Securities Industry News articles from May 2007

Securities Industry News archives from May 2007

Eurex-ISE: One Partnership, Two Trading Platforms.
May 7, 2007... The $2.8 billion acquisition by Eurex of the International Securities Exchange (ISE) that was announced last week will create the largest transatlantic derivatives marketplace, with 545 exchange members and 2.1 billion contracts traded...

Citi a Hedge Fund Administration Leader: Big-bank buyout of Bisys is latest in.(Company overview)
May 7, 2007... Citigroup's pending takeover of Bisys Group of Roseland, N.J. accelerates the consolidation of the hedge fund administration market into a handful of megabanks as other, more specialized players fight to stay in the game. The transaction,...

For Data Management, Broadridge Aligns With GoldenSource and IBM.(Company overview)
May 7, 2007... Broadridge Financial Solutions, formerly the brokerage services group of Automatic Data Processing, is offering an enterprisewide data management service through an alliance with GoldenSource Corp. and IBM Global Business Services. ...

Reuters Buying Data-Search Company: ClearForest technology feeds navigation needs.(Reuters Group PLC)
May 7, 2007... Reuters Group announced an agreement last week to acquire ClearForest in a bid to own and build on advanced techniques for analyzing data in many forms and formats and putting it into necessary context for securities research, trading...

Another Platform Bows to Buy Side Swapstream introduces dealer-to-client model.
May 7, 2007... Recent signs of hedge fund and other sophisticated executing firms' increasing control and influence over trading systems and strategies included pressure on Europe's MTS Group to give them direct access, and an indications-of-interest (IOI)...

Lutnick Hits Back.(Howard Lutnick, eSpeed Inc.)
May 7, 2007... Quarterly earnings calls of eSpeed are rarely without some drama--at least to analysts who have followed its ups and downs as a supplier of trading technology and its close ties to the privately held New York capital markets firm that spun it...

Eurex-ISE: The Numbers.(International Securities Exchange acquisition)
May 7, 2007... At last Tuesday's press conference on his company's agreement to acquire the International Securities Exchange (ISE), Eurex chief executive Andreas Preuss offered a tongue-in-cheek apology for its bad timing. The announcement was issued late...

People in the News.
May 7, 2007... Derivatives data and valuation specialist Markit Group of London has hired Jeff Gooch from Morgan Stanley as EVP and head of its portfolio valuations and trade processing businesses. Gooch, who has a strong operational background and is former...

-ST_BY-.
May 7, 2007... Portfolio margining, which enables firms to extend significantly more margin credit to their customers beyond previously existing limits under Regulation T, represents a major advance for the securities industry. Now firms may extend margin for...

The SEC's Atkins: Words of Dissent.
May 7, 2007... In a speech last week to the Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association operations conference in Kissimmee, Fla., commissioner Paul Atkins of the Securities and Exchange Commission blasted Regulation NMS, the sweeping national market...

Complications of Globalization: Coordination and standardization are prerequisites: Sifma panel.
May 7, 2007... Globalization in financial services is here, it is going to grow quickly over the next five years, and getting it right isn't easy, according to panelists at the Securities Industry & Financial Markets Association (Sifma) operations conference...

Townsend Broadens Connection to ISE for Equities.
May 7, 2007... Just as the International Securities Exchange (ISE) was announcing its $2.8 billion agreement last week to merge with the Frankfurt-based Eurex derivatives exchange (see front page), trading technology company Townsend Analytics said that it...

Citi in Algo Deal With Agency Brokerage NeoNet.
May 7, 2007... Citigroup's algorithmic trading suite is being offered through global agency brokerage NeoNet, the two companies announced, saying it is a first for both sides. The Citi execution tools are available to both buy- and sell-side customers of...

Penson Affiliate's Database Supports Options Arbitrage.
May 7, 2007... Responding to demand for tick-level data in the options market as penny-quote increments appear likely to take hold, historical market-data provider Tick Data and the Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) have launched a quote database for the...

