***** Geez, leave the old man alone. He is just like every over old person with too much money, just giving it away.

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Sibos: It’s banking Jim, but not as we know it
Duncan Kerr – Euromoney magazine
Amid all the debate on regulation, innovation, partnerships and big data at the Sibos conference this week, transaction services bankers are also engaging in something their investment banking colleagues once monopolized – optimism.
jlne.ws/1eoxtgc

***** The heck with that!

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Metal bashing
Business Standard
The new owner of the London Metal Exchange is in a bind. Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEx) paid an eye-watering 58 times prior-year earnings when it bought the world’s leading metals marketplace for $2.2 billion last year. Now its plan to reform price-distorting warehousing practices is proving divisive.
jlne.ws/1eoxtgh

***** Welcome to your new job, Mr. Jones.

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NFA announces webinar for Commodity Trading Advisors to help them understand their new quarterly reporting requirements
NFA will conduct a webinar on Thursday, October 3 at 11:00 a.m. EST designed to help Commodity Trading Advisors (CTA) understand their new quarterly reporting requirements.

Effective September 30, NFA Compliance Rule 2-46 requires each CTA Member to file quarterly reports within 45 days of the calendar quarter end. The first quarterly PR form filing will be due November 14, 2013. Additionally, pursuant to CFTC Regulation 4.27, all CTAs (even those who are not Members of NFA) are required to file an annual CTA PR report within 45 days of the calendar year end. NFA Member CTAs can meet their CFTC filing requirements by filing the NFA CTA PR form for that quarter through NFA’s EasyFile system.

The 60-minute webinar will provide an in-depth discussion of what information is required on the PR form and a walkthrough of the filing process in EasyFile. There is no charge to attend the webinar; however, registration is required. Click here to register: jlne.ws/169cJXK

***** While this is a new schedule for such information, it will help uncover some of the bad actors. The cops walking the beat more often should reduce crime.

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MarketsWiki

MarketsWiki Page of the Day
Vincent McGonagle
jlne.ws/19bnYeg

MarketsWiki Recent Updates

People

Kurt Oeler; Vincent McGonagle; David Krell; Gary Katz

Companies, Organizations and Groups

Minneapolis Grain Exchange, Inc.; Cinnober Financial Technology; NASDAQ OMX NLX; Drakon Capital; STAC

Miscellaneous

Job Postings; Swap Execution Facility

Statistics

43,711,191 pages viewed, 7,658 articles, 165,391 edits
MarketsWiki Statistics

Lead Stories

DRW Investments Sues to Forestall CFTC Enforcement Action
Andrew Harris & Silla Brush – Bloomberg
DRW Investments LLC, a Chicago-based investment firm, filed a pre-emptive lawsuit against the Commodity Futures Trading Commission seeking a court’s finding that the company didn’t breach derivatives trading regulations.
jlne.ws/1eoxtNg

Wielding Broader Powers, S.E.C. Examines Hedge Funds in London
ANITA RAGHAVAN – NYTimes.com
The Securities and Exchange Commission, which has actively pursued actions by American banks and other financial institutions overseas, is broadening its reach by asserting its purview to foreign hedge fund managers.
jlne.ws/1eoxtgo

EU softens new rules on benchmark rigging
Reuters
EU regulators will abandon earlier plans to place commodity and financial benchmarks under the sole watch of a Paris-based regulator when they announce a legal framework to prevent price rigging on Wednesday.
jlne.ws/1eoxr8h

CME Group to increase Asia staff
Jonathan Burgos – Bloomberg
CME Group Inc, the world’s largest futures exchange, plans to boost its headcount in Asia by as much as 27 per cent by next year as trading volumes increase.
jlne.ws/1eoxtgp

Firms to Pay $14 Million to Settle
ALEXANDRA STEVENSON – NYTimes.com
D. E. Shaw and Company and Deerfield Management are among a large group of investment firms that have agreed to pay $14.4 million to settle market manipulation charges by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
jlne.ws/1eoxroD

Despite opposition, U.S.’s Barney Frank sees derivatives opening to competition
Reuters
When Barney Frank, former U.S. Democratic Congressman and co-author of the Dodd-Frank 2010 banking legislation, set about reforming the U.S. $300 trillion derivatives markets, he felt the key was to foster competition.
jlne.ws/1eoxroI

