European quartet bans short-selling on financials
August 11, 2011--France, Spain, Belgium and Italy have all banned short-selling of financial stocks in a bid to calm banking share prices. However, the quartet have failed to persuade Germany and other European nations to support the move.
It follows a week when France's banks have been under heavy attack with its largest institutions Societe Generale and BNP Paribas falling as much as 20% within trading sessions as rumours above solvency and liquidity spooked investors.
The short-selling ban will run for 15 days and will only increase the number of parallels drawn by investors with the days leading up to the credit crunch of 2008.
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Source: Citywire.co.uk
Europe Curbs Short-Selling in Financial Stocks; Move Questioned
A ban on short-selling financial stocks in four European countries including France takes effect on Friday, a coordinated attempt to restore confidence in markets hit by rumours and higher borrowing costs.
France, Italy, Spain and Belgium imposed the ban, which will vary in detail depending on the country, the European Securities and Markets Authority (EMSA) said in a statement late on Thursday.
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Source: Reuters
Deborah Fuhr is set to join BofA Merrill
August 11, 2011--Deborah Fuhr, the former head of exchange traded fund research at US asset manager BlackRock, is joining Bank of America Merrill Lynch to head up its global equity derivatives strategy.
Fuhr's role will be a broadly-based role which will include the marketing of exchange traded funds, equity futures and other equity derivatives within Bank of America's Delta One business, according to people familiar with the situation.
Delta One - the global equity derivatives strategies - is an increasingly important profits motor at investment banks. Fuhr will be based in London. She will report to Piers Butler, head of European Middle East and African division covering global equities, macro and events.
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Source: efinancilatimes
FESE European Equity Market Report - May 2011 Figures
August 10, 2011--FESE has published the ‘European Equity Market Report’ which gathers data from all the market segments operated by FESE members (including Regulated Markets and Multilateral Trading Facilities) as well as from the major MTFs operated by investment firms in the European market. The FESE Statistics Methodology used in the Report has been agreed by all the trading venues involved, both RM and MTFs.
view report
Source: FESE
BlackRock ETF Landscape: STOXX Europe 600 Sector ETF Net Flows: week ending 05-Aug-11
August 10, 2011--For the week ending 05 August 2011, there were
US$160.4 Mn net outflows from STOXX Europe 600 sector ETFs. The largest sector ETF net outflows last week were in telecommunications with US$97.6 Mn followed by banks with US$41.9 Mn net outflows while insurance experienced net inflows of US$27.4 Mn.
Year to date, STOXX Europe 600 sector ETFs have seen US$38.0 Mn net outflows. Utilities has seen the largest net outflows with US$242.4 Mn, followed by basic resources with US$214.9 Mn net outflows, while healthcare experienced the largest net inflows with US$280.2 Mn.
As of 05 August 2011, there is US$8.7 Bn AUM invested in the STOXX sector ETFs which is greater than the US$5.7 Bn open interest in the sector futures. The ETF AUM is greater than the open interest in the corresponding futures contract in 15 out of 19 sectors. .
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Source: Global ETF Research & Implementation Strategy Team, BlackRock
Deutsche Börse Commodities makes 500th Xetra-Gold delivery
A total of 2.5 tonnes of gold have been transferred to investors
August 10, 2011--Xetra Gold is a zero-coupon bond with perpetual maturity, representing a gram of gold. It is 100% backed by physical gold and represents the right to the delivery of gold. For investors, owning a unit of Xetra-Gold is equivalent to owning one gram of physical gold.
Since Xetra-Gold launched in 2007, investors have already made use of this physical backing 500 times and taken delivery of a total 2.5 tonnes of gold. Fees for packaging, transport and insurance apply, which depend on the quantity delivered.
“Investors have a choice of small bars in several different sizes (1 gram to 1000 grams) and standard bars of 12.5 kilograms,” said Steffen Orben, managing director at Deutsche Börse Commodities GmbH. “Delivery normally takes around two weeks.”
The Deutsche Börse Commodities' gold reserve, which backs the Xetra-Gold bearer bond, amounted to 50.6 tonnes at the end of July. The gold is stored at Clearstream’s vaults in Frankfurt. At a price of EUR 36.38 per unit (Xetra price on 29 July), the current value of the gold in custody is around EUR 1.8 billion.
“Xetra-Gold provides investors with one of the most favourable opportunities of acquiring and trading physical gold,” said Martina Gruber, managing director at Deutsche Börse Commodities. “The bid/ask spread is generally only around 0.1 percent. In contrast to fund trading and other ETCs, no ongoing management fees are charged for Xetra-Gold.”
Xetra-Gold is therefore by far the best-performing security among the 181 exchange traded commodities (ETCs) available on Xetra. Its share of total order book sales in the ETC segment is around 16 percent.
Source: Deutsche Börse
UK rates likely to remain on hold for some time
August 10, 2011--The Bank of England has signalled that interest rates will remain on hold for much longer than previously believed, as it forecast lower economic growth and inflation over the next two years.
In outlining the Bank’s new forecasts, governor Sir Mervyn King emphasised that they did not take account of worst-case scenarios from the eurozone debt crisis.
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Source: FT.com
Eurozone states get moving after ECB, Fed take centre role
August 10, 2011--Urgent action on the eurozone debt crisis picked up Wednesday with emergency budget talks in Rome and Paris after the ECB laid down terms for shoring up Europe's single currency.
A new round of stock market free-falls underscored fragile sentiment despite a US Federal Reserve statement that forecast low US credit rates for the next two years.
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Source: EUbusiness
Euro area securities issues statistics-June 2011
August 10, 2011--The annual growth rate of the outstanding amount of debt securities issued by euro area residents increased from 3.6% in May 2011 to 3.9% in June. For the outstanding amount of quoted shares issued by euro area residents, the annual growth rate increased from 1.3% in May 2011 to 1.6% in June.
New issuance of debt securities by euro area residents totalled EUR 888 billion in June 2011 (see Table 1 and Chart 1). Redemptions stood at EUR 871 billion and net issues amounted to EUR 25 billion (see Table 1). 1 The annual growth rate of outstanding debt securities issued by euro area residents
increased from 3.6% in May 2011 to 3.9% in June (see Table 1 and Chart 3).
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Source: ECB
ESMA provides opinions on pre-trade transparency waivers
August 10, 2011--ESMA today provided its first opinions on pre-trade transparency waivers to competent authorities under Article 29(1)(a) of the ESMA Regulation. These opinions contribute to a common supervisory culture and consistent supervisory practices. The decisions on ESMA opinions to competent authorities are taken by simple majority.
The opinions published today relate to the MiFID compliance of two trading functionalities submitted for ESMA’s assessment by the relevant national competent authorities as part of the process originally developed by CESR in spring 2009. The substance of the individual opinions has been included (in red) in the table annexed to the document “Waivers from Pre-trade transparency, ESMA opinions and CESR positions” (ESMA/2011/241). As the opinions relate to confidential information, the substance of the individual opinions has been anonymised. According to these opinions, ESMA considered a reference price system proposed by a trading venue to be MiFID compliant, whereas a system intended to formalise negotiated trades was not considered to comply with the MiFID requirements for granting a pre-trade transparency waiver.”
view the Waivers from Pre-trade Transparency
CESR positions and ESMA opinions
Source: ESMA
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