JonesTrading Names Geyer COO: Execution expert from Citi joins in wake of capital infusion.
May 7, 2007... In its second major corporate-level move within a month, agency brokerage JonesTrading Institutional Services has appointed Citigroup veteran Will Geyer as president and COO, reporting to chairman and CEO Packy Jones. The April 30...

Business Group Weighs In on Reg SHO Change.
May 14, 2007... The U.S. Chamber of Commerce entered the short-selling fray last month with a comment letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission in support of a proposed amendment to Regulation SHO that would eliminate two regulatory loopholes permitting...

Best Execution in Canada: Regulators Look to Europe and U.S. for Guidance.
May 14, 2007... Canadian regulators are looking to gain from the experiences of their U.S. and European counterparts as they move to require buy- and sell-side firms to prove that they have provided best execution to their clients. The Canadian Securities...

U.K. Pensions Group Automating STP.
May 14, 2007... Five U.K. pension fund managers and administrators have adopted the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 20022 message types and Swift's SwiftNet network to automate an otherwise manual process for communicating trade...

Bond Traders Draft Market Guidelines: Unveiling set for June meeting with New York Fed.
May 14, 2007... The securities industry's Treasury Market Practices Group (TMPG) plans to unveil its trading guidelines before a June 14 conference at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said the group's chairman, Thomas Wipf, who is also managing director...

Globalization Trends Prompting SEC Shift On Brokerage Rules.
May 14, 2007... Citing the realities of globalization, the director of the Securities and Exchange Commission's division of market regulation said last week that the regulator is planning to ease restrictions on foreign broker-dealers doing business in the...

Ordering Up PowerFill.
May 14, 2007... Barclays Capital in London announced that it has enhanced the PowerFill foreign exchange algorithmic trading capabilities that first became available on the Barclays Automated Real-Time Execution (Barx) multi-asset-class e-commerce platform...

Traiana Netting for Hotspot.
May 14, 2007... New York-based Traiana, which supplies post-execution straight-through processing (STP) services to major foreign exchange market participants, said that its NetLink transaction netting service is available through Hotspot FX, the electronic...

High-Performance Alliance.
May 14, 2007... Event processing specialist Aleri of Chicago has formed an alliance with database giant Sybase. They said that the Aleri Streaming Platform combined with the technology of Dublin, Calif.-based Sybase's real-time analytical platform "provides a...

PEOPLE IN THE NEWS.
May 14, 2007... Consulting and technology integration company TekFinancial Solutions has brought in Tom Gottcent as an industry solutions specialist. The Edison, N.J. company is a division of Tekmark Global Solutions, and its president is William Adiletta, a...

Getting a Verdict on Sarbanes-Oxley.
May 14, 2007... A new study on financial markets competitiveness sees only one side of the cost-benefit picture. Cited in a Comment on this page two weeks ago, this interesting study by professors Craig Doidge of the University of Toronto and Andrew Karolyi...

Penny Options: Parallels With Equities.
May 14, 2007... A speech to the 2006 Options Industry Conference by Elizabeth King, associate director of the Securities and Exchange Commission's division of market regulation, was something of a landmark. Her discussion of penny-increment pricing accelerated...

SEC Settles a Market-Timing Case.
May 14, 2007... The Securities and Exchange Commission announced major settlements last week with two financial institutions on alleged trading violations. On Wednesday, the SEC said that for failing to provide best execution on certain retail orders in...

Thain's Global Scenario: Fewer Than Five Big Markets.(John Thain)
May 14, 2007... NYSE Euronext chief executive John Thain foresees a global trading landscape where no more than three or four large multiproduct global exchanges will coexist with a larger number of smaller and regional markets as well as start-up entities...

TradeWeb Enables Specified Mortgage-Pool Trading.(Thomson TradeWeb)
May 14, 2007... Thomson TradeWeb's launch of specified mortgage-pools trading, developed with major mortgage securities dealers and a core group of buy-side clients, came not a moment too soon for mortgage traders looking to limit their risks. The...

Op Risk at Hedge Funds a Constant Battle: Strategic skills don't always equate with operational controls, consultants warn.
May 14, 2007... Operational risk in hedge funds is hard for investors to gauge, by definition requiring on-site due diligence to qualify, says Brian Dawson, managing consultant of PA Consulting Group. Addressing the issue at the recent Securities Industry...