We still live in Lehman’s shadow
Martin Wolf – FT.com
Both the past and future of our financial system remain as poisonous a topic as they were five years ago, when Lehman Brothers failed. That is a lesson to draw from the forced withdrawal of Lawrence Summers, former US Treasury secretary, from the list of candidates for chair of the US Federal Reserve. For many Democrats, Mr Summers is responsible for the financial liberalisation that led, in their view, to the crisis of 2007-09. Indeed, the debate about the origins and aftermath of the crisis is not over. How can it be when the exceptional policies it caused are still with us?
jlne.ws/1eoxtwJ

Corzine masterminded scheme that ruined MF Global, trustee says
Bloomberg
Jon Corzine, the former head of MF Global Holdings Ltd., masterminded a scheme to inflate earnings that led to the eighth-biggest bankruptcy in U.S. history, according to an updated lawsuit filed by a trustee for the failed futures broker.
jlne.ws/1eoxroJ

NSEL appoints Saji Cherian as new MD
Business Standard
The crisis ridden spot exchange, the National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL) has appointed Saji Cherian as the new Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the company with effect from September 16, 2013.
jlne.ws/1eoxtwN

NSEL Ex-CEO Affidavit Confirms That The Body Was A Platform To Borrow And Lend Money
India Today
A single affidavit of NSEL ex-CEO Anjani Sinha has made investigative officials life a bit easier now. Thanks to Sinha (who is now saving his own skin and spreading entire blame game on others including top management), skeletons have started tumbling out from NSEL cupboard.
jlne.ws/1eoxroN

NSEL defaults for fifth time;pays only Rs 8.57 cr to investors
The Economic Times
The National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL) today made the fifth straight payment default, as it could pay only Rs 8.57 crore to investors out of the scheduled amount of Rs 174.72 crore.
jlne.ws/1eoxrF5

Winklevoss twins say Bitcoin could become a country’s currency
Reuters
Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, currently making headlines with plans to launch a Bitcoin fund, said on Tuesday that they could see the digital currency becoming a country’s official money.
jlne.ws/1eoxrF8

***JM: Yep, because what country wouldn’t want a currency that has a finite supply, whose production is in the hands of random unknown people, and once “mined” could willy-nilly be hacked and stolen. Can I buy two?

Regulatory

SEC to unveil CEO pay ratio rule, adopt municipal adviser rule
Reuters
U.S. corporations will need to disclose how their chief executive’s paycheck compares to that of their average worker under a proposal set to be unveiled on Wednesday by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
jlne.ws/1eoxtwX

CFTC Seeks Public Comment on Request from CME Group to Amend Rule 538 (Exchange for Related Positions)
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is requesting public comment on a request from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc., the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc., New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc., Commodity Exchange, Inc., and the Board of Trade of Kansas City, Missouri, Inc. (collectively, the Exchanges), for approval of amendments to existing Rule 538 of the Exchanges’ rulebooks and the issuance of CME Group Market Regulation Advisory Notice RA1311-5.
jlne.ws/1eoxrFe

J.P. Morgan Case Highlights Conflicts for SEC’s White
Andrew Ackerman – MoneyBeat – WSJ
Conflicts of interest have forced Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Jo White to recuse herself from some high-profile cases, including this week’s expected settlement with J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. for its handling of the “London whale” trading fiasco.
jlne.ws/1eoxrVA

Conference condemns Dodd-Frank limits on intervention
Alexander Campbell – Risk.net
The US 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, and other reform efforts put in place since the financial crisis, have undermined US authorities’ ability to use the same tools that were used to stop the spread of the crisis in 2008, a London conference heard today.
jlne.ws/1eoxtNh

[India] Fixing commodity trading
Business Standard
The transfer of administrative control of the regulator for commodity trading, the Forward Markets Commission (FMC), from the consumer affairs ministry to the finance ministry seems a typical government response to a crisis like the one besetting the National Spot Exchange Ltd (NSEL). But it is a sensible step that should have been taken much earlier, although it will not suffice to regulate exchange-based commodity trading – be it spot trading or forward trading. That requires a strong and autonomous regulator with sufficient expertise and infrastructure, as well as the authority to take expeditious action and effectively enforce its orders.
jlne.ws/1eoxrVF

