Segregated Funds, Market Crashes & Under-Seg
Today I want to look briefly at the reported solvency of FCM’s during the most recent market panic. Back on February 5th of this year, the US equities market suffered a volatile day and significant losses. The Dow Jones index had its worst ever one-day loss in terms of points (down 1,175), and other indices […]
Cross Currency Swaps and Libor-OIS
USD can be funded domestically or in international funding markets. These two funding markets create natural links between Libor-OIS spreads and Cross Currency Basis. We saw record volumes in USD Libor-OIS trading over the past three months. We also saw record notional volumes traded in Cross Currency Basis during Q1 2018. However, when we look […]
TraderTV Interview on MiFID II
Amir’s interview on MiFID II with Dan Barnes of TraderTV.
LIBOR OIS – March 2018 Update
Libor-OIS spreads have recently started to retreat from the wides hit in the middle of March. 1 year Libor-OIS spreads in USD reached as high as 45.25 basis points. They have since traded as low as 40.25bp. Notional volumes across all indices in March hit all time highs, 3 times the levels seen in 2017. […]
Swaps Data: A MiFID-shaped hole
My monthly Swaps Review in Risk Magazine looks at: Global volume in Cleared USD Swaps at LCH and CME US Swap Execution Facility volumes US Off SEF volumes MiFiD II so far failing to provide meaningful data USD OIS Swap volumes The challenge for SOFR Please click here for free access to the full article […]
FRTB – Revisions to market risk capital requirements
The BCBS published a Consultative document in March 2018 with the title ‘Revisions to the minimum capital requirements for market risk” and in this article I look at the details. Background In January 2016, the BCBS published the standard Minimum capital requirements for market risk ( “January 2016 standard”), designed to address a number of structural shortcomings in […]
MIFID II Data – APA Market Share
MIFID II transparency is still falling well short of what the market needs. We can only estimate APA market share using a highly manual process. Our team have gathered data from the 5 largest APAs. We look at market shares across Sovereign Bonds. Same old gripes As we all know, MIFID II transparency is still […]
SONIA Market March 2018
The new SONIA benchmark becomes effective 23rd April 2018. The average maturity of a SONIA swap has doubled in 2018. Is this increase in duration evidence of a behavioural change in markets? SONIA Reform Regular readers will know that SONIA has been subject to a Consultation by the Bank of England, with the intention of […]
Libor OIS – What is Going On?
Libor OIS spreads have been widening. Trading volumes across these products have also shown a spike in activity. We look at price-volume charts and DV01 figures for OIS swaps. We also update our CHF SARON OIS volumes, where a total of CHF37.5bn has now traded versus this new index. Libor OIS Spreads Last week, it […]
NDF Clearing February 2018
We update our NDF Clearing Analysis. A minimum of 17% of the market is now cleared. Clearing volume can account for up to 30% of volumes in some currency pairs. Uncleared Margin Rules continue to motivate clearing. All Time Record Volumes Cleared NDF volumes continue to grow at an impressive rate. Since we last looked […]