Securities Industry News articles from June 2007

Securities Industry News archives from June 2007

Emerging Forces in the Capital Markets: New market centers share aspirations--and mutual support.
June 4, 2007... Globalization is an undeniable force in the capital markets, as it is in the world economy. Brazil, China and Dubai are just a few examples of less-mature markets that are literally emerging into the global investment spotlight--in each of...

Citi, FTSE Bring Indexing to Vietnam.
June 4, 2007... Not every security in Vietnam is open to foreign investors, but there are enough to make for an index. Citigroup and FTSE Group teamed up to launch the country's first equity index for foreign institutional investors on May 22. Known as...

Energy Trading's Integration Makeover Commodities are increasingly linked to capital markets.
June 4, 2007... Militants in the Niger River Delta kidnap foreign oil workers; an accident at a natural gas facility shutters production; a tropical depression forms in the mid-Atlantic; a cold snap seizes the Northeastern U.S. Any one of these scenarios...

DTCC Data Service For New Muni Issues Set for September.
June 4, 2007... As part of a four-year, multiphase reengineering of its underwriting and corporate actions infrastructure, Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC) is developing a centralized automated system that will gather data from underwriters on new bond...

NYSE Revs Up Market Intelligence Offering: Automated Web site aimed at company execs contrasts with Nasdaq's.
June 4, 2007... The New York Stock Exchange said it has enhanced NYSEnet, a Web site aimed at providing top executives at listed companies with information about their stocks' performance. It is a fully automated solution that compares with a similar service...

FIX Innovator Moves Into Commission Management: Kledaras offers a new twist based on advanced text searching.
June 4, 2007... CecilRep, a company created by FIX systems entrepreneur George Kledaras, has officially unveiled a hosted commission management service running on advanced text-search technology. The service, Institutional Commission Management, is built...

IPC Completes Acquisition; Customer Base at 3,000.
June 4, 2007... Trading and communications technology provider IPC Systems said Friday that it has completed the acquisition of WestCom Corp. that was announced March 28. The deal brings together two New York-based companies with a global reach in financial...

Interactive Brokers Slips.
June 4, 2007... In the first earnings report since it went public a month ago, Greenwich, Conn.-based Interactive Brokers Group said last week that it made 31 cents per share in the first quarter, a pro-forma 3 cents less than in the 2006 period. That...

BATS Attracts Citi.
June 4, 2007... Citigroup has become the latest outside stakeholder in BATS Trading, operator of the Better Alternative Trading System electronic communications network (ECN). Kansas City-based BATS, which has competed successfully for Nasdaq Stock Market...

BEA Into CEP.
June 4, 2007... Web services infrastructure leader BEA Systems jumped into the complex event processing (CEP) fray last week, joining a crowded field of specialized vendors--Aleri Labs, Progress Software's Apama division, Coral8, Kaskad Technology, StreamBase...

People In The News.
June 4, 2007... The Chicago Stock Exchange and its parent, CHX Holdings, a month after Michael Kerr of law firm Kirkland & Ellis was elected chairman of the two boards, announced several officer promotions last week. Stephen Brodsky, SVP of strategic planning...

How Mobility Works for Portfolio Managers.
June 4, 2007... Technology to support the productivity of portfolio managers continues to expand the boundaries of internal systems beyond the office. Using advanced mobility tools, portfolio managers now can extend mission-critical data from any internal...

How Multicore Makes a Difference.
June 4, 2007... Everyone is doing more with computers. While home users are manipulating digital photos, editing videos and playing advanced games, enterprise information technology managers are faced with ever more stringent and increased demands--coming on...

Townsend's Multibroker EMS Adds Algo Destination: Takes big step with Credit Suisse AES and dark pool; more said to be coming.
June 4, 2007... RealTick, the flagship execution management system (EMS) of Chicago-based trading technology developer Townsend Analytics, has added Credit Suisse Advanced Execution Services (AES) as well as CrossFinder, the investment bank's dark liquidity...

Caplin Offers FX and Fixed-Income Trading System.
June 4, 2007... Caplin Systems of London, a developer of real-time data distribution technologies for the Internet, has announced the launch of Caplin Trader, which is being sold as an easy-to-deploy, cost-effective alternative to existing...

The State of Valuation: Risk management expert Mangiero stresses the importance of process.
June 4, 2007... As institutional investors move into hedge funds in ever-greater numbers, fund managers are under growing pressure to attain the market-beating returns that the investors expect in return for hefty fees. In this high-stakes environment, the...

