Securities Industry News articles from April 2008

Securities Industry News archives from April 2008

Treasury's Regulatory Revamp Plan Includes OTC Settlement Oversight.
April 7, 2008... Calling it systemically important, the Treasury Department has proposed that the payment and settlement infrastructure of the over-the-counter derivatives markets be placed under the oversight of the Federal Reserve. The recommendation,...

Exchanges Squaring Off Over Symbology~NYSE, Nasdaq push plans for ticker symbol rules.
April 7, 2008... The Nasdaq Stock Market has canceled plans to allocate special-character nomenclature to subordinate securities--preferred stock and warrants. The move, announced March 27, raises new questions about when, or even whether, U.S. equities and...

Wall Street Expanding Virtual Horizons.
April 7, 2008... Virtualization, in one form or another, has been around almost as long as computers. When the term arose in the 1960s, it referred to the partitioning of mainframe computers. But virtualization soon became a way to let people stop worrying...

Change Is Afoot in European Settlement~CDSs launch cross-border initiative; EuroCCP gets approval.(central securities depositories )
April 7, 2008... Bringing a new dynamic to Europe's shifting trading landscape, seven central securities depositories (CSDs) last week announced a plan to make cross-border settlement more efficient. Days earlier, Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC) said...

Bids Makes Block Trading Democratic'~CEO Mahoney on dark liquidity, NYSE joint venture.
April 7, 2008... Timothy Mahoney saw his first "dark" trade in June 1979 as a college intern at the New York Stock Exchange. Mahoney, now CEO of Bids Trading, was nervously running orders for a more experienced trader when he realized that he was putting forth...

JP Morgan Buys Nordea's Institutional Custody Business~Global custodians expand Nordic reach; local players look for alliances.
April 7, 2008... Reflecting both the Nordic region's growth and the consolidation of service providers, JP Morgan Chase & Co. has acquired the institutional global custody business of Stockholm-based Nordea. The deal, announced March 27, makes JP Morgan...

HSBC, Computershare Launch Vote Confirmation Service.
April 7, 2008... HSBC Securities Services (HSS) and global stock transfer agent Computershare have introduced a voting confirmation service in the U.K. to ensure that shareholder votes are recorded accurately with registrars and that investors who have...

Jasdaq, Osaka Tie-up Tangles.
April 7, 2008... The Japan Securities Dealers Association (JSDA) announced last week that it had approved plans to sell more than 50 percent of its 72 percent stake in the Jasdaq Securities Exchange to the Osaka Securities Exchange (OSE). However, the deal,...

Credit Suisse Backs AXE.
April 7, 2008... The AXE electronic communications network (ECN), which has been awaiting regulatory approval to launch in Australia, has added a new backer. Credit Suisse will join the New Zealand Exchange (NZX) and investment banks Commonwealth Securities,...

People in the News.
April 7, 2008... New York-based Trade Settlement (TSI), a global provider of electronic settlement services for the primary and secondary syndicated loan markets, has brought on William Buble as COO. In the newly created role, Buble, who was most recently...

MSBs: Friend or Foe?
April 7, 2008... The recent high-profile action taken against Sigue Corp., a California-based money services business (MSB), underscores the continued regulatory focus on MSBs. In January, Sigue entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with the Department...

Weighing In on Treasury's Blueprint.
April 7, 2008... Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson last week revealed the agency's much-awaited blueprint for modernizing financial services regulation. When the Treasury Department began working on the plan in March 2007, "other than some enthusiastic...

A Green World for CantorCo2e.(Cantor Fitzgerald L.P.)
April 7, 2008... CantorCO2e, backed by the technology and brokerage capabilities of parent Cantor Fitzgerald, has become a leading global player in the burgeoning carbon emissions business. Formed about a year ago--when Cantor Environmental Brokerage, one...

T-Zero Introduces Novations Processing System.
April 7, 2008... T-Zero has introduced a new service, Novations+, it says fully automates novations processing for credit derivatives. On March 13, the President's Working Group on Financial Markets issued recommendations for the industry to automate and...

Omgeo's Enhanced TradeSuite Has Repo Functionality.
April 7, 2008... Trade management services provider Omgeo has bolstered TradeSuite, its trade confirmation service for the U.S. market, with new functionality supporting the processing of repurchase agreements--repos--and reverse repos. Steve Matthews,...

IPC Rolls Out Ethernet Connection Service.
April 7, 2008... Communications solutions provider IPC Systems has introduced an Ethernet connection service (ECS) designed specifically for electronic trading. The Jersey City, N.J.-based company said last week that the service will enable clients to...

