Latest Blogs

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Magnus Almqvist, Sungard
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Regulation And Compliance: Here To Stay

The overarching objective of increasing market resilience and stability during periods of turmoil is shared by most, if not all, market actors. But that is where the agreements seem to end. How to achieve this, and how successful the regulators can hope to be is something that could be debated and discussed endlessly. We certainly had a good go at it during a recent panel discussion at SunGard’s London Industry Seminar, and I made the following observations from the event. Regulation is here to stay, and its reach and coverage will continue to change rapidly.

May 15, 2012 | Comments: 0 | Read more...

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Steve Grob, Fidessa
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Welcome to the world of daytime fragulation!

As some of you have already seen, the clever chaps back at Fidessa Labs have created a live version of our award-winning Fragulator. This enables you to watch the ebb and flow of fragmentation for any European stock or index on a real-time basis (sorry, no other markets just yet). As you can see below, it was especially useful last Tuesday when Deutsche Börse had a hiccup and delayed its opening by 80 mins. The absence of trading during the outage proved, yet again, that the market is still overly dependent upon the primaries for price formation.

May 15, 2012 | Comments: 0 | Read more...

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Chris Skinner
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Drew, Dimon, Volcker and Voldemort

The shock news this week is that JPMorgan, that mighty institution of financial stability that has steered through this crisis with ease and made Jamie Dimon, its CEO, the sage of finance … has been rocked by a trading scandal on the scale of a Nick Leeson, Jerome Kerviel and Kweku Adoboli. This time the culprit is Bruno Michel Iksil. Iksil struck fear into other bankers, for being the biggest better in London.  Known as the London Whale – or within banking circles he was often referred to as Voldemort after the evil wizard who cannot be named in the Harry Potter series – he reportedly was earning around $100 million a year.

May 14, 2012 | Comments: 0 | Read more...

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Simon Jones, IPC
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Feeling at home at TradeTech Europe

Although this was my first attendance at a TradeTech event, TradeTech Europe felt surprisingly familiar. I wasn’t sure whether it was the comfortable, spacious hall layout or perhaps the presence of the usual trading technology providers. In hindsight, it was actually the themes, talking points and underlying concerns of presenters and attendees alike that felt reassuringly familiar. TradeTech regulars will have anticipated the low latency /algorithmic trading focus of the event; yet it was close running between dark pools, HFTs and the regulators as to who is the industry’s number one enemy.

May 10, 2012 | Comments: 0 | Read more...

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David Morgan, SunGard
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Capital Markets Regulation: Time For A Rethink?

The noise created by the flood of new regulations proposed for the global capital markets, plus the resulting storm of debate, continues to grow louder. I’ve been participating as a technology supplier – but also as a bank depositor, retail investor and pension fund holder. I ask myself how the changes are going to help me:  after all, some of the regulatory initiatives – notably MiFID 2 – have the interests of the retail investor as central principles. But as currently framed, I fear that few of the proposals will hit this target, and I wonder whether it’s time for a radical rethink.

May 09, 2012 | Comments: 0 | Read more...

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Nasser Khodri, SunGard
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The Promise Of Malaysia

If any country epitomizes the wilder side of capital markets trading in Asia, it’s Malaysia. But there are signs that Malaysia is ripe for a bit of refinement, which would give this dynamic country the focus it needs to be more competitive in global markets. On the upside, there are many growth opportunities and a lot of energy to be found in Malaysia. The more relaxed regulatory environment is a striking contrast to the more mature markets of Europe and North America. It’s also a market where major brokers are consolidating to get ready for the next stage of Malaysia’s national evolution.

May 09, 2012 | Comments: 0 | Read more...

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Louis Lovas
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OneTick at TradeTech 2012

Trade Tech London 2012 the major technology fair for Capital Markets was a successful event for OneMarketData, as it has been over the past few years. We look forward to our annual booth-duty, catching up with old friends, past colleagues and meeting new acquaintances. This year was particularly eventful since we had big news with the announcement of major client wins. OneTick continues to be the platform of choice for global financial marketplace providers, university researchers and the quantitative trading community.

May 07, 2012 | Comments: 0 | Read more...

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Chris Skinner
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CRD 4, Basel 3 - does that mean CRD wins?

I’ve been getting around a bit this week.  Having had long conversations with cybersecurity experts, I’ve also been having long conversations with treasurers. Many of them, mainly with the world’s largest corporations. And it’s been interesting, as they all share one over-riding common concern. Regulations. Now I thought bankers were the only ones worried about changing regulatory regimes, but corporates are just as concerned as it impacts their working capital, cashflow and liquidity as much as, if not more so, than banks.

May 04, 2012 | Comments: 0 | Read more...