EXCHANGE NEWSWIRE, 22 April 2010
Senate Agriculture Committee passed Sen. Blanche Lincoln’s derivatives bill calling for mandatory trading and central clearing of swaps, a prohibition for the Fed and FDIC to providing federal funds to assist Wall Street firms that engage in risky derivatives deals, imposing a fiduciary duty on swaps dealers and regulates FX swaps among others.
Nasdaq OMX’s CEO, Bob Greifeld, said "the [SEC] takes a very aggressive or intrusive action with respect to pricing in respect to the markets in equities and options" and that its goal is a "holy grail that cannot ever really be achieved," referring to the cap on options’ exchange fees.
NYX CEO, Duncan Niederauer, said “we’ve got a nice tailwind to get to what looks like a pretty good place on financial regulatory reform.”
SGX announced plans to change its rules to allow the expansion of central clearing of OTC derivatives as it plans to offer IR swaps and USD settled forwards.
HKEx received 67 IPO applications year to date.
DB1: Xetra started trading the Index Plus ETN DAX issued by WestLB.
PSE: the Philippine Association of Securities Brokers and Dealers asked a regional court to stop the exchange from implementing rules that would limit broker-dealers’ voting rights.
Tradegate Exchange added OnVista Bank as a market participant.
BATS Europe surpassed the €100 mn turnover mark in its Dark Pool last Tuesday.
MarketAxess appointed Dr. Sharon Brown-Hruska to the Board of Directors. Dr. Brown-Hruska was previously a CFTC Commissioner.
Janus reported 1Q10 EPS of $0.17 (-15% Q/Q) on revenues of $246.9 mn (-1.5% Q/Q). AUM at the end of March totaled $165.5 bn (+3.6% Q/Q), with $1.9 bn in net outflows and $7.8 bn in market appreciation. INTECH’s outflows totaled $4.3 bn during the quarter in spite of continued improvements in performance (+4.6% return during the quarter).
Cohen & Steers reported 1Q10 EPS of $0.21 up from a $0.34 loss of a year ago. AUM at the end of March totaled $27.2 bn (+9.7% Q/Q; +135% Y/Y), with $1.1 bn in net outflows and $1.3 bn in market appreciation.
State Street was appointed by Marshall Wace to provide investment services for its new MW TOPS Global Alpha ETF.
Schwab: J.P. Morgan will provide access to fixed income securities trading and research for Schwab clients.
E*Trade reported a 1Q10 loss of -$0.02 per share versus a loss of -$0.41 a year ago on net revenues of $537 mn (+8% Y/Y). Provision for loan losses declined -41% Y/Y (-8% Q/Q) to $268 mn, DARTs from U.S. operations declined -11% Y/Y (-2% Q/Q), net new brokerage assets totaled $2.2 bn. Bank Tier 1 capital ratios were 6.8% of total adjusted assets and 13.1% of risk-weighted assets and excess risk-based total capital was $947 mn.
TradeStation reported 1Q10 EPS of $0.07 (-36% Y/Y) on net revenues of $32.1 mn (-11% Y/Y) including a $1.2 mn gain in mark-to-market of its U.S. Treasury portfolio. Brokerage commissions declined -18% Y/Y to $26.9 mn.
TradeStation March DARTs declined -14% M/M (-32% Y/Y). Client assets increased +1.8% M/M (+25.8% Y/Y) to $2.1 bn and margin balances declined -4% M/M (+74%^ Y/Y). Client accounts increased +7% Y/Y to 47k.
BMV was downgraded to “Hold” from “Buy” at Santander. Target price was maintained at $19.
State Street was downgraded to "Outperform" from "Top Pick" at RBC Capital. Target price was cut to $49 from $58.
President Obama will deliver a speech today in New York aimed at putting pressure on Republicans to support the financial regulation reform bill as well as pin the blame on bank’s irresponsible risk practices as the cause of the financial crisis.
The Federal Reserve is telling US’ largest banks that they must end pay practices that encourage risk taking practices. Fed examiners also want banks to run tests on the risks of their pay practices.
Provided By: Equity Research Desk, www.erdesk.com