Browsing: Forex

A recent publication by two executives of State Street Associates identifies a new factor in currency turns, which it calls the “equity differential.” In effect, it argues for the viability of a trading strategy based on this factor. The paper argues that the differential in trailing equity market performance stronglyRead More

Three scholars affiliated with JP Morgan Chase have written a paper on hedge fund behavior ahead of meetings of the Swiss National Bank, with the idea of shedding light on the consequences of the timing of central bank announcements more generally. They conclude that the SNB contributed to the volatilityRead More

One startling fact about the new book, How Global Currencies Work: Past Present and Future, is to be found in the index. One would normally expect, from a title and subtitle like that, that there would be a lot of pages enumerated at the index heading “Bretton Woods.” After all,Read More

A little over a year ago, the Bank for International Settlements announced its 11th Triennial Central Bank Survey of Foreign Exchange and Over the Counter Derivatives Market Activity. In recent days, Pragma Securities has referenced those BIS numbers in explaining the market for its latest service, an expansion of PragmaRead More

Deloitte proposes that the Swiss Confederation has a key role to play in the continued development of blockchain. In a new whitepaper, Deloitte makes this case based on Switzerland’s “special position as a global innovation centre.” There are six sides to Switzerland’s position: its FinTech infrastructure; its start-up attractiveness; itsRead More

The chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Timothy Massad, addressed the Outlook Conference of the Managed Funds Association on October 21, and spoke about the global implementation of uncleared margin rules, which he called a critical component of “the new regulatory framework for swaps trading that the leaders ofRead More

Neuberger Berman, the asset management business spun off from Lehman in late 2008, has produced a new report on foreign access to China’s bond market. China has until now kept its bond market tightly fenced off from the rest of the world, which offers a marked contrast with the behaviorRead More

A new white paper written by Arlan Suderman, chief commodities economist for INTL FCStone Financial, discusses the consequence of the strong dollar of the last two years on the volatility of grain prices, focusing especially on corn. Before this period, there was the global financial crisis, and the “quantitative easing”Read More

International investors borrow money in countries where interest rates are relatively low, and then lend it out in countries where the rates are higher. All they do is “carry” the money, so to speak, from one country to the other.Read More

FXCM, an online provider of foreign exchange trading related services, announced January 6 that it has entered into a partnership with a German broker, FXFlat, as part of its strategic expansion into the German market. The immediate consequence of the partnership is that FXFlat’s customers can access the FXCM TradingRead More

There is an ancient principle of prudence, “don’t fix what isn’t broken.” Thomas Jefferson alludes to it in the Declaration of Independence. Prudence dictates that institutions “long established” are not abandoned for “light and transient causes.” It is possible that many of those who trade currencies today believe that theRead More

The Japanese economy deserves some credit for having pulled itself out of a recent recession, and it is "beginning to show signs of benefiting from a weaker yen" as a BlackRock strategist tells us. But (there is always a "but"). Read More

Gold seems, to a larger extent than silver, and even more so to an extent larger than is true for palladium or platinum, to work as a true financial asset: decoupled from price developments in the commodity markets. It succeeds as a hedge against currency and stock-market trouble.Read More

China's moves in recent days seem likely to set off a new Southeast Asia currency crisis, which will look a lot like the old Southeast Asia currency crisis. This was clear even on August 11th, when traders in the rest of the world were apparently working on the premise that China's move that day was a one-off. Read More

When it all hit the fan, U.S. investigators in particular (the Brits somewhat less so) came to see Hayes as a mastermind behind its digestive generation. But Arvedlund seeks in her new book on the Libor Rigging scandal to place the role Hayes played in context. Read More

Guest columnist Ginger Szala looks at pro rata and what happens if...Read More

At this moment, when news from China has turned sober and the monetary/fiscal authorities there seem torn by inconsistent goals, a tweet flutter has reminded us of a boring data-analysis text that was nixed by a publishing house in China for reasons of political sensitivity. Read More

The impression one gets from some of the recent work of Dr. Makin is of a man who decided, late in life, that currency is a state invention, and that the states deputize their central banks to make sure the rest of us use it properly. Read More

The price of gold took a swan dive as November ended, just as Swiss voters formally nixed an initiative that would have required the central bank to buy a lot of the stuff. Faille argues that this is not a matter of cause and effect. It is, on the other hand, a fascinating case study in the discounting machinery that is a market. Read More

The release of Lord Grabiner's report provides evidence going well beyond the conclusions that Grabiner himself is willing to draw, and shows a central bank acting as a wink-and-nod clearing house. Read More

In the matter of a merchant selling computers that are supposed to mine bitcoin, the FTC alleges that the merchant is a sham, simply using the language of the bitcoin world to find suckers. But the agency might have gotten a bit ahead of itself here. Read More

There are several channels for spill-over effects, whereby the actions of the Federal Reserve and the ECB can have grave consequences around the world. Psychological consequence, in particular herding, is among them. Read More

A new report by PrevInvest, the "Investment Outlook & Hedge Fund Strategies Insight Report," focuses on the consequences of the race to the bottom among the world's industrialized nations and their central banks, and the way this has created a lot of sloshing-around of liquidity looking for profitable channels. Read More

Facile parallels notwithstanding, neither the argument Druckenmiller made at Sohn nor any other good reasons that may now exist for shorting the Aussie have a lot to do with the case against the pound in 1992. That tug-of-war occurred in a unique context, not here replicated. Read More

This is the second of a two-part discussion of a paper jointly issued by Basel and IOSCO on margin requirements for non-centrally cleared derivatives. The new paper solicits feedback on the phase-in timeline it proposes, a phase-in designed to provide flexibility so the affected markets can meet "operational and logistical challenges" by which they might otherwise be stymied. Read More

A deeper look at alternatives with Dr. Bob Swarup, a world-renowned expert and commentator on alternatives and financial markets as well as being a visiting fellow at London School of Economics.Read More

SWFs are distinct from pension funds at least in this sense, there are broadly speaking no explicit liabilities. There is no ongoing schedule of payments an SWF is responsible for making, for example. Nonetheless, there are clearly implicit liabilities. On this the point nearly all (92 percent) of survey respondents concurred, saying that implicit liabilities, arising from the objectives of the fund, must be taken into account in managers’ plans.Read More