Exchanges' Crossing: Amid dark-pool competition, Nasdaq and NYSE revive an old concept.
May 14, 2007... Point-in-time crosses, the first electronic dark books, have faded in importance with the proliferation of continuous matching engines over the last several years. But now the Nasdaq Stock Market and New York Stock Exchange are reinvigorating...

Asia's Alternatives: Western market changes are echoing in the Far East.
May 14, 2007... In many respects, Asia has been following the U.S. and European lead on matters of market structure and regulation as Asian laws and technologies steadily edge closer to the world standards developed elsewhere. With the recent spate of...

UBS's Leibowitz: On the ATS Front Lines.(Interview)
May 14, 2007... UBS Investment Bank COO Larry Leibowitz's career has paralleled several waves of growth and innovation in automated and quantitative trading. As a UBS managing director overseeing those functions among others, Leibowitz was also a driving force...

ITG Hires Analyst Herr for Strategy Job.
May 14, 2007... After five years as a securities analyst with Keefe Bruyette & Woods, where he followed brokerages, exchanges and trade execution firms, Richard Herr is taking an executive position with Investment Technology Group (ITG) of New York, one of the...

Trading Strengths Apparent in Thomson-Reuters Merger: Platform integration will address multi-asset-class needs.
May 21, 2007... In the merger plan for Thomson Corp.'s $17.2 billion acquisition of Reuters Group that the companies announced last Tuesday, they said that they will create an $11.3 billion-in-revenue enterprise within a $53 billion marketplace ($20 billion of...

Transition Management Code Moves Forward: Draft in final stages; release expected within six months.
May 21, 2007... Several of the world's biggest transition management firms are trying to fast-track the T-Charter--a code of conduct that will standardize best practices for moving portfolio accounts between asset managers that are implementing strategy...

Shulman Explains SRO's Tiered Approach; Pitt Says Hedge Funds Face Perfect Storm'.
May 21, 2007... The as-yet-unnamed self-regulatory organization (SRO) formed by combining NASD and the New York Stock Exchange's broker-dealer oversight function will operate as a multi-tiered system, with a firm's size and business mix determining how it will...

SwiftNet FIX: New Vendor, Same Hub.
May 21, 2007... The SwiftNet FIX service was one of several ambitious, turn-of-the-century initiatives designed to lead the industry out of its paper-heavy morass and into trade-automation nirvana once and for all. For Swift, the La Hulpe, Belgium-based...

SEC Punt on Fee-Based Accounts Leaves Wall Street Scrambling.
May 21, 2007... The Securities and Exchange Commission asked an appeals court May 14 for a 120-day stay of its decision to overturn the regulator's rule exempting broker-dealers offering fee-based brokerage accounts from registering as advisers. On the...

Swiss Consolidation.
May 21, 2007... In the latest consolidation within the European securities infrastructure, SWX Group, parent of the Swiss stock exchange, has agreed to merge with depository owner SIS Group and information vendor Telekurs Group. "With this contemplated merger,...

Cline's Firm Gets Capital.
May 21, 2007... Acai Solutions, a New York consulting firm recently started by veteran Accenture capital markets expert William Cline, said that it has closed an institutional round of funding from True Ventures, a venture capital firm with offices in...

Repo Guidelines.
May 21, 2007... Ten days ago, the Treasury Market Practices Group (TMPG) released nonbinding best practices that promote avoidance of manipulative trading practices in the government bond futures and Treasury repurchase agreement (repo) markets. The updated...

People In The News.
May 21, 2007... Continuing to emphasize the complementary "human touch" to its agency brokerage operations, Rosenblatt Securities has hired veteran floor broker Joseph M. Benanti, formerly of Paine Webber and Robertson Stephens, who for the last several years...

Regulatory Costs and Innovation.
May 21, 2007... From 2002 until July 2006, Cynthia Glassman served on the Securities and Exchange Commission as a Republican appointee who found herself in the minority on key regulatory reform votes during the period that followed the Enron,...

