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SEC Completes 20th Annual International Institute for Securities Market Development
May 3, 2010--The Securities and Exchange Commission announced today that it recently completed its 20th Annual International Institute for Securities Market Development.
The International Institute is the SEC's flagship international training initiative — a two-week, management-level program covering the development and oversight of securities markets.
This year's session was held from April 19 to April 29 at SEC headquarters in Washington, D.C., with 165 delegates attending from 66 participating countries and territories. Approximately 70 speakers made presentations at the Institute, including SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro, Lorin Reisner (SEC Deputy Director of Enforcement), Ethiopis Tafara (Director of the SEC's Office of International Affairs), and a host of SEC senior staff.
The Institute also featured presentations by the U.S. Department of Justice, Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, representatives from the securities industry, and academics. Presentation topics included the financial crisis, hedge funds, insider trading, pyramid schemes, market manipulation, conducting examinations of broker dealers and investment advisers, oversight of exchanges, optimal remedies for violations, and investigatory techniques.
Ethiopis Tafara, Director of the SEC's Office of International Affairs, said, "The Institutes and the other technical assistance projects by the SEC are helping to build markets around the world, while at the same time ensuring that we have strong regulatory partners that can work with us to protect our markets and our investors. The majority of technical assistance programs include intensive enforcement and investigation training on insider trading, market manipulation, Ponzi schemes, financial accounting fraud, inspections and compliance, and anti-money laundering. The program cultivates invaluable professional and personal contacts with regulatory and law enforcement partners that have served to advance numerous SEC investigations and examinations by receipt of key tips and referrals, production of documents for our investigations, and arrangements for overseas asset restraints in support of SEC cases and to benefit investors."
CME to launch of Cheese Futures and Options
May 5, 2010--CME Group, the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, today announced the launch of Cheese futures and options on futures. The cash-settled contracts will be available on CME Globex®, the exchange’s electronic trading platform, with trading scheduled to begin on June 20, 2010, for trade date June 21. These contracts will be listed by and subject to the rules and regulations of CME
“This contract was requested by our customers such as manufacturers and processors of cheese to better fit the needs of their risk profile,” said Tim Andriesen, CME Group Managing Director of Agricultural Commodities. “Many of these customers already participate in our Class III Milk and Dry Whey futures and options markets. The new Cheese contracts will enable them to directly lock in future prices for cheese.”
Cheese is made from Class III milk. Dry whey is a byproduct of processing the milk into cheese. Manufacturers, processors, food companies and others have used the Class III contract to meet their hedging needs since 1996 and the Dry Whey futures contract launched in 2007. The Cheese futures will complete the “dairy crush” with which the original commodity as well as its product and byproducts can be hedged.
The new contracts will be listed monthly with each contract representing the equivalent of 20,000 pounds of cheese and the tick size of $0.001 per pound. Trading hours are Sunday through Friday, 5:00 p.m. to 4:15 p.m. Chicago time with daily trading halts from 4:15 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Dow Jones Required Business Performance Index Family Expands With Four New Indexes
New Dow Jones RBP Indexes Available as a Basis for Financial Products
May 3, 2010--Dow Jones Indexes, a leading global index provider, today announced the addition of four new indexes to its family of Dow Jones RBP Indexes. The new series of indexes include three directional strategy indexes and one fundamentally weighted U.S. market index. The three strategy indexes are the Dow Jones RBP U.S. Large-Cap Aggressive Index, the Dow Jones RBP U.S. Large-Cap Defensive Index, and the Dow Jones RBP U.S. Large-Cap Market Index. The fundamentally weighted market index, the Dow Jones U.S. Large-Cap Total Stock Market Index (RBP weighted), provides market participants with additional rules-based information to measure the valuation of publicly traded companies included in the index.
The Dow Jones RBP U.S. Large-Cap Aggressive Index, the Dow Jones RBP U.S. Large-Cap Defensive Index, and the Dow Jones RBP U.S. Large-Cap Market Index are licensed to Transparent Value LLC, a Guggenheim Partners Company, to underlie three mutual funds.
