Securities Industry News articles from November 2008

Securities Industry News archives from November 2008

JSE Offers to Buy BESA.(News Desk)(Bond Exchange of South Africa)(Brief article)
November 3, 2008... Byline: Editorial Staff JSE, Africa's largest securities exchange, announced Oct. 27 that it has made a conditional offer to acquire the Bond Exchange of South Africa (BESA) in a deal valued at 173.2 million rands ($17.4 million)....

Managing Data in Tumultuous Times~Technology options abound for firms coping with surging volumes.(News)
November 3, 2008... Byline: Chris Kentouris Confronted with the credit crunch and fragmenting liquidity, data management personnel are struggling with capacity constraints, latency and quality issues. And while financial firms are tapping a variety of tools...

Storm Arrives for Syndicated Loans.(News)
November 3, 2008... Byline: Shane Kite A group of banks are teaming on a platform designed to encourage straight-through processing in the largely manual syndicated loan sector. But its future competitors say they already offer much of the functionality that...

Market Volatility in the Spotlight~Industry executives, observers discuss lessons from current turmoil.(In the News)
November 3, 2008... Byline: Katherine Heires As financial market volatility reaches record-breaking levels, New York University is planning to launch a research laboratory and Web site devoted to the issue, according to Robert Engle, a Nobel laureate and...

NYSE Arca Listing ISE Foreign Exchange Options.(Trading)
November 3, 2008... Byline: Alexa Jaworski NYSE Arca Options has begun listing foreign exchange options products from the International Securities Exchange (ISE) under a licensing deal announced last week. On Oct. 27, NYSE Arca started trading options on...

JP Morgan, TT Deal.(News Desk)
November 3, 2008... Byline: Edditorial Staff JP Morgan Chase & Co. has entered into a global software licensing and distribution deal with Chicago-based Trading Technologies International (TT). Under the agreement, JP Morgan will make TT's X-Trader...

People in the News.(News Desk)
November 3, 2008... Byline: Editorial Staff Microsoft Corp. has promoted Colleen Healy, previously head of its investor relations group, to general manager of the U.S. financial services group. Healy joined Microsoft's corporate development department in 1995...

Atlas Shrugged (and the World Shook).(Comment)
November 3, 2008... Byline: Michael Forman Subscribers to the view of psychological egoism-that all human actions are ultimately tied to self-interest-don't claim that it makes us bad, just that it describes our motivations. For example, they say, we give to...

Oil Wealth Fuels Another Kind of Liquidity~Middle East strives to strengthen its presence in global finance.(Special Report)
November 3, 2008... Byline: Tom Groenfeldt Building on oil revenues, equities and commodities markets and a convenient location at the crossroads of Asia, Europe and North Africa, the Middle East-and the United Arab Emirates in particular-is making a strong...

And Then There Was One (Platform)~ Consolidated trading system represents significant synergies for NYSE, says exec.(Special Report)
November 3, 2008... Byline: Alexa Jaworski Earlier this year, NYSE Euronext embarked on a plan to create a single platform for all its products and markets. Dubbed the Universal Trading Platform (UTP), it will consolidate the various systems brought under one...

Australia Still Waiting on Trading Venue Competition.(Global Market Structure)
November 3, 2008... Byline: Mayur Pahilajani By early next year, alternative trading systems (ATSs) are expected to bring full-scale competition to Australia, where the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) has held a monopoly on trading the stocks it lists....

MiFID Enters Year Two~On its one-year anniversary, EU directive a work in progress.(News)
November 3, 2008... Byline: Dawn Kissi One year since the European Union's Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) became effective, many market participants are still looking for clarity, even as regulatory bodies may be shifting their attention...

FTen Trading Tech Draws Bulge-Bracket Investments.(News)
November 3, 2008... Byline: John Hintze Capital may be tight on Wall Street, but four bulge-bracket firms have found the funds to back FTen, a technology vendor that provides risk and trading products designed for high-frequency, low-latency strategies. ...

ICE Clearing in Europe.(News Desk)
November 10, 2008... Byline: Editorial Staff ICE Clear Europe has gone live with 44 member firms, clearing all over-the-counter and European futures contracts executed on IntercontinentalExchange's electronic platform. On Nov. 3, all of ICE's open...

