Tag: Regulation

15 for 15: Top Market Structure Trends to Watch in 2015

Market structure happenings have been fast and furious since 2009, and 2014 did not disappoint.  Mandatory SEF trading finally began, fixed income electronic trading continued its steady incline, the current shape of the US equity market was once again brought to the forefront and the cost of capital continued its assault on the banking industry. […]

The GOP-led Congress will not repeal Dodd-Frank, nor should they

Early in November I chaired the FTF DerivOps conference in NY.  The conversation in 2014 was a lot more about the market than it was at my first DerivOps in October 2008, when all we spoke about was what was wrong with the OTC derivatives market and who would the regulators do.  The event this […]

Trying to divine the evolution of the SEF landscape

I’ve been at Greenwich Associates a little over a year now.  Since I’ve been here I’ve written a few blog posts about SEFs, but have otherwise not written any formal research pieces on the topic.  When I started looking at this back in 2010 via SEF 101, it was a green field.  Today there is […]

FX volumes are down, but its more than just economics

First some admin notes.  We’ve recently created an official Greenwich Associates market structure blog.  The goal was to create a seamless method for us to get new research and commentary out to the market.  The market structure commentary I’ve been posting here at Kevin on the Street will mostly all end up on the new […]

FX Markets are Ready for a Shake-up

The biggest finding in our latest report on FX electronic trading was nothing.  Our 1500+ interviews with global FX users showed continued growth in electronic trading (74% of users trade FX on the screen), growth in execution algorithm usage (expecting 65% growth in 2014) and high hedge fund use of the two.  But those data […]

What is Market Structure, And Why You Should Care

If you work in institutional finance you’ve heard talk of market structure. Not only are there entire conferences dedicated to the topic, but most of the participants at those conferences— banks, asset managers, researchers—send their heads of market structure to speak. Commonly used in economics to describe the interconnectedness of and interaction between the buyers […]

Why Regulatory Changes Will Drive FX Trading Volume to Futures

Its been my experience that many in the market are ignoring FX in the global derivatives reform debate, thinking of them as broadly exempt from new rules.  This view is a bit of a red herring.  Our latest research report digs into the regulations set to hit the FX derivatives market and the impact they […]

Impartial Access: The CFTC Isn’t Messing Around This Time

The CFTC issued a slew of new guidance and rules last week, two of them particularly interesting and impactful.  First was the rule that requires clearinghouses to have credit facilities available to back up all margin posted in US Treasuries.  I (and pretty much every one else in the market) think this is ridiculous.  If […]

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 […]