"The strategy indexes licensed to Transparent Value represent a brand new approach to indexing that combines the innovative RBP methodology with aggressive, defensive and neutral views of the market," said Michael A. Petronella, president designate, Dow Jones Indexes. "Dow Jones RBP Indexes are quantitative strategy indexes built upon rules-based analytics providing a powerful tool set for measuring and evaluating component company valuation."
iShares files with SEC
May 3, 2010--On April 30, 2010 iShares has filed a post-effective amendment, registration statement for
iShares MSCI USA Index Fund
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The Options Clearing Corporation Announces Total Contract Volume In April Increased 12%
May 3, 2010--The International Securities Exchange (ISE) today reported average
daily volume of 3.3 million contracts in April 2010.
Average daily trading volume for all options contracts decreased 21.2% to 3.3 million contracts in
April as compared to 4.2 million contracts during the same period in 2009. Total options volume
for the month decreased 21.2% to 69.2 million contracts from 87.8 million contracts in the same
year-ago period.
On a year-to-date basis, average daily trading volume of all options decreased 18.7% to 3.3
million contracts traded. Total year-to-date options volume through April 2010 decreased 18.7%
to 268.4 million contracts from 330.3 million contracts in the same period last year.
OCC Announces Total Contract Volume in April Grew 12%
May 3, 2010--The Options Clearing Corporation (OCC) announced today that total OCC volume reached 363,275,500 contracts in April. This represents an 11.79% percent increase over the April 2009 volume of 324,951,307 contracts. OCC year to date total volume is up 9.16% with 1,294,545,141 contracts.
Options: Exchange-listed options trading in the U.S for the month of April was up 11% from the previous year. Index options trading increased 30% higher than the previous April with 25,995,142 contracts. Equity options trading volume rose 9.9% with 334,758,439 contracts.
Futures: Futures cleared by OCC in April rose to 2,521,919 with an average daily contract of 107,206. Equity futures volume reached 555,255 contracts, a 549% percent increase over the same month last year where 85,580 were traded. Index and other futures volume came in at 1,966,290 this month and show a year to date average of 87,642 daily contracts.
Treasury Announces Marketable Borrowing Estimates
May 3, 2010-- The U.S. Department of the Treasury today announced its current estimates of net marketable borrowing for the April – June 2010 and the July – September 2010 quarters:
During the April – June 2010 quarter, Treasury expects to issue $340 billion in net marketable debt, assuming an end-of-June cash balance of $280 billion, which includes $200 billion for the Supplementary Financing Program (SFP). The borrowing estimate is $71 billion higher than announced in February 2010. The increase in borrowing is primarily related to cash balance adjustments associated with the recent restoration of the SFP to $200 billion.
* During the July – September 2010 quarter, Treasury expects to issue $376 billion in net marketable debt, assuming an end-of-September cash balance of $270 billion, which includes $200 billion for the SFP.
During the January - March 2010 quarter, Treasury issued $483 billion in net marketable debt, and finished the quarter with a cash balance of $219 billion, of which $125 billion was attributable to the SFP. In February, Treasury estimated $392 billion in net marketable borrowing and assumed an end-of-March cash balance of $95 billion, which included an SFP balance of $5 billion. The increase in borrowing and the higher cash balance were due to a combination of the increase in the SFP balance, higher receipts, lower outlays, and higher State and Local Government Series net activity.
Additional financing details relating to Treasury's Quarterly Refunding will be released at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, May 5.
NYSE, Nasdaq Ask SEC to Allow Subpenny Quotes on 30 Securities
April 30, 2010-- The three biggest exchange operators in the U.S. asked the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday to allow 30 stock and exchange-traded funds to be quoted in half-penny increments instead of minimum one-cent notches, according to a letter they sent the commission.
NYSE Euronext, Nasdaq OMX Group Inc. and Bats Global Markets Inc. suggested the SEC introduce a pilot program permitting quotes with smaller tick-price sizes for stocks between $1 and $20. Jeromee Johnson, vice president for market development at Bats, confirmed the letter was sent.
Exchanges have argued in recent months that low-priced stocks such as Citigroup Inc. transact a lot of volume away from their venues, preventing traders quoting on their markets from receiving executions. This also makes information about buying and selling interest sent to other venues unavailable to the public.
Fee Rate Advisory #1 for Fiscal Year 2011
April 30, 2010--The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that in fiscal year 2011 the fees that public companies and other issuers pay to register their securities with the Commission will be set at $116.10 per million dollars. In addition, the fees applicable to most securities transactions will be fixed at $19.20 per million dollars.