Shakeup at Division of Trading and Markets~SEC reorganizing staff to meet new challenges.
April 14, 2008... Amid historic market turbulence and the unfolding of controversial regulations, the Securities and Exchange Commission's division of trading and markets is undergoing a major reorganization that will shift the responsibilities of top officers....

Swift Moving to Streamline Corporate Action Processing~Testing initiative follows.
April 14, 2008... plans to upgrade formats Swift's new testing program will allow its members and vendors to see how their usage of corporate action messages stacks up against market practice guidelines established by global and local business standards...

Fidelity Enters Self-clearing Outsourcing.
April 14, 2008... Fidelity Investments' clearing business, National Financial Services (NFS), is planning to offer a processing and operations outsourcing service to self-clearing broker-dealers--a sizable market segment. The strategy, announced last week, is...

Recognizing a Need for Mutual Recognition~Regulators, trade associations press for transatlantic cooperation.
April 14, 2008... A transatlantic securities market, long the subject of academic discourse and informal dialogue between Europe and the U.S., could soon become a reality as regulators and trade groups alike continue to push the concept of cross-border...

Regulators Shine Light on Auction Rate Securities.
April 14, 2008... Following a series of law suits by investors against brokerages, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) and the Securities and Exchange Commission are looking into possible irregularities in auction rate securities (ARS). ...

Broadridge's Workflow Apps.
April 14, 2008... Broadridge Financial Solutions has introduced a set of applications designed to help self-clearing broker-dealers streamline their workflow and reduce manual processing. The first four applications in the Ascendis suite, which will eventually...

Options Education in Canada.
April 14, 2008... Seeking to accelerate options trading growth in Canada, the Montreal Exchange (MX) and the Chicago-based Options Industry Council (OIC) last week said they will offer a series of educational events and presentations in major Canadian cities,...

Citi Invests in Tradeweb.
April 14, 2008... Citigroup announced last week that it is taking a minority stake in Tradeweb. Citi joins a consortium of banks--Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch & Co., Morgan Stanley, Royal Bank...

Peoplr in the news.
April 14, 2008... Paris-based order management systems provider Linedata Services has promoted Annie Morris to managing director of North America. Morris, who since 2006 had headed operational management of all products for traditional funds in North America,...

Soft Dollars, Hard Choices.
April 14, 2008... For years, regulators on both sides of the Atlantic have struggled to codify rules and guidelines relating to soft dollars. The Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.K.'s Financial Services Authority (FSA) have long sought to eliminate...

Bond Platforms Buying Vendors~Amid volatile credit market, platform operators look to diversify.(Company overview)
April 14, 2008... Bond trading platform operators, seeking to add revenue streams that are not linked to the volatile fixed-income markets, have been buying technology vendors and service providers. Firms making acquisitions include MarketAxess, which last...

Options Ripe for Algo Explosion~Decimalization, liquidity fragmentation have the asset class following equities' lead.
April 14, 2008... With algorithmic trading firmly entrenched in the equities world, a handful of Wall Street's biggest players are leading efforts to make them equally ubiquitous in the options market. The past few months have seen a spate of algorithm launches....

Room for Growth in OTC Options Automation.
April 14, 2008... Over-the-counter options platforms present a promising opportunity for vendors, say experts, particularly for execution and processing. A scant few providers offer solutions that are aimed directly at the sector, which is still dominated by...

Options ATS Aims to Bolster Liquidity ~3D Markets' Archangel is seeking to bring volume back to the regulated world.
April 14, 2008... 3D Markets, formed in early 2007, went live with its Archangel alternative trading system (ATS) in January, bringing a new twist to the highly competitive U.S. options market. Developed in 2001 but shelved as a result of market conditions...

Penny Pilot Round Three: New Classes To Magnify Trends.
April 14, 2008... The second expansion of the pilot of penny-increment pricing is expected to accentuate trends that have been unfolding since the U.S. options exchanges began the program at the beginning of last year. While retail investors have been pleased,...

Visualization Tools Opening Eyes ~Firms look to tame unruly data with graphic presentations.
April 21, 2008... Wall Street is swimming in data--good news for providers of data visualization software who are seeking to help firms better and more quickly understand a sea of information that is only getting deeper. Vendors that specialize in the area,...

Portfolio Margining Captures Billions, But May Increase Systemic Risk.(Survey)
April 21, 2008... Gross debits in portfolio margin accounts have grown to more than 40 percent of overall margin debt in the 11 months since they became available, bringing assets back onshore and adding another concern for credit analysts. According to the...