UK’s Financial Conduct Authority Review Finds Evidence Of Life Insurance And Advisory Firms ‘Undermining The Objectives Of The RDR’ And Consults On New Guidance
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has published a review to find out whether firms continue to be influenced by inducements from product providers, despite the Retail Distribution Review (RDR) coming into effect in January 2013. The review published today found some life insurance firms had arrangements in place which could influence advisers, contrary to the RDR’s aim of removing commission bias in financial advice.
jlne.ws/1eoxtNk

Sebi doesn’t want FMC under its purview
Business Standard
With the Forward Markets Commission (FMC) being moved to the finance ministry, sources say the commodity market regulator would remain a separate division; it wouldn’t be merged with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), as was widely believed.
jlne.ws/1eoxrVH

Exchanges & Trading Facilities

Swap futures start-up needs dealer support, says buy side
Tom Osborn – Risk.net
A new London-based trading platform that hopes to launch a swap futures contract next year needs to secure dealer support in order to gain traction, say buy-side fans of the project. The new venture doesn’t currently have the backing of any major market-makers, but the firm’s management believes early buy-side enthusiasm will encourage dealers to come on board.
jlne.ws/1eoxtNm

Chi-X Canada Bows “Retail Professional” Intermediate Data Fee Tier
Max Bowie – WatersTechnology
Alternative trading system Chi-X Canada has introduced a new tier of market data fees for professionals such as investment advisors serving retail investors, developed with the assistance of market data and technology product management and marketing consultancy NuPont.
jlne.ws/1eoxrVN

London Stock Exchange Signs Up 1,000 New Users In First Month As Pre-LOU
London Stock Exchange announced today that their first month of acting as a Pre-Local Operating Unit (LOU) allocating their Pre-Legal Entity Identifier has been a success. Approximately 1000 new users have signed up to the London Stock Exchange’s Pre-LOU platform UnaVista, to access the consolidated view of all global LEI data. LEI codes have been allocated for companies based in 3 continents Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.
jlne.ws/1eoxtNs

Talan hits Goldman, LME with another suit
AMM
Goldman Sachs and LME have been slapped with another antitrust lawsuit alleging that they conspired to restrain aluminium supplies, inflate aluminium prices and manipulate Midwest premiums.
jlne.ws/1eoxsc5

Changes To WSE Management Board Approved
The WSE informs that the Polish Financial Supervision Authority at its meeting on 17 September 2013 approved changes to the Exchange Management Board decided by the Exchange Supervisory Board on 22 May 2013.
jlne.ws/1eoxu3M

Exchanges Take A Dive
Mondo Visione
The world’s leading stock exchanges took a dive in share value during August, following over a year of almost continued steady growth, according to the FTSE Mondo Visione Exchanges Index released today. Despite a three-hour trading outage on the NASDAQ last month, the exchange’s share value shed only 7.8 per cent. The US and Asia were the biggest losers with all exchanges in negative territory.
jlne.ws/1eoxtgm

Hedge Funds & Managed Futures

S.&P. Bond Deals Are on the Rise Since It Relaxed Rating Criteria
NATHANIEL POPPER – NYTimes.com
In the wake of the financial crisis, S.& P. was hesitant to rate most of the new bonds tied to residential mortgages, and for good reason. The agency and its rivals had been accused of helping to set off the crisis by giving their highest ratings to bonds backed by subprime mortgages that ended up suffering huge losses. But as banks began reviving the market for the bonds in 2012, S.& P.’s tough stance was hurting the bottom line.
jlne.ws/1eoxsc9

Europe’s repo market boosted by rising investor confidence
Ralph Atkins in London – FT.com
Rising investor confidence in the eurozone and the reduced reliance from banks on European Central Bank assistance have helped revive Europe’s “repo” market, which provides loans secured against assets such as government bonds.
jlne.ws/1eoxsca

