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Listing activity in 2009 experienced a significant slowdown as a result of the situation on the international capital markets since September 2008, according to the Luxembourg Stock Exchange.
The year was marked by a sharp decline in the admission of securities representing securitized assets or structured products. In contrast, bond issues from non-financial enterprises rose sharply.
The amount of capital raised and listed during 2009 increased by about 8.17 per cent compared to 2008 to breach the symbolic barrier of EUR1,000bn, while the number of new quotation lines was lower by almost 35 per cent over the previous year.
During
Asset management group Polar Capital has appointed John Regnier-Wilson, formerly a senior sales manager at Martin Currie and Axa Framlington, to the group’s UK sales team.
The appointment comes as Polar Capital looks to expand its UK business.
Regnier-Wilson joins Polar Capital from Martin Currie on 1 February 2010 and will be responsible for developing the distribution of Polar Capital’s fund range in the UK, focusing primarily on wealth managers and stockbrokers.
Working closely with Iain Evans, head of UK sales, Regnier-Wilson will primarily be supporting Polar Capital’s Ucits fund range, including the UK Absolute Return Fund, and the
Based on the December performance for the Credit Suisse Long/Short Equity Liquid Index, long/short equity funds ended the year on a high note as managers took advantage of increased equity market opportunities.
Jordan Drachman, head of research for alternative beta strategies at Credit Suisse, says: "Long/short equity hedge funds experienced positive December returns in line with many global equity markets. In particular, managers were able to capitalize on increased volatility in Asian markets, including a significant year-end rebound in Japan which contributed to opportunities in the sector.”
The Long/Short Equity Liquid Index was up 1.19 per cent (net) for the
Speed will continue to be the name of the game for US equity brokers, a study published by Tabb Group has found that business demands beyond latency in 2010 may outpace trading technology budgets.
Chief information officers, chief technology officers and heads of technology say that in addition to meeting increased latency reduction requirements, they are being asked to expand network capacity, make more efficient use of data centre space and increase the use of their share of the 93,000 sell-side servers running their US equities businesses.
According to Tabb Group’s Kevin McPartland, senior analyst and the study’s author,
NYSE Technologies, the commercial technology unit of NYSE Euronext, has launched a super-low latency market data platform specifically designed for the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s new Arrowhead trading platform.
As the new equities trading system for the Tokyo market, Arrowhead has been implemented to support increased trading volumes and the performance demands of ultra-fast electronic trading strategies.
"We are very pleased to offer our proven feed handlers for the TSE and its Arrowhead platform. Ten large international clients have successfully deployed and tested the NYSE Technologies market data platform and feed handler suite for their Arrowhead trading environments," says Peter Tierney,
BNP Paribas has joined Icap’s EBS platform as an FX prime bank.
This is the first time BNP Paribas has been active in the FX market as a prime bank.
EBS Prime extends the ability to trade in the core spot FX market to other bank and non-bank professional traders, including hedge funds, through a prime brokerage relationship.
An EBS prime bank offers customers the ability to view and trade on the prices available to the world’s leading FX banks, giving gives access to tighter prices and greater depth of liquidity. This helps customers increase their trading activity and facilitates
Newedge, a provider of multi-asset brokerage and clearing services, has been granted a full futures licence by the Korea Financial Services Commission for its Korea office.
Newedge is the first foreign company out of the 19 foreign companies which applied for the licence to get approval.
With the licence, Newedge Korea is able to offer all products listed on the Korea Exchange including equities and derivatives.
It will add to Newedge Korea’s current offering – cash equity, stock index contracts and stock futures and options – all the Kofex products listed on the KRX. These include interest rate products, currency
The Investment Funds Institute of Canada says based on a sample of preliminary data from some of its members, net assets of the mutual fund industry for the month of December will be between CAD591.9bn and CAD596.9bn.
This represents an increase of approximately 1.30 per cent from November’s total of CAD586.3bn.
IFIC also estimates that net sales of mutual funds for the month of December are estimated to be between -CAD81.1m and CAD418.8m.
“Based on preliminary estimates, December 2009 ended on a positive note. Since the beginning of the year, mutual fund investors have seen their mutual fund account balances
Systematic Alpha Management, a New York-based CTA, is launching a product that aims to take advantage of short‐term directional price changes in a portfolio of over 40 global future markets, including fixed income, equity indices, currencies and commodities.
The Systematic Alpha Diversified Program strategy will attempt to deliver absolute returns in any market environment, whether up or down, with no correlation to any traditional and alternative investments, and low correlation to the Barclay CTA and STTI indices.
Unlike SAM’s flagship Systematic Alpha Futures Fund, the Systematic Alpha Diversified Program will be 100 per cent trend following.
However, in contrast to
RBC Dexia Investor Services has been selected by Advent Capital Management to provide custody, fund administration and shareholder services for a specialised investment fund in Luxembourg.
Advent Capital Management is a US-based investment management company that specialises in convertible, high yield and equity strategies offered through long only, hedge-fund and NYSE closed-end mutual fund products.
"RBC Dexia’s solid reputation and extensive experience in servicing convertible bond funds made the selection for what was best for our company pretty simple," says Bob White, chief financial officer of Advent Capital Management. "Successfully launching a fund is one thing, successfully servicing the fund