New Criteria Could Halt Business Process Patent Flood~Appeals court ruling applies new restrictions.(News)
November 10, 2008... Byline: Chris Kentouris In a decision that could prompt a flurry of legal activity, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has made it more difficult to obtain protection for business methodologies. In an Oct. 30 ruling, the...

Cutting Brokers, Calpers To Revamp Relationships.(News)
November 10, 2008... Byline: John Hintze In January, the California Public Employees' Retirement System (Calpers) will begin consolidating its institutional broker relationships using a methodology developed by its investment arm to manage executing...

European Regulators Assessing Effects of MiFID.(Compliance)
November 10, 2008... Byline: Chris Kentouris A year after its effective date, the Committee of European Securities Regulators (CESR) has begun assessing the effects of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID) and working to clarify its post-trade...

Tokyo Exchange, Markit Considering Joint Venture.(Compliance)
November 10, 2008... Byline: Wang Fangqing The Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) and London- and New York-based Markit Group are pursuing an alliance that could produce new Japanese indexes, valuation services and improvements to the country's post-trade...

Riskdata Introduces ShockVaR Measurement.(Data Management)(partnership with Hedge Fund Research)
November 10, 2008... Byline: Maureen Nevin Duffy Riskdata, a supplier of risk management solutions to the alternative investment industry, is aiming to improve hedge fund transparency by teaming with Hedge Fund Research to publish daily value at risk (VaR)...

Regional Dealers Look at Tech.(News Desk)(Regional Bond Dealers Association)(Brief article)
November 10, 2008... Byline: Editorial Staff The Regional Bond Dealers Association (RBDA), an Alexandria, Va.-based trade group formed earlier this year, has established a 16-person committee dedicated to fixed-income technology and operations issues. "This...

Global Connectivity, Speed Key to Futures: Aite.(News Desk)
November 10, 2008... Byline: Dawn Kissi Algorithmic trading and direct-market access (DMA) are becoming more prominent features in the futures industry, according to an Aite Group report, which also points to an increased emphasis on reducing latency. ...

Ofac Bolsters Sanctions Enforcement.(Guest Comment)
November 10, 2008... Byline: David D. DiBari, Steven F. Gatti and Matthew B. Hsu The U.S. Treasury Department's office of foreign assets control (Ofac) administers economic sanctions against Cuba, Iran, Myanmar and Sudan, terrorists, proliferators of weapons of...

Finra's Schapiro on Fixing the System.(Original Sources)
November 10, 2008... Byline: Editorial Staff "The history of our markets has always been defined by periods of great adversity," said Mary Schapiro, CEO of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (Finra). "The question is, what will adversity teach us this...

XBRL Emerging as Corporate Actions Solution.(In the News)(extensible business reporting language)
November 10, 2008... Byline: John Sandman XBRL US, the consortium charged with the development of the XML-based extensible business reporting language and its promotion in the U.S., is aiming to standardize the delivery of corporate actions data and proxy...

LSE-Backed MTF Explores Options, Appoints CEO.(Trading)
November 10, 2008... Byline: Dawn Kissi The future of Baikal, a dark pool backed by the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and slated to launch in early 2009, has been in doubt since the collapse of its co-owner, Lehman Brothers. But LSE said late last month that the...

FinCEN Pulls Plug on Hedge Fund AML.(News)
November 10, 2008... Byline: John Sandman Six years since they were first proposed by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), anti-money-laundering (AML) regulations for unregistered investment companies, commodities trading advisers and investment...

In Unstable Market, Clearer Penson Sees Stable Growth~CEO Pendergraft credits new business, tech focus.(News)(Penson Worldwide Inc's Phil Pendergraft)(Interview)
November 10, 2008... Byline: John Hintze While many of its broker-dealer brethren have suffered along with the financial markets, Penson Worldwide's third-quarter net revenues increased 16 percent year over year and net income tripled, to $7.5 million. Driven...

Playing Infrastructural Catch-Up: Closing the Processing Gaps.(Guest Comment)
November 17, 2008... Byline: Martijn Groot Recent financial market events have made clear that the gap between front-office product proliferation and fulfillment has widened. An increased focus on exposure, risk and compliance has put more emphasis on the...

Performance Attribution Systems: New Entrants, Expanding Scope.(News)
November 17, 2008... Byline: Katherine Heires How is that well-known hedge fund manager bringing in stellar returns when many of his peers have been hit with major losses? Is it asset allocation, security selection, currency trading, derivatives activity, or...

