EXCHANGE NEWSWIRE, 22 June 2010

NASDAQ OMX launched last Monday the first clearing house for Swedish IR swaps. SEB and the Swedish National Debt Office are the first members of the clearinghouse. The Group aims to launch its interest rate swap clearing facility offering a full range of Nordic fixed income instruments by mid-2011.

NASDAQ OMX: Xignite will build the NASDAQ Data-On-Demand platform, a cloud-based computing platform for historical tick data distribution. NDAQ plans to launch the platform in 2H10.

Hellenic Exchanges: ATHEX trading fee charged to investors was reduced from 0.15% to 0.125%, and the maximum portfolio value excluded from the fixed “Central Registry Management charge was raised from €3k to €15k. AHTEX issuers fee on rights was reduced from 1% to 0.5%, the maximum listing annual fee for the small and middle capitalization segment was reduced from €8k to €7k, and the alternative market listing fees were reduced for all companies sizes. Trading and clearing fees charged to market makers for non-FTSE/ATEX 20 stocks were reduced by 75%-100%. Derivatives members fees are now subject to discounts of up to 90%, and new services to access foreign markets are now subject to discounts.  

HKEx President Ronald Arculli said the exchange plans to launch a bond market and has no plans to ban short selling. Mr Arculli also plans to travel to Brazil to ink a deal on listing with BVMF3.

GFI acquired Kyte, a privately held provider of clearing, broking, settlement and back-office services to proprietary traders, brokers, market makers and hedge funds. Kyte also provides seed capital to start-up trading groups, small hedge funds, market-makers and individual traders. GFI will pay GBP 38.3 mn in cash and shares for 70% of Kyte and will acquire the residual 30% for a further cash payment calculated based on the next three years’ performance. Kyte's fiscal year ended March 31, 2010, pre-tax profit is expected to be between ₤6 and ₤7 mn.

LCH.Clearnet expects to launch its IR clearing service in the US this year.

BME: MEFF added Citadel Securities Europe as trading member.

SMX: Vitol and Transmarket signed up as trade members.

Fidessa added Taiwan Stock Exchange to its connectivity network. Fidessa’s clients will access Taiwan through local broker Yuanta Securities.

NASDAQ OMX introduced two new Sharia-compliant indexes based on the NASDAQ-100 Index and the OMX Stockholm Benchmark Index.

SGX launched the Nikkei Dividend Point Index Futures contract, Asia’s first dividend future contract.

DB1 launched AlphaFlash Monitor, a web-based macroeconomic data service.

The KCBT and the KCBT Clearing Corporation were granted permission by the CFTC to clear OTC wheat calendar swap transactions

Chi-X Europe appointed Belinda Keheyan as head of marketing. Melinda previously served as head of international marketing at ITG.

TSE plans to provide proximity services for co-location at the Arrownet access point in Ikebukuro.

TSE will increase its indices distribution frequency to 1 second and will launch a new high-speed Index Dissemination Service provided at the millisecond level.

Tokyo Grain Exchange will launch a “Rice Study Group” to reexamine the rice futures market role under the current policy environment.

Ho Chi Minh SE and The Stock Exchange of Thailand signed a MoU to extend their cooperation for another three years. They also plan to promote and facilitate dual listing activities of Thai-Vietnamese JV companies and to cross list ETFs.

SSE will expand the authorization and development of ETFs on the index fund market to launch cross-market and cross-border ETF products, according to its President.

Ágora Corretora, the Brazilian broker, launched a new suite of proprietary algorithms for equities and options powered by the Progress Apama Capital Markets Platform. Algorithms include custom options investment strategies and VWAP execution strategies.

BNY Mellon acquired I(3) Advisors of Toronto, a Canadian independent wealth strategy company with more than $3.4 bn in AUM.

Schroders acquired a 49% stake in RWC Partners, a London based hedge fund. RWC has $2.2 bn in AUM and will remain a “separate legal entity”.

AllianceBernstein launched its Multimanager Retirement Strategies (MRS) target-date offering. MRS is available for DC plans with a $50 mn minimum in target-date assets.

BVMF3 received BBB+ long term rating with a stable outlook from S&P.

TROW was downgraded to “neutral” from “buy” at Ticonderoga. Target price was maintained at $55.

The Chinese National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors and the ICMA signed a MoU to closer cooperate and harmonize market practice for their respective members.

Russell Investments released a report that shows that institutional investors expect to increase their allocation to alternative investments by an average five percentage points to 19% over the next three years.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel sent a joint letter to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper calling to reach an international agreement on stricter regulations for OTC derivatives, a tax on banks and a stamp tax on financial transactions. France and Germany also called for the publishing a list of financial centers that refuse to conform to international rules.

SIFMA sent a letter to SEC on June 11 calling on the regulator to keep the status quo on how proxies are distributed to shareholders and how issuers pay for that distribution.

Correcction: ELX Futures traded more than 400 contracts on Friday, June 18 and not less than 100 as stated yesterday.

Provided By: Equity Research Desk, www.erdesk.com