Top Headlines

Currency Funds See Worst Year Since 2011 as Divergence Flounders – Bloomberg Currency managers won’t be leading late-night celebrations after foreign-exchange funds suffered their worst year since 2011 as bets on monetary-policy divergence disappointed.

China Cracks Whip on Foreign Banks with Forex Shut Out – Reuters Chinese authorities are starting to police the nation’s foreign exchange market in a way currency traders have rarely seen before.

Merry Rising Interest Rates and a Happy SEF Year: 4 Reasons Why 2016 Will Be the ‘Year of the SEF’ – TabbForum There have been successes, setbacks, and surprises in the swaps trading landscape over the past 12 months. But 2015 was relatively quiet in the life of SEF implementation. As we look forward to the next year, however, there are four reasons that 2016 will be the ‘Year of the SEF.’

China to Double Onshore Trading Hours – Profit & Loss China has extended the trading hours for the onshore yuan to enable the local market to overlap with European and US markets.

What Banks Should Be Doing With Blockchain in 2016 – CoinDesk Banks didn’t plan for the blockchain. It just happened in front of them in 2015. But, they have been thinking a lot about its implications.

 

 

Regulatory News

EU Calls Time on ‘Too Big to Fail’ With Bank Bail-in Laws – Telegraph Taxpayers will no longer have to foot the bill for collapsing banks as part of Brussels plans to create a banking union.

 

 

Company News

BAML to Join Moex – Profit & Loss Bank of America Merrill Lynch is set to join Moscow Exchange’s FX market as a clearing firm.

 

 

Market Savvy  

Stocks Fall Sharply on China Slowdown Worries – Wall Street Journal (subscription) Global stocks sold off sharply on the first trading day of 2016 following fresh signs of an economic slowdown in China.

Euro May Rise, If Only So Briefly, in 2016 As Investors Get Out of Other Asset Classes – South China Morning Post As the euro is at root a political project driven by decades of support from centrist European governments, a logical assumption might be for the euro to weaken given that recent national elections across the euro zone have shown an erosion of popular support for established parties.

Offshore Yuan Falls Most Since August as PBOC Seen Allowing Drop – Bloomberg The offshore yuan declined the most since August after data showed manufacturing contracted for a fifth straight month.

Yen Advances to Two-Month High as Saudi Tensions Fuel Haven Bid – Bloomberg The yen climbed to the strongest level since October as investors sought the currency as a haven amid an escalation in tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran and after data underscored weakness in China.

The Fed’s Interest-Rate Path: Who Has the Map? – Wall Street Journal (subscription) Federal Reserve policy makers and credit-market participants have a fundamental disagreement about what will happen to interest rates this year.

 

 

Press Releases

SEC Releases Report on Aug. 24 Stock Market Volatility – Reuters US regulators release a research report on the extreme volatility that roiled the stock market on Aug. 24 when panic over the health of the Chinese economy spurred a record intraday drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

 

 

Industry Events