Fidelity adds manager to help Danoff on $23 billion fund
Reuters
Fidelity Investments’ star stockpicker Will Danoff is getting some help. Boston-based Fidelity on Tuesday named John Roth as co-portfolio manager of the $23 billion Fidelity Advisor New Insights Fund which Danoff has managed since its inception in 2003.
jlne.ws/1eoxu3W

Fidante forges deal with UK boutiques
Mike Foster – Financial News
Fidante Partners of Australia has forged a business relationship with UK boutiques River & Mercantile and Wye Tree Asset Management.
jlne.ws/1eoxsce

Hedge funds pile into cocoa recovery
Emiko Terazono – FT.com
Hedge funds and speculators are piling into the cocoa market as fears about adverse weather combined with strong demand from North America and Europe, have pushed prices to their highest in a year.
jlne.ws/1eoxuke

Single Dealer Platforms, Often Single-Product Focused And Complicated, Must Evolve To Meet Buyside Requirements
GreySpark Partners, the Capital Markets consultancy, announced today the publication of a new research report examining the state of banking platforms from the perspective of professional investors. This report, Digital Investment Banking – beyond Single-dealer Platforms, is targeted at the buyside and outlines how e-commerce in general, and single-bank platforms in particular, need to evolve to help their users adapt to a multi-asset, more transparent and regulation-heavy world.
jlne.ws/1eoxsci

Banks & Brokers

JPMorgan Chase Is Said to Admit Fault in Settlement of Trade Loss
BEN PROTESS and JESSICA SILVER-GREENBERG – NYTimes.com
JPMorgan Chase has agreed to pay about $800 million to a host of government agencies in Washington and London — and make a groundbreaking admission of wrongdoing — to settle allegations stemming from a multibillion-dollar trading loss, people briefed on the matter said.
jlne.ws/1eoxuki

Dimon Tells JPMorgan to Brace for More Regulatory Woes
Dawn Kopecki – Bloomberg
JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon told employees to prepare for more legal woes while the bank undertakes an “unprecedented effort” to comply with regulations.
jlne.ws/1eoxssC

Jamie Dimon’s Letter to J.P. Morgan Employees
MoneyBeat – WSJ
Facing growing regulatory scrutiny and a constant flood of headlines about the bank, J.P. Morgan Chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon went to rally his troops Tuesday morning.
jlne.ws/1eoxukj

Swiss Banks Start to Make Delicate Calls to France
John Letzing – MoneyBeat – WSJ
Swiss bankers have had to make some uncomfortable calls to their European clients lately. Most recently those calls have been to France, where private banking clients of Swiss giants UBS and Credit Suisse are now being prodded by advisers to certify that they’ve declared their accounts to the local taxman.
jlne.ws/1eoxssD

Bank of America names Bettamio as Latin America head, source says
Reuters
Bank of America Corp named Alexandre Bettamio, the chief executive officer of its investment-banking unit in Brazil, as head of its Latin America unit, a source with knowledge of the situation said late on Tuesday.
jlne.ws/1eoxukm

Blythe Masters, JPMorgan’s Credit Derivatives Guru, Is Not Sorry
BusinessWeek
Masters deflects blame for the subprime-derivative cocktails that took down Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers
jlne.ws/1eoxssE

Clearing & Settlement

Omgeo and DTCC partner with the industry to develop global hub for SSIs
Omgeo, the global standard for institutional post-trade efficiency, today announced that the firm has partnered with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation to establish a user-governed global repository to store and communicate the “golden copy” of standing settlement instructions for all products and geographies. This undertaking is part of an overall effort to standardize and centralize key client reference data functions and place them under user governance.
jlne.ws/1eoxuku

[Video] DTCC’s Jennis Says Euroclear Partnership is Forging Ahead
James Rundle – WatersTechnology
Mark Jennis, managing director at the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), talks to Waters at Sibos 2013, in Dubai. In the video, Jennis discusses the partnership between the DTCC and Euroclear, and about how his focus, at present, is firmly on collateral management.
jlne.ws/1eoxssK

Six challenges Eurex with clearing push
Anish Puaar – Financial News
Six Group, the Swiss exchange, could find itself pitted against its former joint venture Eurex, as it pushes ahead with plans to provide clearing services for new listed derivatives trading venues in Europe.
jlne.ws/1eoxssO

