Securities Industry News articles from October 2005

Securities Industry News archives from October 2005

Cox Eyes Late-Trading Rule: Task force nearing recommendations on hard close.
October 3, 2005... With a new chairman in place, the Securities and Exchange Commission staff has asked an industry task force to recommend alternatives to its proposal for curtailing the late-trading abuses by mutual funds that surfaced two years ago. In a...

Standards Convergence Is Still at a Standoff.(Financial Information eXchange Protocol signed contract with Swift )
October 3, 2005... Can the front and back office ever get along? Most likely they can--they really have little choice in the matter--but some of the nagging standardization issues that surfaced over the last decade have not gone away. It's been more than...

Outsourcing the Data Clean-up.(economical method of outsourcing data )
October 3, 2005... Wachovia Corp., in a decision announced last month to use a system from Asset Control for its data management functions, has brought new attention to the question of how financial institutions can best reduce the costs of maintaining clean and...

An Algorithmic Safety Net.(usage of computer algorithms in stock trading)
October 3, 2005... The massive growth in algorithmic trading--strategies automatically executed by computer algorithms rather than manually by traders--has triggered the latest arms race in trading technology. But real-time trading without real-time risk...

Resiliency in the Market Structure.(role played by Nasdaq Stock Market in economic condition)
October 3, 2005... For the Nasdaq Stock Market, technology isn't only an operating necessity and a key ingredient of competitiveness. The more electronic--and geographically dispersed--the market, the more able it is to continue functioning in the face of natural...

HP Offers High-Powered Blades to the Street.(Hewlett-Packard offers new computer hardware)
October 3, 2005... Hewlett-Packard is aiming a set of high-performance blade workstations at financial services firms, betting it can beat rivals by focusing on enabling easier, remote methods of managing traders' desktops. The blade configuration, says the Palo...

BondDesk Tools Bring New Transparency.
October 3, 2005... BondDesk Group, a leading alternative trading system and technology developer for fixed-income products, is releasing a set of price-discovery and compliance tools that it says brings a new level of transparency to the retail bond market. ...

FIX for Futures and Options: An Industry-Built Spec.
October 3, 2005... Where does clearing fit into FIX? After many years in the pre-trade and trade areas of indications of interest, execution and order routing, FIXML, the XML version of the protocol, has become the back-office standard for futures and options....

Eurex Enters U.S. Forex Arena.(introduction of foreign exchange futures by Eurex)
October 3, 2005... Despite skepticism about its U.S. performance, Eurex, the world's largest derivatives exchange, has introduced foreign exchange futures trading, entering a market dominated by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). Over the summer,...

MiFID Group Supports FIX Protocol.(Markets in Financial Instruments Directive)
October 3, 2005... The FIX protocol appears to be the front-runner among a host of technical formats evaluated by a standard protocols working group for complying with the messaging requirements imposed by the European Commission's pending Markets in Financial...

Algorithms Go Beyond Equities.(usage of algorithms in investment management)
October 3, 2005... As it entered the trading lexicon and changed the outlooks and habits of investors and traders over the last few years, algorithmic trading had been most often associated with one particular asset class: equities. Now algorithms, or...

Algorithmic Trading: An Early Stage Assessment.
October 3, 2005... Banc of America Securities' electronic trading services group and the Framingham, Mass.-based research firm Financial Insights teamed up last spring for what they billed as "the first buy-side algorithmic trading survey." The researchers polled...

TradePortal Offers Service Bureau.(software company's new services)
October 3, 2005... TradePortal, a software company specializing in direct-market access (DMA) trade execution, has launched a service bureau for broker-dealers and prime brokerages. Called TradePort, the service bureau makes the DMA technology available to firms...

Nyfix Hosts Displaced New Orleans Firm.(securities industry relocated its place )
October 3, 2005... Executing brokerage and technology provider Nyfix offered available space at its Stamford, Conn. headquarters to Howard Weil, an energy investment boutique based in New Orleans. A Nyfix client, Howard Weil had relocated its 34-person staff...

Chasing Market Timing: Weaknesses seen in application of redemption rule.
October 10, 2005... Several recent regulatory actions are shining new light on the extent to which investors and their broker-dealers have gone to engage in improper market timing and are raising questions about the effectiveness of pending regulations to detect...

Novations Pose Latest Challenge in Derivatives Ops.(International Swaps and Derivatives Association)
October 10, 2005... Since the International Swaps & Derivatives Association (ISDA) issued its 2003 strategic plan for over-the-counter derivatives, the financial products markup language (FpML) has been extended to version 4.1--a spec released in July with an...