A Global Balancing Act: It's not just the U.S. that is grappling with issues of hedge fund regulation.
June 4, 2007... As hedge funds extend their reach globally, regulators worldwide are increasingly worried about protecting investors, as well as their national economies. Governments in developed and emerging markets alike are considering, or have already...

Hedge Funds Not Sold on Self-clearing: Focus on revenues overrides cost and in-house-control benefits.
June 4, 2007... Hedge funds have good economic reasons to consider self-clearing of their trades: Operational and technology costs are falling, and they wouldn't have to pay as much in prime-brokerage or clearing fees. They would also have the advantage of...

Capitalizing on the Demand for Valuation: Amber's Nahum encouraged by adoption of best practices.
June 4, 2007... Among hedge fund operational priorities, the degree to which a fund is able to accurately price and report on its portfolio of investments is high on the list. "Reviewing hedge fund valuation practices is one of the biggest areas of focus in...

Delay of Revised SAR Deadline Latest IT Setback for FinCEN: System glitches also affect Treasury AML agency's cooperation with IRS.(suspicious activity reports)(Financial Crimes Enforcement Network)(anti-money-laundering)
June 11, 2007... Last month the Treasury Department's anti-money-laundering (AML) arm announced that it was delaying the June 30 effective date for banks, brokerages and most other financial services companies to file certain revised suspicious activity reports...

Bisys Alternative Investment Business Shines: Citigroup getting unit with double-digit margins, growth.(Company overview)
June 11, 2007... While Bisys Alternative Investment Services, the fourth-largest hedge fund administrator, was looking at ways to fend off competition from prime brokerages and others, it was considering different "structures" for servicing that fast-growing...

Bumps Emerge On Road to Completion Of SRO Merger.(self-regulatory organizations)(merger of NYSE Regulation and National Association of Securities Dealers)
June 11, 2007... The dismissal last month of a class-action suit seeking to block the merger of self-regulatory organizations (SROs) NASD and NYSE Regulation turned out not to be the last potential obstacle to the deal, as was assumed at the time (as reported...

Risk Benefit Seen in Netting Service for Prime Brokers.
June 11, 2007... In a risk- and cost-reducing initiative, the Fixed Income Clearing Corp. (FICC) subsidiary of Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC) will be allowing prime brokerages to either match or net transactions in U.S. Treasuries on behalf of their...

Choice in Managed Accounts: Pershing makes open-architecture move.
June 11, 2007... With the recently launched Managed Account Network (MAN), Bank of New York Co.'s Pershing subsidiary is giving its correspondents' advisers ready access to five independent managed-account providers and consolidating their customers' financial...

Singapore Exchange Turns To GL Trade for OMS: Upgrade indicates Asian markets' openness to international vendors.(order management system)
June 11, 2007... The Singapore Exchange (SGX), Asia's third-largest listed bourse, will launch a new order management system (OMS) in the third quarter using technology from Paris-based GL Trade that the exchange said will improve performance, reliability and...

Bisys Settles Again.
June 11, 2007... Bisys Group's troubles with the Securities and Exchange Commission did not end with its agreement last November to pay $21.4 million in fines and penalties relating to overcharges and kickbacks in its mutual fund services business. On May 23,...

Is GlobeOp IPO-ready?
June 11, 2007... With hedge fund administration considered a jewel within the Bisys fund services business that Citigroup is acquiring, and State Street paying $4.5 billion for Investors Financial Services Corp. in a deal that will make it the second-largest...

Dividend Payback.
June 11, 2007... Siebert Financial Corp. declared a 12 cents per share dividend to common stockholders, but chairman and controlling shareholder Muriel Siebert left about $2.1 million of the $2.4 million to which she was entitled within the company "as capital...

Portfolio Margining, Retail.
June 11, 2007... Chicago-based optionsXpress launched portfolio margining last week, drawing several hundred existing customers to the accounts that enable them to hedge investments more efficiently, potentially with increased leverage. Approved with ten other...

People In The News.
June 11, 2007... Law firm Winston & Strawn has added Margaret R. Blake, formerly of Baker & McKenzie and the Securities and Exchange Commission, as a corporate practice partner in its Washington, D.C. office. Before her most recent posting at Baker & McKenzie,...

Stock Option Grants: Automate for Auditability.
June 11, 2007... In the past few years, there has been a perfect storm of option accounting challenges. It started with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002, followed by Financial Accounting Standard (FAS) 123R in 2004, the stock option backdating scandals in 2006,...

Clearstream's Seyll on European Infrastructure Progress.
June 11, 2007... At EUR6.3 trillion ($8.5 trillion), the European investment funds industry is about a third smaller than the U.S. mutual fund industry, but in terms of infrastructure and automation challenges--transaction processing and information...