Private Equity Admin Expansion.(News Desk)
November 17, 2008... Byline: Editorial Staff Bank of New York Mellon Corp. has rolled out a private equity fund administration service that supports buyouts, venture capital, mezzanine financing, real estate and hybrid hedge fund deals. The bank is licensing...

Tethys Introduces FX Tool.(News Desk)(Conference notes)
November 17, 2008... Byline: Editorial Staff Tethys Technology, a provider of trading systems and research, has added a foreign exchange tool for high-volume trading desks to its Exacta execution management system. The new solution, which is available...

ConvergEx's New Router.(News Desk)
November 17, 2008... Byline: Editorial Staff As the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive continues to fragment liquidity in the European Union, New York-based agency brokerage BNY ConvergEx Group has unveiled a global smart-order routing platform it says...

People in the News.(News Desk)
November 17, 2008... Byline: Edditorial Staff Interactive Data Corp.'s president of sales and marketing, Raymond D'Arcy (left), will succeed Stuart Clark as president and CEO when he steps down in mid-2009. The decision followed a search process that began in...

NYSE To Add Portware Technology to Hosted Platform.(Technology)(New York Stock Exchange Inc.)
November 17, 2008... Byline: Alexa Jaworski Execution management systems provider Portware's solutions will be made available on a hosted basis to firms on the Secure Financial Transaction Infrastructure (SFTI) network, said NYSE Euronext's commercial...

CME Will Offer Dubai Mercantile Exchange Contracts.(Technology)
November 17, 2008... Byline: Alex S. Dai The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) announced Nov. 10 that all Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME) contracts, including Oman crude oil futures, will begin trading on the CME Globex platform in first-quarter 2009, pending...

Compliance Demands Driving IT Security Growth.(InThe News Technology)
November 17, 2008... Byline: Carol E. Curtis Even as the financial crisis is causing securities firms to slash their technology budgets, experts are predicting sustained growth in IT security spending, driven by regulatory demands and new vulnerabilities. ...

BT Extends Radianz Ultra Access to Chicago.(InThe News Technology)(Conference notes)
November 17, 2008... Byline: Dawn Kissi Expanding its high-speed Radianz Ultra Access network, BT Global Financial Services is offering Chicago-based firms ultra-low-latency connectivity to market data providers and exchanges. Announced last week at the...

For Dark Liquidity Pools, Transparency Is a Must.(Trading)
November 17, 2008... Byline: Janice Fioravante Dark liquidity pools may be an increasingly vital part of the execution landscape, but they are essentially built on trust, says Bernard Donefer, associate director of Baruch College's Subotnick Financial Services...

Corvil Signs Fixnetix, Correlix Gains Investor.(Technology)
November 17, 2008... Byline: Alexa Jaworski Announcements by a pair of international technology companies earlier this month indicate how rapidly interest is growing in measuring trading system latency. On Nov. 3, Corvil said that Fixnetix, a supplier of...

Futures Platform CQG Taps CEP Provider Apama.(Technology)
November 17, 2008... Byline: Katherine Heires CQG, a provider of market data, analysis and connectivity for the futures industry, is partnering with the Apama event processing unit of Bedford, Mass.-based Progress Software Corp. to offer its clients real-time...

Cost-Basis Burdens Looming~New reporting rules present operational, tech hurdles.(News)
November 17, 2008... Byline: Chris Kentouris Under the recently passed economic bailout bill, brokerages, mutual fund companies, issuers and their transfer agents will face new cost-basis reporting requirements that are likely to pose substantial...

New Name and Platform in Place, Canadian Venue Takes Aim at TSX.(News)
November 17, 2008... Byline: Alexa Jaworski In an increasingly competitive Canadian equities market, emerging-company exchange CNQ has undergone a reinvention, changing its name to the Canadian National Stock Exchange (CNSX), upgrading its technology and...

Credit Market Woes Spark Interest in Securities Futures~OneChicago reports market makers.(News)
November 17, 2008... Byline: John Hintzes new Neglected by most of Wall Street's major brokerages, OneChicago, an exchange that since 2002 has listed single-stock and other securities futures, may be regaining some of its luster as new regulations and risk...