A One-Stop Backstop.(Backstop Solutions Group)
October 10, 2005... Jeremie Bacon sees Backstop Solutions Group, the Chicago-based software company he founded two years ago, as a Google-like portal for the hedge fund industry. It bundles its set of portfolio and partnership management tools with other...

Regulatory Speed.(in banking industry)
October 10, 2005... Compare and contrast two of the pressing financial industry regulatory matters of the day: the global bank capital standards known as Basel II, and the mandate to eliminate back-office delays and associated risks in the processing of complex...

Data Groups Tackle IDs for MiFID.(Markets in Financial Instruments Directive)
October 10, 2005... A committee of data management experts known as the reference data group (RDG) has come up with some recommendations for how market players need to identify securities and counterparties under the European Commission's pending Markets in...

Defending Deliberation on Basel II.
October 10, 2005... The painstaking process of revising international bank capital requirements under the regime known as Basel II has been extended yet again. The long-awaited U.S. proposal will be available in the first quarter next year for implementation in...

Financial Tech Vendors Jump on Solaris Bandwagon.
October 10, 2005... It took a partnership announcement with hot Internet property Google for Sun Microsystems to get a stock-price boost of 7 percent last Monday. But away from that limelight, Sun was racking up more support for a financial services industry...

PHLX Launches Cash-Settled Treasury Derivatives.(Philadelphia Stock Exchange)
October 10, 2005... The Philadelphia Stock Exchange (PHLX) and its Philadelphia Board of Trade (PBOT) subsidiary are planning to list for trading an extensive array of cash-settled interest rate derivatives based on U.S. Treasury securities. The introductions are...

Nasdaq Product Caters to Automated Traders.
October 10, 2005... The Nasdaq Stock Market has launched OrderView, a new data feed geared for program and algorithmic trading and designed to complement the electronic market's flagship TotalView data product. Delivered in the OrderView format, TotalView data...

EdgeTrade Offers Support With Its Algorithms.
October 10, 2005... EdgeTrade, an agency broker and developer of trading and direct market access software, has launched Algos Plus, an outsourcing service that enables broker-dealers to offer algorithmic strategies on a private-label basis. Algos Plus is...

Nymex Moves Contracts Out of Globex.
October 10, 2005... The New York Mercantile Exchange is converting its miNY crude oil and natural gas futures contracts from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange's Globex trading system to its own Nymex ClearPort platform. After the migration this quarter, the...

Vhayu Upgrades VWAP Engine.(volume-weighted average price)
October 10, 2005... High-speed data software specialist Vhayu Technologies announced the release Oct. 3 of VWAP (volume-weighted average price) Engine version 2.0 to improve trading execution performance. Already deployed by 12 broker-dealers in the U.S., the U.K....

Linking Hedge Funds to SwiftNet.
October 10, 2005... Software vendor Financial Tradeware in London has laid claim to being the first to offer unregulated hedge funds connectivity to the Swift messaging network, albeit indirectly through a member-administered closed user group (Macug). The...

Bank Call Report Migration On Track.(Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.)
October 10, 2005... Bank call report filings to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC) in the extensible business reporting language (XBRL) began on Oct. 1. Although only a handful of regulated institutions had filed using the standard electronic tagging...

Web Site Prices Equity Options; Commodities Next.
October 10, 2005... SuperDerivatives, a London start-up that in four years established itself as a benchmark pricing mechanism for foreign currency options, needed only the second half of September to officially announce its expansion into two new product classes:...

Townsend Analytics Nabs Two International Accounts.
October 10, 2005... Townsend Analytics (TAL) this week is announcing expanded relationships with two financial institutions whose application of the Chicago-based technology innovator's RealTick systems underscores how the algorithmic trading and direct market...

Cantor Makes a Text-Messaging Deal.
October 10, 2005... Four months after introducing institutional U.S. Treasury bond trading on wireless devices, New York-based Cantor Fitzgerald and its eSpeed technology affiliate have announced plans to add text messaging and financial information alerts. ...

Archipelago Picks IMlogic, EMC for E-Recordkeeping.(Archipelago Holdings Inc., IM Manager, EmailXtender)
October 10, 2005... Archipelago Holdings, owner of the largest fully electronic stock exchange, has selected a system from IMlogic and EMC Corp. to achieve compliance with federal regulations that mandate archiving of communications records. The system consists of...