The Commission determined these new rates in accordance with the procedures required under the Investor and Capital Markets Fee Relief Act. Accordingly, the Commission consulted with both the Congressional Budget Office and the Office of Management and Budget regarding the annual adjustment. These adjustments do not affect the amount of funding available to the Commission.
A copy of the Commission's order, including the calculation methodology, is available at read moreview Commission's Order
Global X files with the SEC
April 30, 2010--Global X has filed a registration statement with the SEC for
Global X Aluminum ETF
Global X Lithium ETF
Global X Uranium ETF
Global X Fishing ETF
Global X Food ETF
Global X Shipping ETF
Global X Waste Management ETF
OOK files with the SEC
April 30, 2010--OOK Inc, has filed a post-effective amendment, registration with the SEC for
OOK, INC. (OOK; NYSE Arca)
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TXF Funds file with SEC
April 30, 2010--TXF Funds has filed a post-effective, registration statement with the SEC for
TXF Large Companies ETF (TXF; NYSE Arca)
Investment Objective
TXF Large Companies ETF seeks investment results that correspond, before fees and expenses, to the price and yield performance of the equity index called the SPADE® Texas Index.The Fund, using an “indexing” investment approach, attempts to replicate, before fees and expenses, the performance of the Fund’s Underlying Index.
TOTAL ANNUAL FUND OPERATING EXPENSES: 0.20%
Shoppers drive US recovery
April 30, 2010--US consumers drove the country’s nascent economic recovery in the first quarter, accounting for the bulk of a 3.2 per cent annualised increase in output during the period.
The pace of growth was slightly below forecasts, and slower than the 5.6 per cent rate in the fourth quarter of last year, but the report from the commerce department indicated that the US remains on track for a moderate recovery.
FINRA Proposes Expanding Arbitrator Selection Lists Lists of available arbitrators for cases involving less than $100,000, which are heard by a single, chair-qualified public arbitrator, would also expand from eight to 10 names. The proposed expansion, made in a recent rule filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), is designed to increase the likelihood that all arbitrators appointed to a case will have been selected by the parties.
Currently, under FINRA's Code of Arbitration Procedure, parties are sent lists of available arbitrators, along with detailed biographical information on each arbitrator. In a three-arbitrator case, the parties receive three lists of eight arbitrators each – one public, one public chair-qualified and one non-public. Each party is permitted to strike up to four of the eight names on each list and ranks the remaining names in order of preference. FINRA appoints the panel from among the names remaining on the lists that the parties return. When there are no names remaining on a list, or when a mutually acceptable arbitrator is unable to serve, a random selection is made to "extend the list" by generating names of additional arbitrators to complete the panel. Parties may only challenge extended list arbitrators for cause. While the proposed change would increase the number of arbitrators on each list by two, the number of available strikes would remain at four per party. If the SEC approves the new procedure, it would ensure that at least two proposed arbitrators will remain on each list of 10 potential arbitrators – thus significantly increasing the likelihood that the parties will get panelists they chose and rank, as opposed to extended list appointments. It would also reduce the need for extended list appointments when vacancies occur in a panel later in a case. Prior to 2007, the arbitration code allowed the parties unlimited strikes of proposed arbitrators on lists. This often resulted in parties collectively striking all the arbitrators on the list. In April 2007, FINRA implemented a change that limited the number of strikes each party may exercise to four, in an effort to reduce the frequency of extended list appointments. Treasury International Capital System
Change Would Reduce "Extended List" Arbitrator Appointments
April 30, 2010--The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) today said it intends to increase the number of arbitrators available for selection when parties pick arbitration panels, to 10 from the current eight, for each type of arbitrator on a three-member panel – public chair-qualified, public and non-public.
"With a larger pool of arbitrators to select from, parties will be able to present cases before arbitrators they helped choose," said Linda Fienberg, President of FINRA Dispute Resolution. "Adding two names to each list will give parties in most cases the panelists they have selected rather than an arbitrator randomly selected by a computer."
April 30, 2010--Securities (a), U.S. Transactions with Foreigners
in Long-Term Securities report has been updated.
view report
