The Americas
Pre-market trades blamed for record Vix surge
Traders rushed to cover short vol positions before the market opened on August 5
Marex plots interest rate clearing push
UK broker is live on LCH and plans to be a “day one” clearing member on FMX
Tired of fat-finger blunders, G-Sibs turn to robots for help
Big banks speed up shift towards control automation and AI adoption to counter costly human errors, Benchmarking survey finds
Bitcoin ETFs drive demand for borrowing in crypto markets
Mismatch between cash and crypto settlement cycles creates pre-funding challenge
CME, FICC in talks to expand cross-margining to client accounts
New rules and account structures will be needed to allow cross-margining by non-members
Treasury futures super-user switches to swaps
Capital Group’s Anbax fund slashes UST futures holdings in move to alternative rates derivatives
IDB to expand contingent swap scheme in Latin America
New mechanism gives regional development banks cheaper FX rates with hedges linked to credit events
Covid halted variance trading. Can Cboe revive the market?
With liquidity in variance swaps drying up, traders may finally be ready to give futures a shot
People: New brooms at NatWest and Tradeweb; MUFG splits rates, and more
Latest job changes across the industry
Franklin Templeton steps back into FX options
Former biggest user of the instrument among US mutual funds returns with $7.6bn of USD/JPY strategies
CME launches term SOFR curve as clearing talks ebb
Give-and-get pricing tool addresses pressing transparency need in $2.5 trillion swaps market
Vanguard stages swaptions comeback
Counterparty Radar: Deutsche grew book to $11 billion in Q1 to become largest non-US swaptions dealer to mutual funds
Data reveals hidden clockwork of FX forwards market
More than 70% of Vanguard’s volumes and nearly half of Pimco’s regularly occur on just four calendar days
Is JSCC-CFTC stalemate about to be broken?
Japan CCP gains allies in battle to clear yen swaps for US clients, but CFTC shakeup could dash hopes
What T+1 risk? Dealers shake off FX concerns
Predictions of increased settlement risk and later-in-the-day trading have yet to materialise
Morgan Stanley shoots into FX options dealer top spot
Counterparty Radar: US mutual funds added $11.1 billion in new positions in Q1
US election a ‘classic inflection point’ – Rory Stewart
Risk Live: Podcaster and former politician talks geopolitical risk and UK politics in keynote speech
Pimco doubles down on FX forwards trades in Q1
Counterparty Radar: Pimco accounted for nearly 60% of all notionals added by mutual funds
Op risk data: Japan’s giant bitcoin break-in makes a monster loss
Also: Citi’s fat-finger fallout; HSBC pays for unfair customer treatment; Visa and Mastercard fined over ATM fee-fixing. Data by ORX News
The coming AI revolution in QIS
The first machine learning-based equity indexes launched in 2019. They are finally gaining traction with investors
How Argentina’s financial tango could become a dance of death
Central bank and government’s unholy alliance is storing up further trouble for economy