Nasdaq to Launch Intraday Cross.
October 10, 2005... The Nasdaq Stock Market said it will introduce an intraday crossing facility, designed for fully anonymous execution of block trades, early next year, pending approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission. Nasdaq, which announced its...

Come On Up, Says TSX Chief: Invites closer integration of U.S. and Canadian markets.(Richard Nesbitt of Toronto Stock Exchange)(Interview)
October 17, 2005... The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) is Canada's senior equities market; it's what the New York Stock Exchange is to the U.S. But it's rather smaller: 16 billion shares turned over on TSX during the third quarter--the NYSE matches that in six or...

Russia Asks Euroclear for Settlement Infrastructure Advice.(Federal Service of Financial Markets)
October 17, 2005... Russia's securities watchdog, the Federal Service of Financial Markets (FSFM), has tapped Euroclear as "official adviser" on a proposal to create a central securities depository (CSD) for the country, according to sources in Moscow. ...

Concerns on Basel II Delay.
October 17, 2005... Banking and securities industry executives have long been resigned to the reality that the comprehensive changes to capital-adequacy rules known as Basel II would take a long time to prepare and implement. But even those expectations were...

The Clock's Still Ticking.(late trading and market timing)
October 17, 2005... It's 25 months and counting since the investigatory zeal of New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer brought the mutual fund trading scandals to light. One of Spitzer's early targets, Theodore C. Sihpol III, was back in the news last week....

Twist Turns to Identrus, Bank Billing Messages.(treasury workstation integration team)
October 17, 2005... Twist, which began as a standard for corporate treasury payments, is extending its franchise with the development of the global bank billing standard (BBS) for reporting of bank fees and payment-related services. Twist, to some observers, is...

Geithner: Risks Are Under Control.(Timothy Geithner)
October 17, 2005... The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York is slightly exalted over the other 11 Fed bank presidents: He occupies a permanent seat on the Federal Open Market Committee, and the bank plays a central role in the nation's debt issuance...

Competitors Face Off at STA Gathering.
October 17, 2005... Executives from the Nasdaq Stock Market and the New York Stock Exchange--not to mention other venues that covet or contribute to those giants' market shares--turned the Security Traders Association conference into something of a competitive...

-ST_BY-.(American Stock Exchange files rules for market structure)
October 17, 2005... Amex Files Rules for Hybrid Market, Readies Platform The American Stock Exchange has filed the rules for its new hybrid market structure with the Securities and Exchange Commission, moving forward with plans for a redesigned trading platform...

Middle East's First International Exchange Opens.
October 17, 2005... The Dubai International Financial Exchange (DIFX) opened late last month, and now comes the test of fulfilling its hopes of attracting investor interest in the region, which could eventually encompass much of Africa, Turkey, Central Asia and...

Reuters Buying Data Provider.(EcoWin )
October 17, 2005... Reuters Group has announced an agreement to acquire EcoWin, a Swedish company specializing in macroeconomic and financial market data and related analytics. The London-based media and data giant said it would pay $40 million in cash for...

BT Radianz Boosts Asia-Pacific Presence.
October 17, 2005... BT Radianz, a provider of telecommunications connectivity to the financial sector, has established network points of presence (POPs) and enhanced its sales and customer services in Taiwan. "We're really expanding the footprint we've got and...

Nordic Region Fertile Ground for Custodians.
October 17, 2005... A global custody alliance between Bank of New York and Scandinavia's largest regional bank, Nordea, underscores how the securities processing landscape is changing in the Nordic region. Local banks are realizing they can't go it alone for...

Hedge Funds Place New Demands on Data Services.(Securities and Exchange Commission)
October 17, 2005... Data has always been a critical part of any trading operation. But hedge funds aren't run-of-the-mill trading operations, and their voracious appetite for information to develop and test their trading strategies and mark their positions to...

Tullett's Information Gambit.(Collins Stewart Tullett)
October 17, 2005... Until recently, says G. Andrea Danese, information services was a sidelight for London-based Collins Stewart Tullett. The firm's interdealer brokerage activities generated plenty of market data for the benefit of its international clientele,...

Names in the News.(Andrew Greta joins Chicago Mercantile Exchange )(Scott Ebner is promoted at American Stock Exchange )(Lenore Kantor-Hendricks joins International Securities Exchange )
October 17, 2005... Exchanges Deutsche Brse last week elected Reto Francioni as CEO and member of the executive board. Francioni, most recently chairman of SWX Swiss Exchange--co-owner with Deutsche Brse of the Eurex derivatives exchange--previously served on...