Supporting--and Improving--SRO Consolidation.
June 11, 2007... No organization pressed harder for a consolidation of broker-dealer regulation than the Securities Industry Association, now the Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association (Sifma). Now that the merger of self-regulatory organizations...

Liquidnet Trying to Blaze Asian Trail: Dark pools still scarce, but pent-up demand seen.
June 11, 2007... If, for alternative trading systems (ATSs) and electronic communications networks (ECNs), Asia is the final frontier, then Liquidnet wants to be the civilizing force. Except for a few big brokerages that match customers' orders internally in...

Beijing Regulator Takes Hong Kong Post.
June 11, 2007... In a sign of closer cooperation between Hong Kong and mainland China regulators, the Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) named Jie Sun as SVP for China affairs. The appointment, in which Sun is seconded, or on loan, from the...

CDS Portfolio Trades Get Their Solution: Q-Wixx launches in London with broad' buy- and sell-side support.
June 11, 2007... After several months of testing, Q-Wixx, the electronic trading platform that was developed by Creditex Group for large credit derivative portfolios, had its official launch in London last week with what the firm characterized as "broad...

Data Management Moves.
June 18, 2007... Two top enterprisewide data management software companies are making some significant personnel changes. Asset Control announced two senior appointments, and GoldenSource Corp. is losing Tim Lind, SVP of product strategy, to post-trade...

BATS Speeds Up Rebates.(BATS Trading electronic communications network )(Brief article)
June 18, 2007... The BATS Trading electronic communications network (ECN), in its latest move to make itself more inviting as an execution venue, has instituted weekly rebates, instead of the more typical monthly practice. Since opening early last year, Kansas...

New Look for Townsend.
June 18, 2007... Townsend Analytics of Chicago began introducing electronic trading innovations to the options markets more than 20 years ago. It later developed the technology of the Archipelago electronic communications network that is now part of NYSE...

Meet the Grand Master.
June 18, 2007... Some people liken stock trading to a casino game. Sidney Belzberg, CEO of direct-access brokerage and trading systems firm Belzberg Technologies, sees parallels with chess. Belzberg is an enthusiast. He was head coach of the Canadian chess team...

Master Data Management as a Compliance Solution.
June 18, 2007... Corporations appear to be spending more time and money on regulatory compliance now than at any time in recent history. The largest U.S. corporations spent an average of $4.6 million implementing Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) Section 404 controls in...

People In The News.(Linedata Services appoints Gavin Little-Gill)(Advent Software introduces Moxy order management system 6.0)
June 18, 2007... Order management and portfolio management systems company Linedata Services has named Gavin Little-Gill SVP of product management and strategy. Before taking the Boston-based position, where he reports to Linedata North America COO Annie...

DTCC Signs MOU With Chinese Counterpart: Education and information exchange today, closer cooperation possible later.(Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., China Securities Depository & Clearing Corp., memorandum of understanding )
June 18, 2007... Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC) of New York and its Chinese counterpart, the China Securities Depository & Clearing Corp. (SD&C), have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU), launching formal cooperation in areas of information...

China Takes Step to Stimulate Corporate Bond Issues.
June 18, 2007... In a move seen as an attempt to boost the country's lagging corporate-debt market, the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) will become the approval authority for the bond issues of domestic listed firms later this year. CSRC vice...

Citi Deal a New Opening of Japanese Market.(Industry overview)
June 18, 2007... After a down year in 2006, Japanese merger-and-acquisition activity picked up steam in April with a landmark brokerage industry transaction: Citigroup took control of Nikko Cordial Corp. with a $7.7 billion cash tender offer. Citi's purchases...

Distance Barrier Broken By Blade Breakthrough.
June 18, 2007... ClearCube Technology, a pioneer in the blade computing market, is introducing so-called user port devices that allow for greater distances between remote computing resources and desktop workstations--and therefore greater flexibility and...

Belzberg Seeks Revenue Boost in Self-clearing Move.
June 18, 2007... Belzberg Technologies' Electronic Brokerage Systems (EBS), a broker-dealer specializing in options and equities trading systems, is becoming fully self-clearing in an effort to capture clearing-related revenue from clients using its trading...

Platinum Designation for Bloomberg Feed: InfoDyne joins two others at high B-Pipe certification level.
June 18, 2007... InfoDyne Corp., a leader in market data feed technologies, said it has obtained platinum authorization from the Bloomberg network, certifying that its TPS+Plus ticker-plant system meets the most comprehensive data content and integration...

New StreamBase Version Has Algo Trading Component: Upgrade brings improved integration as event processing field matures.(StreamBase Systems)
June 18, 2007... StreamBase Systems, one of the leading developers of the complex event processing (CEP) technology that has helped to fuel algorithmic trading growth, is unveiling a new version of its stream processing platform this week with a number of...

