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The EU has published MiFID II in the Official Journal (OJ) following more than two and a half years of consultation and negotiation.
Publication in the OJ sets the date on which MiFID II enters into force as 2 July 2014.
The rules enter into effect 30 months later, meaning that all EU firms undertaking investment business or providing investment services to clients must be fully compliant with MiFID II by 2 January 2017.
Crispian Lord, financial services risk and regulatory partner at PwC, says: “Although final detailed rules will not be available until the end of 2015,
Liffe reached a daily volume record of 205,570 contracts in MSCI World Net Total Return (NTR) Euro Index futures on 11 June 2014.
The previous record of 197,264 contracts was set on 14 March 2014.
Liffe has the widest derivatives franchise based on MSCI indices with more than 60 futures and options contracts and is further developing products based on MSCI geographic, sector and factor indices across emerging and developed markets.
In addition to the flagship MSCI World, MSCI Emerging Markets and MSCI Europe index futures, ICE and Liffe offer benchmark futures and options based on an extensive
Exhilway has exited “risky" hedge fund business by reassigning the operational rights to a large private investor group in Australia in lieu of market linked variable royalty, payable every year by the investor group.
The deal will not result in any instantaneous cash flows for Exhilway.
Exhilway, which has been a hedge fund player since 1974 with automated trading systems, is now looking to set up new market neutral funds focusing on the emerging markets of Morocco, Hungary, India, Brazil and China along with the developed markets of US and Europe.
Exhilway now plans to focus on investing
The London Metal Exchange (LME) has appointed Walid Al Attar as a member of its Aluminium Committee.
Al Attar, responsible for marketing and sales at Emirates Global Aluminium (EGA), is the first representative from the Middle East to sit on the committee.
“We welcome Mr Al Attar to the committee,” says Garry Jones, LME CEO and vice chairman of the Aluminium Committee. “The Middle East is an increasingly significant region for the global aluminium industry, so it is appropriate that it is represented on the committee, which essentially acts as a sounding board for the LME’s global strategy in
The gross return of the SS&C GlobeOp Hedge Fund Performance Index for May 2014 measured 1.04 per cent.
Hedge fund flows, meanwhile, as measured by the SS&C GlobeOp Capital Movement Index, advanced 1.01 per cent in June.
“Net flows increased slightly for June, reaching their highest levels in four months,” says Bill Stone, chairman and chief executive officer, SS&C Technologies.
The SS&C GlobeOp Hedge Fund Performance Index is an asset-weighted, independent monthly window on hedge fund performance. On the ninth business day of each month it provides a flash estimate of the gross aggregate performance of funds for
Hedge funds ended May in positive territory with the Eurekahedge Hedge Fund Index up 1.15 per cent as global markets showed signs of stabilisation following a choppy start to the year. On a year-to-date basis, hedge funds are up 1.91 per cent while the MSCI World Index has returned 2.63 per cent in the first five months of 2014.
Global hedge funds crossed the USD2.1 trillion mark in May as fund managers delivered performance-based gains of USD9.29 billion during the month. Hedge funds recorded their fourth consecutive month of positive asset flows with net capital allocations of almost USD60 billion year-to-date.
Emerging
Euronext has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) to carry out joint research into the promotion, distribution and trading of commodity products.
The exchanges will also look to develop new strategies for improving the safe operation of orderly futures and options markets and discuss the feasibility of cooperatively developing new products.
The two exchanges have agreed a series of engagements to research the demand for commodity products in new geographic areas and to develop strategies for the distribution and trading of these products in safe and orderly markets. Future work will include consideration
Euronext is to launch Spotlight Options, a segment dedicated to the development of new option classes requested by market participants, on its Amsterdam and Brussels derivatives markets in July.
Through a combination of liquidity provider support and dedicated promotion by sponsoring brokers, underlying assets with notable market events or activity will be put in the spotlight via options.
On the new Spotlight segment Euronext will initially admit for trading options on Euronext-listed underlying values at the request of and supported by market participants. This will create additional investment and trading opportunities in SMEs and newly listed stocks. The added
Customers of Markit’s Portfolio Valuations service can now elect to have their portfolios updated automatically using a realtime trade feed from MarkitSERV.
For permissioned customers, the new connection captures their over-the-counter (OTC) derivative trades processed through MarkitSERV, the electronic trade processing service.
This feature eliminates the need for customers to build a separate trade feed for valuations, thereby significantly reducing costs, onboarding times and discrepancies in trade details.
Padmesh Thuraisingham, managing director of portfolio valuations at Markit, says: “Our customers are very focused on getting value for service and therefore on managing the technology and cost of connectivity
Marshall Bailey, President, ACI – The Financial Markets Association, comments in response to proposals by UK Chancellor George Osborne to reform the foreign exchange market…
George Osbourne’s leadership is very welcome and this is the right direction to restore the reputation of the FX market. This will do much to reassure markets, investors and the public. The FX market must evolve and learn the lessons from recent events.
Foreign exchange is the largest and most liquid market in the world. It is a global market that is integral to the flow of global business and commerce, but its reputation and integrity has been
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