Euroclear UK & Ireland Fund Service Attracts More Fund Managers
Euroclear UK & Ireland has signed up three additional leading fund managers in the UK to its investment fund service. F&C Investments, Liontrust Fund Partners LLP and Old Mutual Global Investors have chosen to automate the full processing cycle of transactions in their funds with the UK’s central securities depository, having already worked with Euroclear UK & Ireland to automate order routing.
jlne.ws/1eoxuAK

CME Clearing – Product Listing Schedule Reduction
jlne.ws/1eoxssS

CME Group – REVISED: September 2013 Final Foreign Currency Settlement Prices
jlne.ws/1eoxuAO

Indexes & Products

ETFGuide Targets Institutional Investors with ETF Research
Faye Kilburn – WatersTechnology
San Diego, Calif.-based investment research provider ETFGuide is planning to begin distributing its research on exchange-traded funds via trading and brokerage platforms to reach a broader audience of institutional investors and financial advisors beyond its current focus on individual investors and traders.
jlne.ws/1eoxvoi

OSE entered a license agreement for CNX Nifty with IISL
jlne.ws/1eoxuAQ

Technology

Trade Talk: Opening Roads and Carving a Path
Trading Technologies
As we release X_TRADER 7.17, TT is opening new paths and exploring new futures trading software technology. Understanding the core needs of your current and potential customer base is critical for the success of any product. Topical knowledge of your field is beneficial, but root-level understanding of your domain is critical.
jlne.ws/1eoxuAU

Deutsche Börse opens market access point in Interxion Vienna
Deutsche Börse opened a new access point in Interxion’s Vienna data center campus. The 24 hour service provides access to exchanges like the cash market Xetra, all markets of CEE Stock Exchange Group and Eurex Exchange, the international derivatives market of Deutsche Börse, as well as Clearstream’s post-trade services.
jlne.ws/1eoxvol

GBST Appoints Head of Business Development for Americas
GBST, a leading global provider of securities transaction and fund administration software for the financial services industry, announced today that John E. Kehoe has been appointed Head of Business Development, Americas. Based in New York, Mr. Kehoe will report to Denis Orrock, CEO Capital Markets, and will work directly with Liz Bevan, CEO North America, to expand the company’s footprint in the region.
jlne.ws/1eoxuAV

TMX Atrium Increase FX Capabilities With Addition Of FastMatch
TMX Atrium, provider of smarter infrastructure solutions for the financial community, today announced that FastMatch has joined the TMX Atrium community. FastMatch, a matching system of spot foreign exchange trading, has joined TMX Atrium to take advantage of the firm’s extensive North American, European and Russian coverage.
jlne.ws/1eoxuAX

Iberclear Chooses SWIFT To Connect To T2S – SWIFT’s Reliability, Long-Term Commitment And Competitive Pricing For T2S Drive Iberclear’s Choice
jlne.ws/1eoxuAZ

Volante Technologies Selected By SAP For SAP Financial Services Network
jlne.ws/1eoxuRh

Enforcement

SEC Charges 23 Firms With Short Selling Violations in Crackdown on Potential Manipulation in Advance of Stock Offerings
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced enforcement actions against 23 firms for short selling violations as the agency increases its focus on preventing firms from improperly participating in public stock offerings after selling short those same stocks. Such violations typically result in illicit profits for the firms.
jlne.ws/1eoxvot

Charges Could Still Be Coming for Some Close to Madoff
PETER LATTMAN – NYTimes.com
With federal prosecutors in Manhattan facing a December deadline to bring additional charges connected to Bernard L. Madoff’s multibillion-dollar Ponzi scheme, they are weighing criminal charges against several people connected to the case, said people briefed on the investigation. Among those still under scrutiny are Shana Madoff Swanson, a senior executive at the firm, and Paul J. Konigsberg, a longtime accountant in Mr. Madoff’s inner circle.
jlne.ws/1eoxuRl

Ex-Wells, Morgan Stanley broker pleads guilty in check fraud scheme
Reuters
A former broker for Wells Fargo & Co and Morgan Stanley has pleaded guilty to wire fraud over what federal prosecutors called a $1.8 million check fraud scheme that cheated a widowed client in her 80s.
jlne.ws/1eoxuRm

