SNB
Reading the judgement on the latest leg of the legal action brought by CFH Clearing against Merrill Lynch over SNB-day activities five and half years ago, I find myself thinking that neither party comes out of the affair particularly well. On one hand we have a customer executing without due care and attention; on the […]
The UK Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal by CFH Clearing to have a judgement in favour of Merrill Lynch International (MLI) overturned – the original case relates to 27 trades submitted to MLI’s trading platform by the broker in the immediate aftermath of the Swiss National Bank removing the EUR/CHF floor at 1.20. […]
It’s been a busy 20 years since Profit & Loss launched. Colin Lambert and Galen Stops have picked out 20 key events or trends during that time and asked senior industry figures for their perspective on them – here’s numbers 5-1. 5. Chatrooms It seems incredible that it is now over six years since word […]
Galen Stops charts the ups and downs of FX prime brokerage over the past 20 years and looks at how this segment of the market might be ripe for innovation going forward. Ask anyone who has been around in the FX market for the past 20 years to list the key developments that have shaped […]
Lizzy Birmingham provides a brief roundup of the major FX moves this week, and the drivers behind each. 1) SNB Upholds Ultra-Loose Policy The Swiss franc was up 0.2% to 1.12127 per euro on Thursday following Swiss National Bank (SNB) president, Thomas Jordan’s, announcement to maintain loose monetary policy. In an interview with Bloomberg, Jordan […]
To channel my inner Shakespeare, “to re-paper or not re-paper – that is the question”. I could continue with something like, “whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to stand by the price and wear the loss, or run crying to the authorities and try to get it cancelled” but that kind of loses poetic effect. Anyway, what I want to say is why do markets let people get away with rank stupidity and lack of operational discipline by letting them re-paper trades?
A new research report from JP Morgan Chase Institute highlights the impact of central bank communication choices on financial market volatility.In the report, Does the Timing of Central Bank Announcements Matter?, the authors analysed data around the Swiss National Bank’s (SNB) decision to remove the EUR/CHF floor in January 2015, and found evidence that the timing of the decision increased subsequent market volatility.This latest research builds on a previous paper released by JP Morgan in June 2018, in which it found evidence that many hedge funds had predicated trading strategies on the belief that the SNB would maintain the EUR/CHF floor at 1.20.
The January 3 flash event in FX markets continues to fuel the news cycle and in this week’s podcast, Colin Lambert and Galen Stops discuss the real impact of algos – widely cited as a major factor in the event – in markets. For once they agree on a central theme in the debate, including Lambert (very reluctantly) shooting down one of his own arguments with Stops last year on trend following, but as always there’s room for divergent views.
Inaugural financial markets research from the JP Morgan Chase Institute studies trading behaviour around three major market events, and while the findings will not come as a surprise to most FX market participants – active traders were much more involved in the market than passive investors or corporate hedgers – they should prove useful to central banks as they come to terms with a changing market structure.
The research, FX Markets Move on Surprise News, was written by Diana Farrell, Kanav Bhagat and Chen Zhao at the Institute and looks at three specific surprise events, the Swiss National Bank’s decision to remove the EUR/CHF floor in January 2015, the Brexit vote in June 2016 and the 2016 US presidential election.
Galen Stops takes a look at some of the potential risk concerns associated with the prime-of-prime model in FX.
I n a recent survey conducted by Profit & Loss 57.25% of respondents said that they think the trend towards more firms using prime-of-primes (PoPs) rather than traditional FX prime brokers (FXPBs) could increase the impact of a shock event.
This is in contrast to 27.48% who said that it won’t and 15.27% who think the impact of a shock event would be unaffected by this change. The logic underpinning this concern is based on the fact that risk is increasingly being pushed towards less well-capitalised institutions.
