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. […]
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 […]
I talked to an Economist reporter based in Paris on Wednesday (October 2) about what the first day of SEF trading means to the market. I think the key point to note on the quote below is that we’re talking about the day 1 impact. The longer term impact on the the market I believe […]
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 […]
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 […]
Each year Greenwich conducts a North American Fixed Income study. This year we conducting 1027 interviews of buy side portfolio managers and traders about everything from corporate bonds to agency pass-throughs to interest rate swaps. As I’m new to Greenwich this is my first time really digging into the results, and (although I’m now a […]
Today (Sep 17, 2013) I’m moderating a swap futures panel at the Institutional Investor Fixed Income Forum event in Westchester County. For those of you keeping score at home that’s two swap futures panels in two days. We have a great lineup (Citi, Vanguard and CME) but will be one less than expected. Our CFTC […]
Free-market capitalism will ultimately lead any marketplace to its ideal state. Over the past half-decade this principle has driven my hypothesis that regulators should not try to stymie trading strategy and technology innovation, but should instead follow a principles-based approach (see the CFTC c. 2007) that prevents fraud while still allowing competition to carry on […]
This post also published at TabbFORUM.com Regulations will have a significant impact on how SEF aggregators function and how widely these aggregators will be adopted by various market participants. Some of the most contentious rule proposals are those that will have the greatest impact on liquidity fragmentation. They include the 15-second rule, the ability to […]
It seemed like the CFTC’s meeting yesterday (Dec 12th) would be a big one; we’d find out the size of a block trade and in doing so get some insight into how truly electronic the swaps market would become. Â Unfortunately, the can has been kicked down the road again. Â Instead we have a […]