CME
Data from three primary venues in the FX market confirms numbers from last week suggesting that turnover in April slumped, with one reporting an all-time low in activity and two others the quietest month since 2016. Refinitiv reports average daily volume of $81 billion across its FX spot offerings, a 16.5% drop from March and […]
In this week’s podcast Profit & Loss managing editor, Colin Lambert, and editor, Galen Stops, open by discussing the news of some senior staff departing from EBS in the wake of its acquisition by CME Group, which in turn causes the pair to compare and contrast the different approaches and FX businesses of the Chicago-based […]
Given they predicted just such a move almost a year ago there is no surprise from Colin Lambert and Galen Stops in this week’s podcast over the announcement that Deutsche Boerse is in talks with Refinitiv to buy some or all of its FX assets. So far, so straightforward – however this is In the […]
In a rumbustious podcast this week Galen Stops relates how he took on the Twitter world following a tweet that was clearly misunderstood (he says) and he and Colin Lambert get into a debate over the value of speed bumps in futures markets. One group, as Stops observes, is very unhappy about it, but Lambert points out there is another – rather influential – group, that really like the idea.
Our two podcasters also follow up on a recently published story by Profit & Loss about the potential buyers of Refinitiv as well as take a look at a recent blog post on aggregation in FX which inevitably leads to a question from Stops to Lambert, ‘what do you consider full amount trading?’ Luckily for everyone, the latter keeps his answer reasonably (to him) short – even delving into the depths of his own trading career for an analogy.
Speaking of delving the depths, the podcast closes out by fulfilling its promise of the previous week through delivering “considered analysis” of a recent rival podcast which took a look at the events surrounding the death of crypto exchange Quadriga’s CEO. There are those that think, as Stops notes in this podcast, that the FX industry likes a good gossip and wild speculation, but his report on the investigation into Quadriga leaves FX standing well in the shade…
Cboe appears to have conceded defeat on bitcoin futures to cross town rival CME Group with an announcement that it will delist its contract this month.
In a release listing new product information, the exchange says its CFE subsidiary, which supported bitcoin trading “is not adding a Cboe Bitcoin (USD) (“XBT”) futures contract for trading in March 2019”.
Cboe adds that CFE is “assessing its approach with respect to how it plans to continue to offer digital asset derivatives for trading”, continuing that “while it considers its next steps, CFE does not currently intend to list additional XBT futures contracts for trading.”
A new research note from CME Group looks at whether FX options skews can be used to predict where certain currencies will move relative to the US dollar.Written by Erik Norland, executive director and senior economist at CME, the research opens by explaining that options markets typically exhibit a skew, but that in different asset classes this skew can be in different directions.For example, Norland points out that out-of-the-money (OTM) put options on equity index futures are usually more expensive than OTM call options because investors fear a sudden decline in stock prices more than a sudden rise. However, the reverse is generally true for options on agriculture products because food buyers are more concerned with a sudden increase in the price of crops rather than a decline.
In recent years, large exchange groups have been lining up to buy OTC FX platforms. But in this game of musical chairs, what happens to the venues without a buyer when the music stops? Galen Stops reports.One of the major trends in the multi-dealer platform space in recent years has been the acquisition of these platforms by larger exchange groups. Hotspot was the first to go after it was bought by BATS Global Markets in 2015, which in turn was then acquired by Cboe Global Markets in 2017 and the FX platform was rebranded as CboeFX.
In recent years, large exchange groups have been lining up to buy OTC FX platforms. But in this game of musical chairs, what happens to the venues without a buyer when the music stops? Galen Stops reports.One of the major trends in the multi-dealer platform space in recent years has been the acquisition of these platforms by larger exchange groups. Hotspot was the first to go after it was bought by BATS Global Markets in 2015, which in turn was then acquired by Cboe Global Markets in 2017 and the FX platform was rebranded as CboeFX.
CME Group is set to change the strike price listing for certain FX options contracts in a bid to offer more granularity.Essentially, the exchange is reducing the number of steps above and below the at-the-money strike, while also reducing the strike increments. So, for AUD/USD, instead of 21 steps at $0.50 increments above and below the at-the-money strike, there will be eight steps above and below at $0.25 increments and then 10 steps at $0.50 increments for all weeklies and front monthly contracts. For non-front serials and quarterly contracts there will be 10 steps above and below the at-the-money strike at $0.50 increments and then 10 steps after that at $1 increments.
In this week’s podcast Colin Lambert and Galen Stops discuss the article penned for Profit & Loss by former FX trader Rohan Ramchandani about his trial and subsequent acquittal for market manipulation. While they generally agree on most points there is, inevitably, areas of disagreement, but that is nothing compared to when they move on (thanks to a quiet news week) to how they ranked each other’s predictions for 2018. The results are available on the website, but why did Stops given Lambert a 6/10 for a bitcoin prediction that was actually correct? And why did Lambert return the compliment given Stops just a 4/10 for his own crypto prediction? All will be revealed in this week’s In the FICC of It podcast, along with exactly which one of them scored the most points with their predictions.
