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Commission assesses stability and convergence programmes of fourteen EU Member States
March 17, 2010--Today the European Commission examined the updated stability and convergence programmes (SCPs)1 of Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Estonia, Ireland, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Slovakia, Sweden, Finland and the United Kingdom. These assessments have to be seen against the background of the sharp economic and financial crisis which has had a major impact on public finances.
Reflecting the working of automatic stabilisers and discretionary stimulus measures implemented in line with the European Economic Recovery Plan (EERP)2 to cope with the exceptional economic circumstances, a large majority of Member States is currently subject to the excessive deficit procedure following corresponding Council decisions in 2009. Of the countries assessed today, only Bulgaria, Estonia, plan to keep their general government deficits below the 3% of GDP reference value set in the Stability and Growth Pact over the programmes' period. Overall, for the majority of the fourteen programmes, the growth assumptions underlying the budgetary projections are assessed as rather optimistic, implying that budgetary outcomes might be worse than targeted. Furthermore, in several cases, the budgetary consolidation strategy is not sufficiently backed up by concrete measures from 2011 onwards.
view Stability and convergence programmes (or updates): 2009-2010
So0urce: European Commission
Deutsche Börse: Deutsche Börse expands data offering on longevity
Xpect Data and Indices on life expectancy also available for England and Wales
March 19, 2010--Deutsche Börse is expanding its Xpect offering to include longevity data and indices from England and Wales. In 2008, Deutsche Börse’s business segment Market Data & Analytics started delivering monthly data on life expectancy and mortality risks in Germany and the Netherlands, broken down according to region, year of birth and gender.
Xpect Data offers the most up-to-date figures for quantitative valuation of longevity risk. The data on population trends in Germany, the Netherlands, England and Wales is collated from various sources, verified and disseminated on a monthly basis. Previously, these data had only been available in the market every three to five years.
The Xpect Data product forms the basis for up-to-date and regular calculations of generation mortality tables. Unlike hitherto existing data, Xpect Data is based exclusively on transparent and objective statistics, rather than on expert opinions. It is particularly important for the calculation of risk positions for life insurance and pension funds that longevity data is up to date and of top quality. As the population's life expectancy increases, so too do payment obligations and risk positions.
Xpect Indices serve as securitization for life and pension insurance risks and they also serve as a basis for financial instruments. Insurance companies and pension funds will thus increase their capital efficiency and lower their required risk capital.
For further information on Xpect Data, please visit www.deutsche-boerse.com/xpect_e.
Source: Deutsche Börse
Pressure mounts over IMF role in Greek crisis
March 19, 2010--Europe split over IMF intervention for debt-ridden Greece on Friday, upping pressure on national leaders to resolve crisis plans just days from a crunch summit.
Germany, changing tack, said it was open to the possibility of the International Monetary Fund helping Greece while the Netherlands, Finland and Italy -- to varying degrees -- also declared themselves alive to IMF involvement.
Investors reacted negatively, with Greek government bond yields -- the interest rate that Athens must pay in order to raise money on financial markets -- also rising sharply. The euro weakened against the dollar.
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Source: EUbusiness
Changes In The Composition Of The FTSE/ATHEX Index Series
March 19,2010--Following the transfer of trading of the shares of «X. BENRUBI S.A.» the Low Liquidity & Special Features Category of the Athens Exchange and according to the Ground Rules for the Management of the FTSE/ATHEX Index Series the following changes will take place.
FTSE/ ATHEX SmallCap 80
The shares of the company are removed from the index and replaced by the shares of the company «STELIOS KANAKIS S.A.» with investability weighting 20%.
FTSE/ ATHEX 140
The shares of the company are removed from the index and replaced by the shares of the company «STELIOS KANAKIS S.A.» with investability weighting 20%.
FTSE/ATHEX Personal & Household Products
The shares of the company are removed from the index without replacement.
FTSE/ATHEX Food & Âeverages
The shares of the company «STELIOS KANAKIS S.A.» are added to the index with investability weighting 20%.
All changes are effective from Monday March 22, 2010.
Source: Online News
UNPRI to start lobbying on ESG regulation
European Commission discussions look at scenarios for ESG disclosure.
March 19, 2010--The United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI), which represents institutional investor assets of $20 trillion, is planning to take its first steps to influence legislation in favour of ESG investment issues with the launch of a public policy network to lobby regulators and policy makers.
The UNPRI said the network would “seek out ways for collaboration between policy makers and investors, to encourage better policy making to support responsible investors and to encourage governments’ own funds to be aligned with the PRI”. A target date for the initiation of the network has not been announced. The plans are set out in a submission by the UNPRI to the European Commission, part of a series of European discussions looking at whether the disclosure of corporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) information should be tightened up.
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Source: Responsible Investor
Deutsche Börse Launches DAXglobal China Urbanization
March 18, 2010--Deutsche Börse has launched the DAXglobal China Urbanization Index on 17 March. It comprises the 20 largest and most liquid companies from five DAXglobal China Sector Indices. The constituents have to be listed at Hong Kong Stock Exchange (H-shares and red chips), Singapore Stock Exchange, NYSE or NASDAQ.
The index aims at investors who want to participate in the rapid growth of China’s cities – currently they are expanding by around 13 million inhabitants each year.
According to studies by the United Nations, China already has 100 cities with populations of over 1 million. Experts predict that this trend will increase. The number of people living in urban areas is expected to grow from 40 percent in 2008 to 70 percent in 2050. This corresponds to an increase of 15 million new city dwellers per year.