SIA, BMA Assail Accounting Group as "Anti-Investor".(Securities Industry Association, Bond Market Association)
October 17, 2005... The Securities Industry Association and the Bond Market Association sent a strongly worded letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission calling on the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) to withdraw proposals it made...

Ops Risk: Planning For the Unplanned.
October 24, 2005... Managing financial and market risks is what Wall Street is all about. The risks associated with disaster or catastrophe weren't so top of mind--until the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Those and subsequent strategic and regulatory...

Refco: Weak Regulatory, Technology Links Exposed.
October 24, 2005... The demise of New York-based derivatives brokerage Refco, a rapid-fire chain reaction that began with the revelation this month of an improper company loan to its CEO and culminated in a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing last week, is shedding light...

Gaming the System.(Advanced Financial Networks)
October 24, 2005... During the dot-com heyday of the 1990s, while working at America Online, Clement Chambers helped pioneer the concept of massive-multiplayer computer games. Seeing many commonalities between that kind of gaming and what takes place every day in...

Until recently, it was widely believed that U.S. hedge funds and their managers "flew under the radar" because they were not required to register with the Registration Pro and Con.
October 24, 2005... Securities and Exchange Commission. This was always something of a fallacy, as even unregistered managers had been subject to the antifraud provisions of the federal securities regulations and therefore faced regulatory oversight. In the past,...

Donohue (and Cox) in China.(Craig Donohue and Christopher Cox)
October 24, 2005... Last week, the Nasdaq Stock Market put out a travel itinerary for its CEO, Robert Greifeld: He'll be in China the week of Nov. 28 to, among other things, address Tsinghua University in Beijing and tour its Science Park. Greifeld will be only...

Supervision, Stringency Will Build Confidence.
October 24, 2005... Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Christopher Cox delivered these remarks to the U.S.-China Joint Economic Committee in Hebei, China on Oct. 16. It's fitting that I've traveled halfway across the globe to come here to talk about...

Industry Passes Resiliency Test.(Securities Industry Association)
October 24, 2005... The Securities Industry Association (SIA) has pronounced the latest phase of its business continuity testing a success, and it will beget more testing: This year's model--Phase II--will have a new iteration next year. Howard Sprow of SIA...

FpML Draft Focuses on Business Processing.(financial products markup language)
October 24, 2005... ISDA-FpML.org, the International Swaps & Derivatives Association affiliate that manages the financial products markup language, has published a second working draft for FpML 4.2, the version released in July. Changes to the first working draft...

Dealing With MiFID's Data Quagmire.(Markets in Financial Instruments Directive)
October 24, 2005... While the European Commission is still drafting the final version of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID), securities industry players and their service providers are trying to get their last words in while looking ahead to...

Brokerage Beats Banks in Chinese Securitization Race.(China International Capital Corp.)
October 24, 2005... The securitization industry is in its infancy in China. There are plans afoot to securitize assets that would then be traded in an interbank exchange. But a brokerage has beaten bank-based securitization plans to the punch; the first...

ArcaEx Maps Corporate Bond Trading.(Archipelago Exchange )
October 24, 2005... The Archipelago Exchange is planning to launch corporate bond trading in December as part of a push to create a "multiproduct single platform offering" for its clients. It's an effort to take fuller advantage of the electronic exchange's...

Hail to the Chief Risk Managers.
October 24, 2005... Risk doesn't just fall into the categories of market and credit any more. Firms on the buy and sell sides today also worry about operational, political, security and reputational risks. No one wants to make front-page news for not supervising a...

Thinking Globally About Market and Credit Risk.(Interview)
October 24, 2005... Risk management, as an internal corporate discipline, is complicated enough. Layered on top of that is the expanding and increasingly complex "portfolio" of risks to be managed--from credit to reputational to operational--and far-reaching...

Inet, PHLX Offer Connectivity Through SFTI.(Philadelphia Stock Exchange)(Secure Financial Transaction Infrastructure)
October 24, 2005... Sector, the managed services subsidiary of the Securities Industry Automation Corp. (Siac), said last week that the Philadelphia Stock Exchange (PHLX) and the Inet alternative trading system have connected to the Secure Financial Transaction...

Kamakura Enters Risk Alliance With China's Xinhua.
October 24, 2005... Seeking to fill a big regional void in market data, Honolulu-based risk systems specialist Kamakura Corp. has joined forces with China's Xinhua Finance data company to provide market and credit risk information to emerging markets in China and...

