Forgive me if I’m stating the obvious for some of you, but I’ve had this conversation more than once and felt some clarity was in order here. As we work through the made available to trade (MAT) process, it’s important to reemphasize what actually will be required on mandatory SEF trading day 1. It all […]
Category: Commentary
The CFTC Killed SEF Trading (for now)
Last week was a busy week in SEF land. November 1 brought in to play a host of new rules, the MAT wars heat up and the Commission made the void rule even more confusing than it was before. So where has that left us? With a huge drop in SEF volumes and a bunch […]
The Void Rule No-Action makes No-Sense
OK, so not all of it. On Friday at 5:55pm (which I guess is better than 11:59p on October 31) the CFTC issues somewhat expected no-action relief for parts of the SEF rules set to take effect on Friday November 1. It focuses on the so-called Void Rule (discussed in an earlier post), and states […]
The Results are In: What parts of the rate curve should be mandated for trading first?
Earlier this week the first two made available for trading applications were made to the CFTC starting the clock ticking for mandatory SEF trading. Those applications started a debate as to exactly how mandatory SEF trading should be phased in. Should day 1 trading mandates only include the most liquid points on the rate curve, […]
MAT the MACs, or MAT Everything – Let’s Vote
trueEX yesterday filed their MAT application to start a CFTC review process alongside the one underway for Javelin’s application. This will add a huge amount of fuel to the debate on whether or not all points in the rate curve should be mandated for trading out of the gate (Javelin) or only the most standard […]
Roll Out the Welcome MAT
On Friday afternoon Javelin SEF filed the first made available-to-trade application with the CFTC (thanks Jamie for making us all scramble around on a Friday afternoon!). This is great news. The ball is rolling that will make SEF trading volumes finally matter. But of course, as with everything derivatives reform, things are not yet cut and dry. […]
Why SEF Volumes Don’t Matter (Yet)
On October 2 swap execution facilities (SEF) became official and started reporting trading volumes. While this new level of transparency is exciting, today’s reported volumes don’t really matter. In addition to the lack of reporting standards which complicate doing an apples to apples comparison (i.e. voice vs. electronic, D2D vs. D2C, FRAs vs. IRS), the […]
Swap Execution Facility Trading Volumes: Here are the Real Numbers
There are some really good parts of the SEF rule, and this in my view is one of the best: Core Principle 9 requires a SEF to make public timely information on price, trading volume, and other trading data on swaps to the extent prescribed by the Commission. The result? SEFs posting daily volumes on […]
SEF Day: A boring October 2 is official, but in 10 seconds or less
Quite a lot of hoop-la on Friday (September 27, 2013) around the October 2 SEF implementation deadline. On that point, the response to my post on the CFTC de-electronifying the market has been mostly positive. And it looks like the CFTC decided to listen to all of us wanting October 2 to go smoothly, providing […]
October 2nd Should Be Boring (Unless the CFTC Kills Electronic Trading)
On October 2 the CFTC’s swap execution facility (SEF) rules are scheduled to finally take effect. It’s amazing that we’ve finally gotten to this point, given I wrote my first piece about SEFs in 2010, a few months after the signing of Dodd-Frank. While the day is technically historic, don’t expect to anything exciting to […]