SEC Documents a Best-Execution Breakdown.
May 21, 2007... The week of May 9, twice within three days, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced sizable financial settlements in two trading-related cases. In one, a unit of Zurich Financial Services agreed to pay a total of $12.8 million in...

Citi's Shadow Algo Targets Trade Completion.
May 21, 2007... Citigroup's electronic execution unit has introduced an algorithm that the company says utilizes an implementation shortfall benchmark but also ensures traders of a completion strategy when they choose to access liquidity from a range of dark...

UNX Opens New York-Area Data Center.
May 21, 2007... Electronic execution specialist UNX announced completion last week of a data center in the New York metropolitan area that will house its Algorithmic Market Access (AMA) technology, which the company says is a new approach to dealing with...

Creditex Alliance Yields Platform for LCDS Settlement.
May 21, 2007... On the eve of the launch of the first North American LCDX, or loan-only credit default swaps (LCDS) index, Creditex Group has taken a minority stake in Trade Settlement (TSI), which provides settlement services to the primary and secondary...

Broadridge Seeks to Broaden Reach With Workflow Apps: Dashboard for managing corporate actions also launched by ADP spin-off.(Automatic Data Processing )
May 21, 2007... Seeking to diversify its customer base, Broadridge Financial Solutions, the recent spin-off from Automatic Data Processing (ADP), is offering a set of back-end applications to help self-clearing broker-dealers streamline workflow and increase...

Fujitsu and Sun Introduce Big Iron for Quants: Jointly developed computer lines address a wide spectrum of needs.
May 21, 2007... It's hardly unusual for a major computer hardware manufacturer to be developing a bigger and faster system to meet the increasingly quantitative demands of Wall Street, but last month two big names--Silicon Valley's Sun Microsystems and Fujitsu...

NYSE-Euronext as One.(projection of combined first quarter earnings of New York Stock Exchange and Euronext)
May 28, 2007... NYSE Euronext, the holding company resulting from the April 4 combination of NYSE Group and Euronext, "for the convenience of investors" produced a snapshot last week of what its financials would have looked like if the entities had been merged...

Greifeld for Growth.
May 28, 2007... The Nasdaq Stock Market's efforts to woo the London Stock Exchange didn't have the desired result, but CEO Robert Greifeld is exuding optimism--most recently in a presentation last week to a Fox-Pitt Kelton investor conference. "We have a...

Introducing LCDX.
May 28, 2007... The loan credit default swap (CDS) index, LCDX, representing a basket of 100 CDS referencing U.S. first-lien loans, began trading May 22. Markit Group, as administration, calculation and marketing agent for the index--a role it plays in the...

People In The News.
May 28, 2007... Audit and consulting firm KPMG said that former federal prosecutor and HSBC officer Teresa Pesce has joined its forensic practice as head of anti-money-laundering (AML) services. Based in New York, where she will help direct criminal and...

Credit Derivatives Unknowns.
May 28, 2007... If there is virtue in acknowledging the limits of our knowledge, then it was in abundance two weeks ago in Sea Island, Ga., where the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta held a two-day conference on the vexing risk implications of credit...

Geithner on Credit Innovations.
May 28, 2007... As president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Timothy Geithner has been at the epicenter of--and has been a regulatory point person on--market innovations such as loan securitization, structured products and credit derivatives and their...

Corrigan: Cash Settlement a CDS Missing Link Risk-reduction attention turns to equity derivatives, exchange trading.
May 28, 2007... Goldman Sachs Group managing director and systemic risk expert E. Gerald Corrigan, who led the Counterparty Risk Management Policy Group initiative to resolve problems in post-trade processing of credit default swaps (CDS), believes one of the...

Bear Stearns Still Going Strongon Its Own: PricingDirect valuations, an outgrowth of fixed income, now include swaptions.
May 28, 2007... Bear Stearns & Co. has added interest-rate swaptions to the list of price valuations available in its PricingDirect service, which includes credit default swaps (CDS) and interest-rate swaps and arguably gives it a leg up on competitors. ...