AML Software Landscape Consolidatesand Expands: Constant change and increasing complexity create opportunities for vendors.
June 18, 2007... The six years since the USA Patriot Act was passed in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks have apparently not been time enough for the financial services industry to have made its final bets on anti-money-laundering (AML) compliance...

EdgeTrade Debuts Dark-Pool Algorithm.
June 18, 2007... Independent agency-only broker and trading software developer EdgeTrade has extended its FAN smart-order execution strategy with Covert, a real-time algorithmic tool for traders who want to send orders only to alternative, or dark, liquidity...

People Are Scarce Again: The tech talent hunt is reminiscent of the '90s, and recruiting strategies respond.
June 18, 2007... It's a revenge of the nerds. These days, the "it" people on Wall Street and in the financial services industry are just that: IT, as in information technology, professionals. For years they have been emerging from relative back-office obscurity...

Into the Sifma Era: Technology show serves as trade group's post-merger showcase.
June 18, 2007... From most outward appearances, the U.S. securities industry's biggest annual technology conference and exhibition will be taking place this week in much the way as it has been for years on a few crowded floors of the Hilton New York hotel. But...

ATSs in Europe Follow U.S. Lead: MiFID having an impact, but climate is more subdued.
June 18, 2007... Alternative trading systems (ATSs) are spreading across the pond as the U.K. and continental Europe prepare for the Nov. 1 implementation of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), the European Union regulatory framework that...

Asia Comes Around to Algorithms: Despite geographical and technical obstacles, growth is noticeable.
June 18, 2007... No one yet claims that Asia is close to being on a par with North America or Europe when it comes to algorithmic trading and direct-market access. But the growth of hedge fund investments in the region, the technological sophistication and...

Low Latency Not a Go-It-Alone Proposition: As market demands maximum trading speed, vendors partner up.
June 18, 2007... A key to maximizing alpha--or garnering outsize returns--in the age of high-frequency trading is speed. The increased use of automated trading applications powered by algorithms has fueled demand for ever-faster fulfillment of trade requests....

Fragmentation's New Discipline: Liquidity Management: Order flow and trading tools converge in a response to market complexity.
June 18, 2007... With margins shrinking, trading speeds accelerating and myriad automated execution choices at traders' disposal, securities firms can't find the profits that used to flow from simply serving as intermediaries between clients and exchanges. As...

For High Throughput and Low Latency, A Host of Technology Options and Tools.
June 25, 2007... Facing rampant growth in trading volumes, the securities industry also faces a tough set of technology choices as it seeks ways to digest and process data at the speed and level of accuracy necessary to satisfy internal, customer and regulatory...

Power Costs Fuel Efficiency Drive In Data Centers.
June 25, 2007... Demands for computing power and the costs of real estate and energy are peaking at the same time, leading major Wall Street firms to retrofit, redesign or build new data centers that work better with distributed, cutting-edge, cooler-running...

Benchmarking Claims Get More Scientific; Norm Is Down to Microseconds.
June 25, 2007... Market conditions change moment to moment, and the systems running instantaneous trade analytics and executions have to adapt accordingly. How fast they do that has become the central battle in the securities industry's technological arms race,...

Did SOX Kill the U.S. Capital Markets?
June 25, 2007... Even before the Sarbanes-Oxley Act's (SOX) provisions went into effect, critics were predicting dire consequences for U.S. markets and their global competitiveness. Statistics showing that initial public offerings are down on U.S. exchanges and...

SEC Approves SHO Changes, Removes NYSE, Nasdaq Tests.
June 25, 2007... The Securities and Exchange Commission has approved changes to the regulations governing short sales for the last two and a half years, including elimination of one gaping loophole and setting the stage to tighten or even remove another. ...

Anticipated SHO Effects Didn't Last.
June 25, 2007... The Regulation SHO short-selling rules that went into effect in January 2005 were expected to reduce the failures to deliver shares of shorted securities. They had that effect initially, but data disclosed under a Freedom of Information Act...

Que Sira?
June 25, 2007... Big branding news came out of the Exchequer Club in Washington, D.C. last Wednesday. NASD chairman and CEO Mary Schapiro revealed in a speech there that the merging self-regulatory organizations, NASD and NYSE Regulation, have chosen Securities...

Leibowitz to NYSE; SFTI Gains.
June 25, 2007... Duncan Niederauer's move from Goldman Sachs to NYSE in February was a recruiting coup, indicative of the high-level Wall Street talent that CEO John Thain, himself a Goldman alum, was intent on bringing in to what is now NYSE Euronext. The...