Orc Connects to Amex and PHLX.(Orc Software for American Stock Exchange and Philadelphia Stock Exchange )
October 24, 2005... Orc Software, a Stockholm-based supplier of technology for advanced market making, professional trading and brokerage, is making direct connections available to the American Stock Exchange and Philadelphia Stock Exchange (PHLX). The...

NeoNet Offers Access to Irish Exchange.
October 24, 2005... NeoNet, an international agency brokerage specializing in high-speed direct market access to major stock-trading venues, is making available access to the Irish Stock Exchange (ISE). With this addition, NeoNet now has 18 European and North...

JP Morgan Joins T-Zero Bandwagon.
October 24, 2005... JP Morgan Chase & Co. has become the second major Wall Street bank to go public with its adoption of the T-Zero post-trade processing platform for credit derivatives. The announcement by the New York-based banking company last Thursday...

Fixed-Income Group Opens Membership to Buy Side.
October 24, 2005... The Bond Market Association (BMA) is expanding its membership ranks to include registered investment advisers. With the formation of a new asset managers division, being announced today, the BMA aims to give fund management shops full...

Savvis' COO Takes Charge: Finlayson at the helm as board investigates CEO.(Savvis Communications Corp., John M. Finlayson )
October 31, 2005... Savvis Communications, a provider of data-center hosting and networking services to the financial industry and other corporate users, tried to project business-as-usual last week after putting its chairman and CEO, Robert A. McCormick, on an...

SEC Soft-Dollar Draft Hits OMS Vendors Hard.
October 31, 2005... The Securities and Exchange Commission's lengthy and long-awaited guidelines on soft-dollar commissions held few surprises but left at least one technology constituency--order management system (OMS) vendors--out in the cold. The proposed...

The Matrix, NYSE-Style.(New York Stock Exchange)
October 31, 2005... In April, after the Securities and Exchange Commission came down on the New York Stock Exchange for a series of regulatory failures, the exchange agreed to remedial actions that included spending $20 million on regulatory audits and...

Pre-hedge Forewarning.
October 31, 2005... It's been a tough couple of years for the financial services industry. While it has been besieged on all sides--whether from the Securities and Exchange Commission or Congress or the New York attorney general--for what some commentators have...

Getting Ready for MiFID.(Markets in Financial Instruments Directive)
October 31, 2005... For the financial services community in the European Union--and by extension any global firm with a presence there--the clock is ticking on the biggest and most far-reaching set of operational changes since the introduction of the euro: the...

CME Launching Pan-Asian Index Contract.
October 31, 2005... The Chicago Mercantile Exchange is developing a new futures contract based on the S&P Asia 50 Index, an equity index that tracks the 50 largest stocks traded in Hong Kong, Korea, Singapore and Taiwan. The new CME S&P Asia 50 product, part...

Canadians Talk Algorithms, Too.
October 31, 2005... Algorithmic trading is not yet the irresistible force in Canadian securities trading that it seems to be in U.S. markets, but it is catching on and steadily gathering speed, according to market officials and technology executives speaking at a...

BNY Brokerage Offers FlexTrade Access.
October 31, 2005... Bank of New York Co.'s BNY Brokerage said it is linking Flex-Trader, FlexTrade System's algorithmic trading platform, to the BNY DEx direct execution platform. The offering makes a full array of algorithmic trading capabilities available...

CBOT Finishes Shift of Tech Platform.(Chicago Board of Trade)
October 31, 2005... The Chicago Board of Trade completed on Oct. 9 the upgrade of its electronic trading platform, using LiffeConnect technology from Euronext.liffe, along with what CBOT chief operating officer Bryan Durkin described as a major applications...

Swift Endorses ISO Formats for EU Communications Standard.(Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication)
October 31, 2005... The Swift messaging consortium has published a draft protocol that would establish International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards 15022 and 20022--which Swift has adopted in its own message types--as a means of harmonizing...

Hedge Fund Vendor Partners With Compliance Consultant.(Eze Castle Integration and Adviser Compliance Associates)
October 31, 2005... Hedge fund managers may not be able to farm out the requirement that they designate a chief compliance officer (CCO), but an initiative by Boston-based technology vendor Eze Castle Integration takes care of a lot of related matters. Eze ...

China Market Reforms Advance, More Privatizations in Pipeline.
October 31, 2005... The biggest problem facing China's stock market today is the fact that two-thirds of all shares are locked up in government hands. "If two-thirds of the shares cannot be circulated, then there is no pressure on the management," said Thomas Liu,...