EXCHANGE NEWSWIRE, 02 September 2010

BM&FBOVESPA reduced spot currency trading fees by -55% to attract OTC business. “We want to increase transparency and liquidity in the spot market, attracting new participants,” said Sergio Goldenstein, Fixed Income and Foreign Exchange Director.

BM&FBOVESPA announced a new fee policy for High-Frequency Traders (HFTs) that will be unveiled in two stages. Starting November HFTs will have a scaled fee structure based on volumes traded and in January 2011 they will be allowed to consolidate volumes traded through multiple brokerage accounts.

SMX launch las August 31st was attended by over 300 industry and government leaders in Singapore. Ong Chong Tee, Deputy MD of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, said “SMX’s launch strengthens Singapore’s lead as the region’s financial hub and brings about a significant milestone in the Singapore commodity derivatives market.”

CME is discussing whether to alter its current CBOT grain futures pricing settlement method, in order to give more influence to electronic trading.

CME appointed Alexander Rozenberg as Managing Director, Over-the-Counter Risk for CME Clearing.  Mr. Rozenberg was previously Product Manager, Credit Derivatives and Acting Head of Quantitative Analytics at SuperDerivatives, a derivatives solution provider.

NYX acquired quarterly magazine Corporate Boardroom Member, a move into publishing aimed at extending the reach of its educational programs.

SGX’s AsiaClear August volume increased +132% Y/Y to 17k cleared contracts.

Hellenic Exchanges's Board of Directors elected Sofia Kounenaki-Efraimoglou as Treasurer of the Board of Directors of the Hellenic Federation of Enterprises and Alexandros Antonopoulos as a new member of the Audit Committee.

Oslo Børs started offering a new registration of debt issuance programs for bonds that allows issuers to bring together all the listings of its separate bond issues and reduce the number of rulebooks with which it must comply.

Boerse Stuttgart's SME segment, Bondm, launched its first retail bond subscription with KTG Agrar bonds.

RTS: FORTS Brent futures surpassed the USD100 mn mark for the first time, trading USD100.4 mn on September 1st.

ROFEX August Financial Derivatives volume increased +106% Y/Y and set a new monthly record of 6.9 mn contracts, +14% up from previous record set on April 2008.

PSE’s new market data and trading system wrongly reported a 15% surge in its PSE main index instead of the actual 0.63% on 1 September 2010, after its back-office servers were relocated. Similar glitches occurred last week.

MGEX ended August 2010 with the third-best volume performance ever at 206,447 contracts, a 75% rise Y/Y, while FY2009-2010 saw a 31% increase Y/Y to 1,543,550 contracts, the fourth-highest volume in its history.

Chi-X Europe appointed Lexicon Partners as an adviser on takeover proposals.

BGC appointed Vanessa Ko as Director, Regional Head of e-Commerce for Asia Pacific and Norliza Kamardin as Associate Director of e-Commerce for Asia. Ko was previously product manager for credit. Kamardin was previously product manager for e-Commerce.

Orc Software was selected by Eik Bank (Copenhagen, Denmark) to support the firm’s execution and proprietary trading.

Och-Ziff AUM increased +0.8% M/M to $26.1 bn at the end of August.

Interactive Brokers: August cleared DARTs declined -4.0% M/M (+2% Y/Y) to 315k, client accounts increased +1.1% M/M (+18.6% Y/Y) to 148.7k and customer equity declined -1.1% M/M to $17.3 bn (+37% Y/Y).

TradeStation August DARTs declined -8.3% M/M (-3.9 Y/Y) to 73.8k. Client assets declined -.02% M/M (+14% Y/Y) to $2.2 bn and margin balances declined -23% M/M (+56% Y/Y).

HKEx was downgraded to "Sell" from "Hold" at Bank of China. Target price was set at HKD107.

Waddell & Reed long-term counterparty credit rating was upgraded to “BBB+” from “BBB” with a stable outlook at Standard & Poor.

Newedge expressed support for the European Commission’s plans to reform the OTC derivatives market, especially regarding promotion of exchange trading and clearing.

The European Union is proposing to set new thresholds for short-selling of shares and traders and investors may have to inform national regulators about significant net short positions on European bonds.

The European Commission might grant European companies regulatory exemptions on the OTC derivative markets and possible thresholds may be set to determine if non-financial OTC derivatives users are required to clear trades.

FIA warned the CFTC that its proposal for more intensive data collection on ownership and control of futures trading accounts would put too much pressure on the industry, and strongly suggested to postpone its implementation.

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