In order to meet the challenges of the dynamic urbanization extensive infrastructure investments are needed, for example the enhancement of housing and expansion of public transportation systems. The DAXglobal China Urbanization Index reflects these growth segments.
Since Monday 15 March 2010 Vontobel already offers product on the new index denominated in Euro. Heiko Geiger, Executive Director at Vontobel, said, “The DAXglobal China Urbanization Index fits extremely well into our theme strategy, which provides access to new interesting markets with exciting investment focuses for investors. Though the urbanization processes in China will be a huge challenge for politics, economics and society it will concurrently offer attractive investment chances for investors.”
Source: Deutsche Börse
UK official holdings of International Reserves
March 18, 2010--Part I: UK Government Foreign Currency Assets and Liabilities – February 2010
1. The UK Government’s net reserves rose by $314 million in February 2010, bringing the end-February total to $32,989 million (£21,669 million1) compared with $32,675 million (£20,391 million2) at end-January 2010.
view the UK OFFICIAL HOLDINGS OF INTERNATIONAL RESERVES
Source: HM Treasury
SEC welcomes Lehman report as 'helpful'
March 18,2010--The Lehman Brothers report will be “helpful” to US regulators investigating whether to bring civil fraud charges against the failed bank’s top managers, Mary Schapiro, US Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, told Congress.
But former prosecutors and white-collar crime experts say it is far from certain that federal enforcers will find evidence to support criminal charges, let alone convictions, against key players in the Lehman collapse or the broader financial crisis.
The hurdles are lower for the SEC, which brings civil fraud cases, than for the Department of Justice, which seeks to put people in jail.
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Source: FT.com
Eurex Clearing Introduces Real-time Risk Management for all Customers
Clearing and trading members benefit from real-time monitoring and management of their risk positions/ Enhanced Risk Solution to significantly improve market safety and integrity
March 18, 2010--On 15 March 2010, Eurex Clearing successfully launched its new “Enhanced Risk Solution”, an industry-leading real-time risk data distribution service. Europe's largest clearing house is the first central counterparty worldwide to offer risk management and margining data in real-time to its trading and clearing members. This innovative service further expands Eurex Clearing’s existing state-of-the-art risk management tools. The Enhanced Risk Solution is available across all asset classes and products – including derivatives, cash equities, bonds and repo transactions – for all connected exchanges and trading venues where Eurex Clearing offers clearing services.
The new service is free of charge and will allow all members to optimize their intra-day risk monitoring, risk controlling and treasury management towards Eurex Clearing.
“Our Enhanced Risk Solution significantly contributes to the regulators’ and supervisors’ goal of improving market safety and integrity by increasing transparency“, said Thomas Book, member of the Eurex Executive Board and responsible for clearing. “Our customers will directly benefit from increased control over their own risk management and greater efficiency in their collateral management. By offering such a service Eurex Clearing actively contributes to policy makers’ goal of a safe and sound financial market structure.”
The Enhanced Risk Solution is a strategic milestone in Eurex Clearing’s risk management roadmap. With its suite of services, Eurex Clearing responds to industry trends like algorithmic trading and direct market access which dramatically increase the number of transactions and speed of trading. In June 2009, Eurex Clearing migrated its internal risk monitoring to a real-time system that permanently recalculates risk data based on price changes and actual positions. Eurex Clearing’s services also comprise comprehensive pre- and post-trade risk control measures including a stop button. The stop button enables clearing and non-clearing members of Eurex Clearing to delete all orders and quotes of the respective member and prevents further order and quote entry in emergency situations.
The Enhanced Risk Solution distributes risk-relevant margin parameters, position information, overall margin requirements, detailed margin components, cash flows, the value of provided collaterals and the respective margin shortfall or surplus information. This data allows members to perform real-time valuations of all open positions and transactions, thus enabling clearing members to precisely monitor their non-clearing members; non-clearing members will be able to control their own risk exposure accurately.
The new offering is based on open standards to allow customization of the data stream into in-house applications. It is based on the Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP) for delivering messages and the FIXML*) format for the application layer messages, which follows industry standard.
*) FIXML is the XML vocabulary for creating Financial Information eXchange (FIX) protocol messages.
Source: Eurex
ICMA-ERC survey shows strong recovery in European repo market
March 18, 2010--UK) The European Repo Council of the International Capital Market Association (ICMA) today released the results of its 18th semi-annual survey of the European repo market. The survey sets the baseline figure for market size at EUR 5,582 billion, representing an increase of 14.7% on the figure of EUR 4,868 billion for the previous survey in June 2009.
This latest survey shows robust overall growth in volumes in the second half of 2009, which confirms the tentative signs of recovery seen in June 2009. The data also demonstrates the resilience of the European repo market, which largely continued to function during the financial crisis of 2008-09. The repo market provided a vital link between central banks and banks during the crisis, and a strong repo market will also be vital in the future if there is to be an orderly withdrawal by central banks of their exceptional liquidity support and a revival of bank lending to customers, as this will depend on the revival of interbank liquidity, for which repo is essential.
The ICMA survey also showed further evidence that the market has taken on board the lessons of the market crisis, with higher use of Central Counterparty (CCP) clearing (already well established in repo), the greater focus on netting generally and the reduction in undocumented transactions.
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Source: International Capital Market Association (ICMA)
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