GlobeOp Readying IPO.
June 25, 2007... Hedge fund administrator GlobeOp Financial Services has taken formal steps toward an initial public offering on the London Stock Exchange (LSE), anticipated in early July. A June 15 announcement by LSE said there will be 20.4 million shares in...

Euroclear Contract for Swift.
June 25, 2007... Swift has become the second network provider to sign a contract to connect customers of the Euroclear family of depositories through a new common communications interface (CCI). Beginning in 2008, the CCI will be used for services of all...

Managing Risk in an E-trading World.
June 25, 2007... The Securities and Exchange Commission, in a May 9 announcement that Morgan Stanley had agreed to pay out nearly $8 million for failing to provide best execution on retail over-the-counter securities trades from 2001 to 2004, faulted the firm's...

TD Ameritrade Offers Sophisticated Strategy Tool at Retail: Back-testing and auto-execution promote consistency and discipline, firm says.
June 25, 2007... Through one or another of the retail online brokerage services and electronic trading platforms, individuals are gradually accumulating capabilities such as options, foreign exchange and cross-border market access that are readily available to...

StreetBrains Aggregates, FirstRain Maps It Out.
June 25, 2007... StreetBrains, a Web-based aggregator of independent research, has newly opened its doors, while FirstRain, a specialized provider of search technology, has introduced a crawl, cluster and mapping research service specifically targeting the...

Clearstream CEO Finds Fault With ECB's Settlement Plan.
June 25, 2007... The chief executive of Clearstream International, Jeffrey Tessler, has reservations about the European Central Bank's (ECB) proposed single cross-border securities settlement platform, but he is open to its potential. If it is "designed the...

TradingScreen in Linkup With IDC's DirectPlus.
June 25, 2007... New York-based execution management systems provider TradingScreen said it has integrated its technology with DirectPlus, Interactive Data Corp.'s (IDC) ultra-low-latency direct exchange data service. TradingScreen, whose multi-asset-class...

Thomson Financial in Two Alliance Deals: Turns to Albridge in wealth management, Radianz for low latency.(Albridge Solutions, BT Radianz)
June 25, 2007... Thomson Corp.'s Thomson Financial unit last week announced agreements with technology providers in two of its information services businesses: a customer data integration deal with Albridge Solutions, and a high-speed network tie-in with BT...

Apama Called In for a Regulatory Assignment.
June 25, 2007... Progress Software Corp.'s Apama event processing technology will be part of the U.K. Financial Services Authority's (FSA) enforcement arsenal for monitoring market activity under the European Union's Markets in Financial Instruments Directive...

Derivatives Complicate Enterprise Data Management: OTC instruments underscore need for unified platform, says GoldenSource.
June 25, 2007... The streamlining of enterprise data management (EDM) that many financial firms are struggling to achieve is being further complicated by the spread of credit derivatives and their intricate processing requirements, according to a study...

IM Gets Collaborative: Instant messaging incorporates shared workspaces, filtering tools.
June 25, 2007... As instant messaging (IM) becomes more entrenched in the trading environment, vendors are recasting themselves as full-fledged Web-based collaboration providers. With keyword filtering and collaborative workspaces at their fingertips, traders...

Intel, Microsoft Help Boost BancWare Performance.
June 25, 2007... If investment banks had been running SunGard BancWare's asset-liability management (ALM) software, they would have had ample warning of problems in the subprime mortgage market, according to Tom Day, SVP of product and engineering at the...

Siemens Debuts Open-Architecture Trading System: Speed and productivity said to be hallmarks of HiPath version 4.0.
June 25, 2007... German electronics giant Siemens has introduced a new version of its HiPath Trading System, which relies heavily on Internet protocol (IP) technology to offer traders greater mobility and more-efficient workflow integration, the company said....

Sales and Trading Supervision a Major Compliance Concern: In white paper, SunGard sees lack of tools and knowledge, too much subjective judgment.
June 25, 2007... While there is broad agreement that a culture of compliance now extends beyond the boardroom to sales and trading desks as well as operations areas, many securities firms are still struggling with the problem of failure to...

Algorithms Join Buddy Lists: E-trading innovations incorporated in IM technologies.
June 25, 2007... Wall Street traders have been using instant messaging (IM) for several years, at first often without the approval of information technology and compliance managers who were wary of a public-network technology with apparent security holes. But...

AOL Addresses Trading With FinAIM.
June 25, 2007... Focusing on the large number of traders who communicate via AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), AOL last week unveiled FinAIM, a platform that serves the institutional trading marketplace and that will be available later this year. The effort is...