Top Headlines

China Third-Quarter Growth Seen Dipping to 6.8 Percent, Weakest Since 2009 – Reuters China’s economic growth is expected to fall below 7 percent for the first time since the global financial crisis in the third quarter, putting pressure on policymakers to roll out more support measures.

Traders Brace for Worst as U.S. Banks Kick Off Earnings Season – Bloomberg Options traders are showing caution ahead of earnings for the nation’s biggest banks — trepidation that holds ominous signs for the broader market.

Excitement over Hong Kong Exchange Tempered by Weaker Outlook – Financial Times (subscription) If any exchange is treated almost exclusively as a levered bet on the market it is named for, in spite of efforts to diversify, then it is Hong Kong.

It’s Quantitative Easing, Europe, But Not as We’ve Known It – Bloomberg The European Central Bank this week started a limited pilot program to test out buying bonds through auctions rather than approaching dealers one to one.

Yuan-Denominated Sovereign Bonds Reportedly to be Sold in London – Bloomberg The People’s Bank of China, with the help of Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and HSBC Holdings, plans to offer yuan-denominated sovereign bonds in London for the first time in early November, sources say.

 

 

Regulatory News

Solution Without a Problem? A Tax on High-Frequency Trading – New York Times If there’s one thing that the Democratic presidential candidates can agree on, it’s that high-frequency traders are a problem. Hillary Rodham Clinton has now followed Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley in calling for a tax on the traders who, they complain, use their high-speed computers and expensive data lines to pick the pockets of ordinary investors.

Infrastructure Firms Say They’re Constantly Innovating – Trade News Market-infrastructure firms say they are innovating quickly without causing disruption, despite a heavy regulatory burden.

EU-US Regulatory Disharmony Persists post-“London Whale” – Financial Times (subscription) A lack of regulatory harmonisation between Europe and the US remains, despite lessons learned from the “London whale” credit default swaps incident in 2012.   Consolidated Audit Trail Struggles to Move Beyond Proposal – Financial Times (subscription) The idea of developing a consolidated audit trail that would let regulators monitor trades is not controversial, but it is complicated and costly and thus remains a proposal, experts say.

MiFID II and Swaps Transparency: What You Need to Know – TABBForum The swaps transparency changes driven by MiFID II are meant to establish a level playing field between trading venues so that price discovery of a particular financial instrument is not impaired by fragmentation on liquidity.

 

 

Company News

UBS Fined $19.5m for Currency Index Practices – Profit & Loss UBS has agreed a $19.5 million settlement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) relating to charges that it misled US investors regarding structured notes linked to a proprietary FX trading strategy.

AIMA and MFA Form Steering Group – Profit & Loss Two associations representing the alternative investment industry have formed a steering group to help the two bodies work closer together.

FastMatch Executes First Disclosed Trade – Profit & Loss FastMatch has executed the first fully disclosed trade between counterparties over its platform. The trade was executed between Citadel Securities and a global tier one bank.

Saxo Appoints to UK Board – Profit & Loss Saxo Capital Markets has appointed Anthony Belchambers, Richard Balarkas and David Gelber to its board of directors.

Renaissance Technologies to Shut Small Hedge Fund Portfolio – Reuters Hedge fund Renaissance Technologies LLC, which manages roughly $27 billion in assets, told investors on Tuesday it is shuttering its $1 billion Renaissance Institutional Futures Fund at the end of the month, two sources said.

Investors Urge HSBC to Speed Up Change – Wall Street Journal (subscription) Investors are growing impatient with the bank as its share price continues to slide.

 

 

Market Savvy  

Global Stocks Fall on Growth Concerns – Wall Street Journal (subscription) Investors are looking ahead to the U.S. retail sales report for September and the Fed’s Beige Book.

Debunking the Dollar Safe Haven Myth – Profit & Loss The conventional wisdom that the US dollar is a safe haven currency is wrong, according to research from Alessio de Longis, vice president and portfolio manager at Oppenheimer Funds.

UBS Sees Sovereign Assets Shrinking by $1.2 Trillion – Bloomberg Central bank and sovereign wealth fund assets will shrink by $1.2 trillion, or almost 7 percent, by the end of the year as China and petrostates including Russia and Saudi Arabia dip into their savings.

 

 

Press Releases

SmartStream Helps with Risk Mitigation for Non-Clearing OTC derivatives – SmartStream SmartStream, the financial Transaction Lifecycle Management (TLM) specialist, today announced the launch of TLM Collateral Management.

MaRS and TMX Group Announce FinTech Collaboration – TMX Group MaRS Discovery District (“MaRS”) today announced a new collaborative relationship with TMX Group (“TMX”), an integrated exchange group with key subsidiaries operating cash and derivative markets across multiple asset classes including equities, fixed income and energy.

Orc Group and CameronTec Group Join Forces – Automated Trader Cidron Delfi, the owner of Orc Group, has announced that Orc and CameronTec are to combine under a new entity.

 

 

Industry Events