Vision Sanctions Over ACE Long Time Coming
Dan Collins | Dan Collins Report
The National Futures Association (NFA) filed a complaint on Sept. 11, against Vision Financial Markets.The complaint stems from Vision’s long and troubling relationship with Commodity Trading Advisor Yu-Dee Chang. Chang has operated numerous option writing strategies for his CTA, ACE Investment Strategists, going back more than a decade.
jlne.ws/1ej6ume

Environmental & Energy

First “micro” voluntary CO2-cut programme approved
Reuters Point Carbon
The first series of “micro” initiatives targeting emissions reductions in the poorest corners of the world were approved to start receiving voluntary carbon offsets last week, the project’s developers said.
jlne.ws/14guuAO

United Nations official: World is on ‘not on track’ over climate change
AP
International leaders are failing in their fight against global warming, one of the United Nations’ top climate officials said Tuesday, appealing directly to the world’s voters to pressure their politicians into taking tougher action against the buildup of greenhouse gases.
jlne.ws/19bX4D8

Column: The era of unlimited carbon pollution is over
Politico
This week, the Environmental Protection Agency will move against climate change by continuing the job it was created to do, 40 years ago, by a bipartisan Congress. Some will, and already are, treating this as a deplorable event with intolerable consequences. It’s anything but: Not only is it the law, it’s also good for America.
jlne.ws/18vrePv

**RKB — Politico contributor Daniel Lashof is director of the Climate and Clean Air Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Asia-Pacific

CFTC Certifies Futures Contracts on the CES China 120 Index and the HSI Volatility Index Submitted by Hong Kong Futures Exchange Limited (HKFE)
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s (CFTC) Division of Market Oversight issued a letter advising the Hong Kong Futures Exchange Limited (HKFE) that its CES China 120 Index futures contract and its HSI Volatility Index futures contract submitted for review on August 2, 2013 are deemed certified.
jlne.ws/1eoxuRo

Sathit Limpongpan Elected Thai Bourse’s New Chairman
The Stock Exchange of Thailand’s (SET) Board of Governors agreed to elect Sathit Limpongpan the exchange’s 15th chairman, with immediate effect.
jlne.ws/1eoxvEQ

Shares in Small China Consumer Stocks Lure Investors, Pose Risks
Mia Lamar and Isabella Steger – MoneyBeat – WSJ
Investors hungry for China-related consumer stocks have snapped up shares in Tenwow International Holdings Ltd., a Chinese food and beverage maker, sending them 17% above their offer price in their debut on Tuesday and another 3% higher on Wednesday. Those gains could be short-lived, though, if previous performances by small companies in the sector are any guide.
jlne.ws/1eoxvES

South Korea Eases Rules for Savings Banks
Kanga Kong – MoneyBeat – WSJ
Two years after a crisis in South Korea’s savings bank industry saw institutions shuttered, executive suicides and a thicket of bribery allegations, the government is trying to reshape the role of the industry.
jlne.ws/1eoxuRu

SGX welcomes Xyec Holdings to Catalist
jlne.ws/1eoxvEX

HKEx: Forfeiture Of Unclaimed Interim Dividend For 2007
jlne.ws/1eoxuRx

Hong Kong’s Securities and Futures Commission Suspends Former Responsible Officer Of China Securities Holdings Limited
jlne.ws/1eoxvF0

Shenzhen Stock Exchange: Notice On Coordinating Arrangements Of Differentiated Review Procedure Of Mergers And Acquisitions
jlne.ws/1eoxv7P

Frontier Markets

Western banks eye growth in Islamic trade finance
Reuters
Islamic trade finance, a tiny part of global banking business, is starting to attract interest among big Western banks because of rapid growth of trade involving wealthy Gulf economies, bankers said on Tuesday.
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Kenneth Rogoff: Are emerging markets submerging?
Business Standard
With economic growth slowing significantly in many major middle-income countries and asset prices falling sharply across the board, is the inevitable “echo crisis” in emerging markets already upon us?
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Enhancements To Qatar Exchange Website Service
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