Infrastructure
Benchmarking for Mifid is unnecessary and will not work, say three top trade associations
The three top trade associations for capital markets have slammed the Financial Services Authority’s (FSA) early support for benchmarking.
Caution, experimentation and disregard is key to dealing with uncertainty, says governor of the Bank of France
Unlike the concept of risk, uncertainty cannot be defined by probability, and therefore must be treated differently by central bankers, according to Christian Noyer, governor of the Bank of France.
Jump in private equity deals puts corporate balance sheets at risk
The UK’s Bank of England has today warned that a sharp jump in borrowing linked to private equity deals has left corporations at increasing risk of defaulting on loan commitments.
Société Générale launches commodity-linked notes in Hong Kong
Société Générale has launched a three-year retail commodity-linked auto-callable note in Hong Kong. The principal-protected note will be linked to the price performance of an equally weighted basket of four commodities: West Texas Intermediate crude oil,…
Abbey launches capital guaranteed bonds
UK bank Abbey has launched four new capital guaranteed structured deposit accounts. The four products offer different rates of return depending on the link to the underlying investment and term of investment.
More trading in bond market transparency is unnecessary, says the FSA
Competition, market-driven transparency, regulation and the interaction between the cash and credit derivatives market is enough for efficient pricing and fair execution, according to a discussion paper on the UK secondary bonds markets released today by…
Abbey to launch FTSE-linked commercial property products
Abbey Financial Markets (AFM), subsidiary of Abbey National, has provided the seed capital for the new FTSEpx fund launched by MSS Capital, an asset manager in the UK. This fund was launched with the FTSE UK Commercial Property Index Series on 26 June…
Markit to supply FSA with CDS pricing
The UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) has picked Markit to supply pricing information on credit derivatives.
Why it pays to split the pot, or how to hedge your pension fund's bets
Equity Insurance Group chose Union Bancaire Privée for hedge funds, and JP Morgan for long-only, for its £500m mandate in May. Solomon Teague investigated how the deal was done
The straight-through challenge
Technology
Market View: Igniting growth in a mature market
Special report: Focus on France
Turning up the heat
Regulation
Commit to emit
Carbon Trading
In search of STP
Trading complexity, compliance issues and increasing competition are all driving companies to improve their electronic STP processes. Eric Fishhaut takes a look at some of the latest developments
Empirical electricity price modelling
Hanjie Chen and John N. Jiang discuss how system-wide load-capacity ratio and system-wide generation forced outages impact day-ahead electricity spot price and show how to incorporate these two key factors in the price modelling
Barcelona summit highlights challenges of ABS growth
Global ABS conference focuses on reporting standards in asset-backed securities market
Credit Spreads: the new horizon
Despite recent volatility in global markets and the prospect of a rising default rate, spreads in corporate debt - particularly high yield - remain tight. Credit talks to four market participants to find out where they see performance for the rest of 2006
Inflation-linked bonds catch on in Europe
Pension funds in the Netherlands are following the lead of their peers in the UK by using more inflation-linked products to achieve liability-driven investment. Alan McNee reports
Anton Simon
The head of European high yield at Putnam Investments in London explains why European high yield is still a good news story