I In Down Economy, Vendors Preach Diversification and Differentiation.
April 21, 2008... The ongoing credit crisis and the recent collapse of Bear Stearns have many securities technology vendors on edge--fearing, or already experiencing, declining sales figures. However, most industry observers and providers agree that although...

Bear Clearing Execs Stay On.
April 21, 2008... Providing cause for confidence among its customers, and perhaps reason for disappointment for its competitors, the top executives at Bear Stearns Broker-Dealer & Investment Advisor Services (BDIAS) have agreed to continue with the firm in their...

Open-Source Vhayu.
April 21, 2008... Vhayu Technologies Corp. has released a new version of its Velocity tick-data analysis software that will allow quantitative researchers to more quickly evaluate large amounts of data when developing complex trading strategies. Velocity users...

JonesTrading Branches Out.(Brief article)
April 21, 2008... In response to the market downturn and client demand, JonesTrading Institutional Services, a Westlake Village, Calif.-based agency brokerage that provides block trading services for U.S. and Canadian securities, has added distressed debt to its...

People in the News.
April 21, 2008... The European venture of Kansas City-based electronic communications network BATS Trading now has a CEO and COO--Mark Hemsley (left) and Paul O'Donnell, respectively. The London-based platform, which is expected to launch later this year, was...

Breaking Down Trading Barriers.
April 21, 2008... The international sweep of regulatory changes promoting competition in the world's equities markets means reduced trading costs and improved investment returns for hundreds of millions of retail and institutional investors around the world. ...

For the record.(Correction notice)
April 21, 2008... In a March 23 article, "New Sec-Lending Platform Aims to Give Beneficial Owners Bigger Piece of the Pie," it was incorrectly stated that Alaska USA Trust Co., which is offering a central counterparty service to a new electronic securities...

EU Official Calls on Firms to Provide Leadership.
April 21, 2008... European capital markets have made great progress over the last decade, but the current market turmoil calls for serious leadership from investment bankers, says David Wright, the European Commission's deputy director general of internal...

Citigroup To Use Tax Reclamation Service Bureau.(Citigroup Global Transaction Services)
April 21, 2008... Citigroup Global Transaction Services has signed up to use GlobeTax Services' tax reclamation offering for its direct custody and clearing business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) as well as the U.S. Len Lipton, director of...

Putting the Risk Into Fund Management~Hedge funds seeking increasingly sophisticated risk management tools.
April 21, 2008... Risk is top of mind in the hedge fund business today--understandable, after a year of volatility and the collapse of several financial institutions, big and small--and many firms have sought to ease their fears with the appointment of a chief...

Silver Lining for Valuation Providers~With regulators likely to turn up heat, hedge funds adopt third-party sources.
April 21, 2008... One likely result of the current credit crisis, say observers, will be increased regulatory attention on financial firms such as investment banks and hedge funds. "More hedge fund oversight and pressure for transparency is definitely coming,"...

Fidessa LatentZero: Bringing Sell-Side Tech to the Buy Side.(Company overview)
April 21, 2008... LatentZero was founded in 1999 as a vendor of front-office trading applications and technology for the buy side. Last year it was acquired by Fidessa Group, a provider of multi-asset-class trading systems to the sell side. Headquartered in...

Divergent Takes on the High-Speed Trading Platform.
April 21, 2008... A pair of start-ups have taken very different approaches to developing trading systems that reach around the world and across asset classes. Jersey City, N.J.-based Mantara has created a full-blown solution, from ticker plant through...

Outsourcing Provider Epam Buys FIX Vendor.
April 21, 2008... Epam Systems, a Lawrenceville, N.J.-based software outsourcing provider with operations and delivery centers across Eastern Europe, has extended its financial services offerings with the recent purchase of FIX vendor and technology consultancy...

First Service Pack for FIX 5.0.
April 21, 2008... Extending the reach of FIX 5.0--and perhaps enticing users of legacy versions to upgrade--FIX Protocol Ltd. (FPL) has released the first service pack for the iteration that debuted in January 2007. FIX 5.0 service pack 1, which can be...

Messaging Harmonization Moving Forward~FIX, Swift, FpML plan for cooperation revealed.
April 28, 2008... Since its emergence nearly three years ago, the so-called standards road map has been known by several names, but the general concept has remained the same: harmonization of the FIX protocol, Swift messaging standards and the financial products...

As Brokers Gain Mutual Fund Clout, Directors Look to Increase Oversight.
April 28, 2008... As power shifts to the broker-dealers marketing mutual funds, industry executives are increasingly focused on trading costs and the need for greater oversight of traders by fund management. As a result, the Securities and Exchange Commission is...

