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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)
Closer Policy Coordination Needed in Europe
March 17, 2010--The global financial crisis has heightened the need for closer international cooperation, globally and in Europe, to help avoid future crises such as the one the world economy just went through, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn told the European Parliament.
“I fear that as financial markets bounce back and economic growth resumes, the determination to make lasting changes is already receding,” Strauss-Kahn told more than 120 members of the European and national EU parliaments, who met in Brussels on March 17 for the annual meeting of the European Parliament’s Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs.
Greater policy coordination, on issues ranging from fiscal policy to financial sector regulation, was needed to make Europe’s institutions stronger, more resilient to crisis, and hence better able to promote growth and prosperity, he said.
The IMF is forecasting GDP growth of 1 percent for the European Union in 2010.
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Source: IMF
IMF chief presses for new financial rules
March 17, 2010--International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn voiced concern Wednesday at the lack of will among major nations to work together to build a coordinated system of financial regulation.
"Now I think it's our opportunity and duty to shape our institutions to make them stronger to (resist) crises," such as the one that plunged the world into its worst post-war recession, he said at the European parliament in Brussels.
"For me the main question is are we making the most in this historical opportunity and I'm a bit worried because economic growth is resuming, it's good news, but at the same time, (the will) that every country wants to work together, is somewhat receding," he complained.
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Source: EUbusiness
FSA publishes Business Plan for 2010/11
March 17, 2010--The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has today published its Business Plan setting out its priorities for 2010/11.
The Plan is a demanding programme of work for the year requiring greater policy and supervisory resources, and focusing on a number of key areas:
Delivering effective supervision backed by credible deterrence in enforcement.
Continuing to embed the organisational and cultural change needed to implement intensive supervision.
The policy reform programme driven by the Turner Review and the wider policy agenda mandated by the European Union.
Playing a role in promoting financial stability should the Financial Services Bill be enacted. The FSA will be recruiting an additional 460 staff in 2010 to implement Solvency 2, and to deliver the intensive supervisory approach needed for the very largest firms.
view Business Plan
Source: FSA.gov.uk
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