I'm a little obsessed with volatility lately - well, the lack of it actually. The VIX has been hovering around 12 for months despite emerging markets turmoil, rigging scandals and regulatory environment that can only be described as volatile. How...

Liquidity in the corporate bond market is tough. We've written about it time and time again. At a high level we see two solutions. One, inject new electronic trading tools and liquidity providers into the existing corporate bond market to better...

On Thursday May 1 the CFTC released an eagerly awaited clarifying document outlining when and how package trades would be required on SEF. Packaged transactions will be phased in by type from May 15th through November 15th, and to deal with the pre...

Last week I did an interview with the guys at DerivAlert about where we've come and where we're going. The result was a pretty concise overview of our thoughts on SEFs, US Treasury's, corporate bonds and European regulatory reform, so we thought it...

Spot FX trading volumes in the first quarter of 2014 dropped 25-30% from the same period last year. From a macro-economic perspective, the reasons are relatively clear. In 2013, FX trading volumes were inflated by a surge of activity in the first...

The biggest finding in our latest report (available to market structure and technology customers) 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...

If you work in institutional finance you’ve heard talk of market structure. Not only are there entire conferences dedicated to the topic, market structurebut most of the participants at those conferences— banks, asset managers, researchers—send...

Capital is expensive and getting more expensive. But the problem is proving a much harder one to manage in Europe, with European banks continuing to deleverage and already complying with the principles of Basel III while US banks have their capital...

Turned out the first week of mandatory SEF trading was a Big Bang, just in the wrong direction. Reported SEF volumes for interest rate swaps fell off a cliff for the week of February 17th, cliff signdropping 64% (revised down slightly as new data...

We all know that the massive reduction in dealer inventories and the cost of capital has had a huge negative impact on liquidity in the corporate bond market. While the primary market has helped soften the blow, that crutch...