Dark Pool Upgrades at Credit Suisse, Pipeline.
April 28, 2008... In response to demands for heightened performance, two well-known dark liquidity destinations--Credit Suisse's CrossFinder and Pipeline Trading Systems--have been bolstering their technology. Over the past six months, Credit Suisse Advanced...

Trade Reporting Proposal Could Burden ECNs.(electronic communications networks)
April 28, 2008... In a move that may raise costs for electronic communications networks (ECNs) and their customers, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra) has proposed that over-the-counter execution data that had previously gone unreported be...

Euroclear Automates Fund Processing With U.K. Order Router.
April 28, 2008... Central securities depository Euroclear UK & Ireland has teamed up with sister company EMXCo to create a one-stop automated processing system for investment funds domiciled in the U.K., Ireland and offshore centers Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle...

Direct Edge Readies Exchange Application.
April 28, 2008... Direct Edge, the second-largest electronic communications network (ECN), plans to file for exchange status within a few weeks, according to CEO William O'Brien. In 2005, Direct Edge--then the Attain ECN--was acquired by Jersey City, N.J.-based...

Tocom Picks Nasdaq Platform.
April 28, 2008... The Tokyo Commodity Exchange (Tocom) plans to launch by May 2009 a next-generation trading and clearing system from Nasdaq OMX Group. Yuichi Fukui, executive director of the systems division at Tocom, Japan's largest commodity market, said on...

Alphacet Taps OneMarketData.
April 28, 2008... Stamford, Conn.-based Alphacet will integrate OneMarketData's OneTick tick capture and analysis tool into its flagship Discovery product for high-speed quantitative strategy development and deployment. The partnership, announced April 15, is...

Portware Links to Chi-X.
April 28, 2008... New York-based Portware announced last week that it is adding the Chi-X Europe alternative trading system, which has been open for about a year, to the more than 300 destinations on its execution management system. "The European marketplace is...

An Expanded MarketMap.
April 28, 2008... Paris-based trading software provider GL Trade unveiled a new component of its market data suite at the TradeTech conference in Paris last week. The offering, MarketMap Plus, introduces new trading functionality to the company's MarketMap...

IT Initiatives for a Challenging Market.
April 28, 2008... Amidst write-downs, exiting executives and a murky outlook, financial firms are taking a cautious approach to information technology initiative planning and spending. Wall Street IT executives are dealing with unprecedented challenges that are...

Rebuilding Confidence in U.S. Markets.(dialogue with Duncan Niederauer)(Interview)
April 28, 2008... With the continued maturation of global markets and investors increasingly able to access venues around the world, foreign companies may no longer consider it imperative to list in the U.S. As Duncan Niederauer, chief executive of NYSE...

Start-up Aims to Automate OTC, Listed Options Execution.
April 28, 2008... Emergent Trading Solutions wants to automate the execution of listed and over-the-counter options by providing a single hosted pricing interface and model, enabling counterparties to agree upon a price but keep their proprietary valuation...

SuperDerivatives Extends Exit-Pricing Services.
April 28, 2008... New York- and London-based SuperDerivatives, a leading provider of options pricing and benchmarking systems, has added liquidation, or exit, pricing to its Portfolio Revaluation service. Exit pricing was already available on the company's...

Dow Jones Acquires Business Intelligence Provider.
April 28, 2008... Dow Jones & Co. has acquired Maynard, Mass.-based Generate, a provider of business intelligence tools, for an undisclosed sum. In conjunction with the deal, announced April 17, Dow Jones said it is establishing a business and relationship...

Firms Face Steep Learning Curve in Fragmenting Europe.
April 28, 2008... The securities business in Europe is about to get very complicated, according to industry experts attending the TradeTech conference in Paris last week. And that's a good thing--at least for some. "What a difference a year makes," said...

ISE Raises Rebate Credit; Nasdaq Tweaks Pricing Tiers.
April 28, 2008... The ISE Stock Exchange, which already provides the most aggressive credit to liquidity providers, is on May 1 introducing a second pricing tier to attract higher-volume trading firms. Meanwhile, tiered-pricing pioneer Nasdaq Stock Market is...

Slow Credit Transfer Migration Could Delay Sepa.
April 28, 2008... Three months since European banks were to move credit transfer payments onto the Single Euro Payment Area (Sepa) system, progress has been slow and observers are asking whether the initiative could be held back. Sepa, which is intended to...

TradingScreen Adds Credit Suisse FX Algorithms.
April 28, 2008... Execution management system (EMS) provider TradingScreen has integrated foreign exchange algorithms from Credit Suisse Advanced Execution Services (AES) into its TradeFX platform. The agreement, which was announced at the TradeTech...