LPs
Something I get asked quite frequently is why I have such a dislike of last look, after all during my trading career it barely existed and anyone who did regularly “drop” others (that’s reject in modern day idiom) soon got a reputation they didn’t want (or the threat of a visit from some very “tasty […]
Thursday’s column on what constitutes “institutional” and what exactly is an LP got people fired up, but before that I need to reiterate that my praise in that column for those doing good in the industry was not limited to the two Hall of Famers I mentioned. Although we do run the HoF and naturally […]
Nearly all liquidity is, to a degree, recycled, and always has been – a market cannot start without someone either posting interest or (often metaphorically) stating, “this is my price”. I get that, and my frequent and overwhelmingly negative comments on this recycling aspect of the FX market do take that into account – but […]
A widespread misconception has taken hold in FX, that retail flow is easy to price or, as it is commonly referred to, “soft”. At a very basic level, the logic behind such an assumption generally runs as follows: retail traders represent uninformed flow and the vast majority of them lose money, therefore it must be […]
Those of you who stayed with me to the end on Thursday’s column would have seen the teaser over why I think this is not the time to be buying an FX platform – so here is my thinking, and it’s pretty bleak. I have been asked in the past why I have such a […]
The Global FX Committee is to soon embark on its first three year review of the FX Global Code and this represents a great opportunity to clarify – and hopefully eradicate – what I still believe to be the biggest legal risk facing the FX industry. Whereas I think prudent tweaks to the Code and […]
For quite some time now people have been talking to me about their concerns regarding how their services are used by their clients and last year I asked this question at a P&L conference if I remember rightly – what happens if a client abuses liquidity with one of your algos? It’s a hard one […]
There is still so much “spin” around liquidity, for as we have noted in our In the FICC of It podcast, while the platforms and liquidity providers would have us believe there is no problem, the occasional flash move and, more pertinently I would argue, survey results indicating liquidity remains a very high concern for clients […]
Back in the day there were certain “clients” who would flat-out lie to their LPs about their trade being “full amount”. Nowadays, thanks to better data and analytics this type of behaviour can be spotted fairly easily and this has meant that now clients are quite open about the “full amount” not actually being “full […]
Once again, it’s that time of year when our editorial staff dust off the infamous Profit & Loss crystal ball in order to take a peek into the future and tell our readers what they should expect from the year ahead. Colin Lambert’s “Trade of the Year” makes a welcome return, and he’s back with a bang as he focuses on the drivers of the ever-popular NOK/MXN pair. As has become custom, Lambert is also predicting consolidation within the FX industry, but regular readers might just be surprised to find out that for once he doesn’t think that the M&A activity will be on the platform side this year.
