ETF Securities hires Peter Lidblom as head of Nordics
October 29, 2012--ETF Securities has hired Peter Lidblom as a head of the Nordic region to manage the group's relationships with key financial institutions. He will have a particular focus on Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland, reporting to co-head of Emea sales, Isabell Mössler.
Lidblom joins from NSBO, a specialist global institutional broker, where he was responsible for China macro / sector thematic sales to Nordic institutional investors, banks and corporations. More recently he sold ETF best execution services in Europe following a joint venture between NSBO and Wallach Beth Capital in New York.
Source: Global Investor
IOSCO Reviews Implementation of Commodity Derivatives Market Principles
October 29, 2012--The International Organization of Securities Commissions has published today the final report Survey on Implementation of the Principles for the Regulation and Supervision of Commodity Derivatives Markets, which reviews how Market Authorities1 comply with IOSCO's recommendations on commodity derivatives markets.
Results of the survey indicate that the majority of respondents were broadly compliant with the IOSCO Principles on the Regulation and Supervision of Commodity Derivatives Markets, which were published in October 2011 and endorsed by the G20 a month later at its summit in Cannes. Also at Cannes, the G20 Leaders called on IOSCO to report on the implementation of its Principles by the end of 2012.2
Source: IOSCO
Chinese banks flee London's tough rules
October 28, 2012--China's largest state-owned banks are moving big chunks of their European business to Luxembourg as they seek to escape tougher regulation in the City of London.
In a recent letter to the UK Treasury, the Chinese banks bitterly complained that uneven regulation and “rigorously demanding” liquidity rules had prompted them to transfer business and even the management of their European operations out of London.
Source: FT.com
US money market funds return to eurozone
October 28, 2012--US money market funds have increased their exposure to eurozone banks, in the latest sign of returning confidence in the stability of Europe's monetary union.
Exposure to eurozone banks of US prime money market funds at the end of September was 16 per cent higher on a dollar basis than a month earlier, according to Fitch Ratings. The third consecutive monthly rise followed a pledge in late July by Mario Draghi, European Central Bank president, to do “whatever it takes” to preserve the euro’s integrity
Source: FT.com
Gold Traders More Bullish as ETP Hoard Sets Record: Commodities
October 26, 2012--Gold traders are the most bullish in three weeks as investors' bullion holdings rose to a record on mounting speculation that central banks will add stimulus to bolster economic growth.
Fourteen of 26 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg expect prices to rise next week, nine were bearish and three were neutral. Investors boosted holdings in exchange-traded products to an all-time high of 2,585.1 metric tons yesterday, valued at $142.4 billion, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Hedge funds’ bets on a rally are near the biggest in more than a year, according to U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission data.
Source: Bloomberg
IMF Working paper-The Domestic Credit Supply Response to International Bank Deleveraging: Is Asia Different?
October 26, 2012--Summary: During the global financial crisis, European banks contracted foreign claims on recipient economies sharply. This paper examines the impact of that deleveraging on credit supply in recipient economies, with a particular focus on Asia.
Identification is achieved by exploiting heterogeneity in ex-ante patterns of funding reliance on different European banking systems, and in variation in the ratio of local claims in local currency to total foreign claims in recipient economies. These sources of variation are used to create instruments for the deleveraging shock. We find that the contraction in European bank foreign claims was associated with a substantial reduction in domestic credit supply in a broad sample of countries. However, the credit supply response in Asia was only about half the size of the response in non-Asian countries, possibly due to a more robust policy response and healthier local bank balance sheets at the outset of the crisis.
Source: IMF
FTSE/ATHEX Global Traders Index Series New Indices Creation
October 25, 2012--ATHEX in cooperation with FTSE, designed a new index series to enable the monitoring of the market performance of the listed companies that have highly globalised activity either in exports or through production abroad.
These indices record and highlight in the globalized investment community the transnational character of the Greek companies which is constantly strengthened.
Source: Mondovisione
Credit Suisse ETF sale could raise $150m
October 25, 2012--The sale of Credit Suisse's exchange traded funds business could raise around $150m for the Swiss bank, according to Citi.
Credit Suisse put its ETF business, which has $17bn in assets, up for sale earlier this year, drawing interest from BlackRock and State Street Global Advisors, the world’s two largest ETF providers.
Source: FT.com
IMF Working paper-Oil and the World Economy: Some Possible Futures
October 25, 2012--Summary: This paper, using a six-region DSGE model of the world economy, assesses the GDP and current account implications of permanent oil supply shocks hitting the world economy at an unspecified future date.
For modest-sized shocks and conventional production technologies the effects are modest. But for larger shocks, for elasticities of substitution that decline as oil usage is reduced to a minimum, and for production functions in which oil acts as a critical enabler of technologies, GDP growth could drop significantly. Also, oil prices could become so high that smooth adjustment, as assumed in the model, may become very difficult.
view the IMF Working paper-Oil and the World Economy: Some Possible Futures
Source: IMF
IMF Working paper-The Global Impact of the Systemic Economies and MENA Business Cycles
October 25, 2012--Summary: This paper analyzes spillovers from macroeconomic shocks in systemic economies (China, the Euro Area, and the United States) to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region as well as outward spillovers from a GDP shock in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and MENA oil exporters to the rest of the world.
This analysis is based on a Global Vector Autoregression (GVAR) model, estimated for 38 countries/regions over the period 1979Q2 to 2011Q2. Spillovers are transmitted across economies via trade, financial, and commodity price linkages. The results show that the MENA countries are more sensitive to developments in China than to shocks in the Euro Area or the United States, in line with the direction of evolving trade patterns and the emergence of China as a key driver of the global economy. Outward spillovers from the GCC region and MENA oil exporters are likely to be stronger in their immediate geographical proximity, but also have global implications.
Source: IMF