Barclays Bank (Barclays) has signed an agreement with JPMorgan to divest its legacy derivatives portfolio as part of its non-core rundown strategy — a possible sign that other banks may start to move assets around in order to adjust to the increasingly burdensome regulatory demands for capital requirements. Barclays officials say that “acting through Barclays… Read More >>
Asset Managers Should Quantify Their Dealer Relationships: Analyst
(Editor’s note: Asset managers should start to think about some form of quantitative benchmarking for their relationships to dealers in the credit markets, according to Sean Owens, director, fixed income research and consulting, at market research firm Woodbine Associates. Owens is also the author of a new report, “Credit Trading Dealer Liquidity: Asset Manager Views… Read More >>
Greek Default Could Cause Back-Office Nightmares
The specter of an impending Greek default and subsequent exit from the Eurozone that was raised over the weekend unsurprisingly has traders and politicians on the edge of their seats, but a default could mean plenty of pain for the back-office too, industry observers say. “I think it will rank somewhere between a bad dream… Read More >>
Liquidity Squeeze in Corporate Bond Markets to Strain IT Teams
The world of corporate bond trading is in a transition, according to a new report by market research firm Woodbine Associates, and that could mean even more pressure on buy-side IT departments already slammed with demands from post-crisis regulations. In a nutshell, the report, “Changing Approaches to Credit Trading,” says buyers, sellers and trading venues… Read More >>
Report: Sell Side Needs to Refocus on Buy Side’s Needs
Brokers in the business of routing equity orders have been squeezed since the financial crisis, but a new report says there may be room to grow – if they’re willing to challenge conventional wisdom and buckle down on customer service and operational excellence. That, in a nutshell, is the conclusion of a new report out… Read More >>
SEC to Probe 44 Firms for Insider Trading
The number of hedge funds, asset management and other investment firms under suspicion in a SEC insider-trading probe involving an alleged Congressional tip-off recently expanded to 44, giving it the potential to become the largest insider-trading case of all time. The probe, which involves “some of the largest hedge funds and asset management advisers in… Read More >>
New Derivatives Rules to Burden Ops
Josh Brodman must be a little nostalgic for the time—only about a year ago—when the fine print of the clearing and execution reforms for derivatives trading was still being finalized. At the time, he was an operations manager for a multi-strategy, event-driven fund with several billion under management. Life is much different now for Brodman,… Read More >>
An Infosys Exec Moves to iGATE as DST Hires from Eagle
iGATE Taps Infosys Exec for President and CEO Consulting, technology and business process outsourcing vendor iGATE has appointed Ashok Vemuri to be its next president and CEO, replacing Gerhard Watzinger, who has been the interim president and CEO since May 2013. Watzinger will remain with iGATE in an advisory role temporarily to assist with Vemuri’s… Read More >>
Getting Ready for Newly Minted SEFs
The CFTC has today published the final rules for swap execution facilities (SEFs) with the Federal Register, giving swaps dealers and other firms two months to register with the CFTC for approval of their venues for cleared and executed over-the-counter transactions.Most of the new rules will become effective August 5, 2013 and the official compliance… Read More >>
Bloomberg Takes CFTC to Court
Bloomberg is challenging the CFTC in court over a new rule for margining that the media giant says favors futures over swaps. The legal move is seen as an effort to thwart a potential market shift away from swaps transacted via forthcoming swap execution facilities (SEFs) and toward established futures exchanges.Bloomberg, which is laying the… Read More >>
