Foreign exchange
ABN Amro adds to European forex team
ABN Amro has hired Eric Murciano to its institutional foreign exchange sales team. He will be responsible for the Dutch bank’s foreign exchange sales - including options - to French financial institutions.
Credit Markets Update: Spreads widen on ABN Amro subordinate debt
The cost of five-year subordinate credit protection on ABN Amro widened several basis points to 38bp-mid as bond-holders bought protection after Moody's placed its Aa subordinate debt rating on negative review on Wednesday.
Credit Lyonnais to trade weather risk
Credit Lyonnais has set up a weather derivatives unit, adding to the recent thrust of new entrants into the embryonic market. Peter Brewer, who joins Credit Lyonnais from US energy firm Aquila, will head the London-based weather desk.
JP Morgan Chase denies speculation on energy trading exit
David Puth, JP Morgan Chase’s global head of forex, whose remit includes managing the firm’s energy business, has denied the bank was planning to exit the energy business in Europe, or elsewhere, despite losing a raft of key energy traders in the past…
Asian investors look to structured credit
Low interest rates and tight credit spreads are fuelling an interest for structured credit products in the Asia-Pacific region, according to bankers. And a variety of structured and hybrid products are now being marketed to Asian investors there.
Credit Markets Update: Telekom bond re-pricing rumours pull in telco spreads
Rumours of heavy over-subscription and a possible re-pricing on Deutsche Telekom’s forthcoming €5 billion bond issue caused five-year credit default swaps on Germany’s main telecommunications company to tighten 10 basis points today to 220bp/230bp. The…
German golf club hedges against rainy days
A German golf club has become the latest European end-user to buy weather risk protection. Spectron Group, the London-based energy broker, arranged the precipitation-linked deal - its first leisure-sector weather derivative - along with French bank…
Basel II won’t affect most US banks, central banker says
The Basel II bank capital Accord will have virtually no effect on most US banks, US Federal Reserve Board vice-chairman Roger Ferguson said today.
Primus lures in Swiss Re’s Schaumann plus other key staff
Hilmar Schaumann, a senior credit derivatives trader for Swiss Re in New York, has quit the firm to join Primus Financial Products, a wholesale provider of credit risk protection.
Currency overlay may see strong growth in US
Currency overlay – the management of currency exposures in an investment portfolio separate from underlying asset exposures – is set to increase in the US at a rapid rate, claimed speakers at a global foreign exchange conference hosted by Deutsche Bank…
SunGard cites slow portal take-up as it closes multi-bank FX
Another chapter charting the rise and fall of multi-bank trading platforms was completed last week, with the closure of technology firm SunGard’s multi-bank foreign exchange portal.
US minimum bank asset ratios suggested for larger banks
European banking supervisors might follow the example of US regulators and develop the concept of well-capitalised banks with higher minimum protective capital than required under the Basel bank capital adequacy Accord, according to some European…
S&P alters its core earning methodology
Standard & Poor’s has reacted to criticism of its corporate rating methodology by changing its system for evaluating corporate earnings in the future. The New York-based rating agency will focus on core earnings – roughly defined as after-tax earnings…
GFI brings in leading academics for Fenics Credit
Broker and derivatives pricing software provider GFI has entered a partnership agreement with professors John Hull and Alan White, two leading derivatives academics, to develop a pricing tool for credit derivatives.
Prosecutions of Enron staff highly unlikely, says ex-employee
A senior ex-Enron employee at the heart of the scandal that led to history's largest corporate bankruptcy told RiskNews' sister publication Energy & Power Risk Management that he expects no prosecution to be brought against Enron staff.
In the line of Duty
Will the UK Government turn to CFDs to build up its tax reserves?
that's The long and short of it
Running a successful hedge fund is a proposition worlds away from mastering long-only portfolios, but managers who have made the transition to a long/short environment are rising to the challenge
OTC derivatives volumes up 11%, says BIS
Outstanding notional volumes for the over-the-counter derivatives market stood at $111 trillion at end-December 2001 – an 11% increase from the end of June 2001, according to the latest statistics released by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).
Risk managers leapfrog lending officers in bank hierarchy, says Greenspan
US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan said risk managers are now overtaking loan officers in the decision-making hierarchy at financial institutions, with new quantitative risk management techniques a key factor behind this transition.
Regulators to review abolition of Basel II op risk floor
Global banking regulators have asked their technical experts to look at the conditions necessary to eliminate the floor limiting gains for banks using advanced approaches to measuring operational risk under Basel II.
The Impact of Basle II on the Dealing Community
Overlook the implications of Basle II at your peril, says Garfield Hayes, head of marketing communications at Wall Street Systems.
Rates Markets Update: Swaps see low flows with trading in narrow range
US dollar swaps continued to trade near record-low levels. Ten-year swaps ended the week at 54.5 basis points, largely unchanged from the previous Friday. Five-year spreads narrowed 8bp to 45bp. This contraction was nearly all caused by the five-year $90…
$7.3 billion in risk transferred in first index-linked synthetic CDO
JP Morgan Chase's groundbreaking index-linked synthetic collateralised debt obligation (CDO) transaction, dubbed Horizon, has transferred $7.3 billion in risk - making it one of the largest-ever synthetic CDOs. The bank had previously refused to disclose…
Park Place poised to launch Italian hedge fund
London-based hedge fund Park Place Capital plans to launch its first hedge fund in Italy. The firm, which is currently awaiting approval from the Italian regulators, hopes to launch sometime later this year, said Philip Hands, a partner at the London…