New-Product Niche Players: NumeriX, SuperDerivatives, others take on pricing and trade tracking.
May 28, 2007... When Aozora Bank in Tokyo decided to introduce several new structured products for clients earlier this year--they were variations of PRDC, or power reverse dual currency, notes based on foreign exchange market movements--it ran into a problem....

Athena Will Deal With Back-Office Complexity: Upstart systems consultant offers to fill in hedge funds' blanks.
May 28, 2007... Of the notional $34.5 trillion outstanding in the credit derivatives market at year-end 2006, alternative investment managers account for at least 20 percent, say market observers. But these funds have neither the extensive information...

RED Customer Turns Insider: A recent Markit Group hire reflects on the database and its role.
May 28, 2007... From its start in 2001 as a division of Toronto-Dominion Bank affiliate TD Securities, Markit Group has set a standard for independent pricing of credit derivatives--a market with which it grew in parallel. Today it provides a range of pricing,...

New Processing Approach for Data Explosion: Activ says custom FPGA overcomes current CPU limits.
May 28, 2007... In the race to reduce data latency, Activ Financial Systems has done some tinkering with the machinery. Rather than sticking with generic X86 processor platforms, the Chicago-based market-data technology vendor has gone in a radically different...

Algos With Real-Time Risk Capability on the Rise, Expert Says.
May 28, 2007... New, customized algorithms that incorporate real-time risk management strategies into their design are on the upswing among hedge fund traders, according to algorithmic trading systems pioneer John Bates, founder and VP of the Apama products...

Appointment Is Sign of Auto-trading Growth in Latin America: Instinet and ITG also adding staff and resources in Asia-Pacific region.
May 28, 2007... Global agency brokerage Instinet has hired Edward Sares as a sales trader on its international trading desk. Sares, who was most recently director of global equity products at Societe Generale affiliate Fimat USA, reports to Glenn Lesko,...

Trading Technologies Sets Osaka Connection: Exchange gateway, Tokyo hub are vendor's latest Asian moves.
May 28, 2007... Trading Technologies International (TT) said that by year-end it expects to establish connectivity to one of the world's top futures exchanges, the Osaka Securities Exchange (OSE). At the same time, the Chicago-based trading systems supplier...

FIX for Forex: White Paper for a Work In Progress.
May 28, 2007... Building on efforts dating back to 2005, FIX Protocol Ltd. (FPL) has released the second in what it describes as "a series of foreign exchange white papers" that are designed to promote the use of the protocol, which is used mainly in equities...

Equity Derivatives Are a Harder Case: OTC cleanup slower than credit swaps, but risk less.
May 28, 2007... The process that started last Nov. 21 had a familiar ring: Seventeen major derivatives dealers signed a letter to Federal Reserve Bank of New York president Timothy Geithner, committing to substantially improve transaction processing workflows...

Concern Mounts Over Prime Brokers' Exposure to Hedge Fund Wrongdoing.
May 28, 2007... Worries are mounting that troubles in the hedge fund industry could spill over into the highly lucrative prime brokerage businesses of bulge-bracket Wall Street firms servicing those funds. At a Securities Industry & Financial Markets...

In Reformed Pension Climate, a New Investing: Approach Liability-driven investing ranges widely, with focus on funding.
May 28, 2007... In February and March, JP Morgan Chase & Co. launched two products that at first glance appear dissimilar. One, the Hedge Fund Altbeta Index, replicates the strategies and performance of hedge funds and funds of funds with liquid market...

Need for Standards Evident As Loan Trading Takes Off.
May 28, 2007... "Exploded" is the word Pat Loret de Mola, CEO of Trade Settlement (TSI), a New York-based syndicated loan processing firm, uses to describe the growth of loan trading over the last several years. Fueled by the private equity behind an...

China Open to NYSE, Nasdaq: Long-awaited regulation allows rep offices.
May 28, 2007... After months of waiting, Nasdaq Stock Market and NYSE Euronext will be allowed to open official representative offices in China this summer. The two exchanges had applied for permission late last year, but government approval was held up...