Derivs - People and Markets

Confusion reigns over Europe’s plans to impose margin on uncleared swaps, with the European Commission facing calls from supervisory bodies to pick up its pace on implementing the rules, as an industry survey found that banks are woefully unprepared to meet the deadlines.

Credit and equity fund managers taking off hedges may have contributed to the resilience of these markets in the wake of the UK's EU referendum, according to derivatives traders, but a cocktail of calamities this week hinted at a precarious exposure to any further sudden moves.

The parlous condition of the European banking system keeps coming back to haunt the global economy, with the latest attack of lurgy coming from Brexit. The UK electorate’s vote to leave the EU has laid bare the weak credit quality of lenders, a state of affairs that needed little revealing.

China’s foreign exchange and interbank money market announced on Wednesday that foreign financial instituions conducting FX forward-trading will have to start setting aside reserves later in the year.

A lack of clarity around margin mandate regulations and compliance requirements has left banks unprepared to comply with approaching uncleared derivative margining deadlines, an industry survey has found.

Gold and other precious metals have been major beneficiaries as safe haven investments in the wake of the UK’s Brexit vote, with gold futures this week hitting their highest level since July 2014. But some believe the wider precious metals sector has overshot.

A joint committee of European financial regulators has written to EU Commissioner Jonathan Hill urging him to minimise any delay by the European Commission in implementing margin rules on uncleared swaps.

Dealers will hold an auction to settle credit default swaps referencing Portugal Telecom International Finance, after the International Swaps and Derivatives Association’s (ISDA's) EMEA Determinations Committee ruled that a bankruptcy credit event had been triggered on the contracts

Merger talks between the London Stock Exchange Group and Deutsche Börse remain on course despite the United Kingdom’s recent vote to leave the European Union, with LSEG shareholders on Monday almost unanimously approving the plans. But comments from the German exchange this week suggest there are tough talks ahead on where to locate the merged group's holding company.

Bankers and lawyers have been grappling with likely consequences of the end of euro clearing in the City of London — specifically, will their trading floors have to follow clearing into the eurozone? The UK chief executive of one major French bank said that the firm had received differing legal advice on this point, and that it was a "crucial" question.

The land grab for financial supremacy in Europe is under way. After the UK voted to leave the EU last week, rival financial centres are lining up to snatch business form London, and one of the early battlegrounds is clearing euro-denominated business. Dan Alderson reports.

Those of us who stayed up to watch the Brexit television coverage knew that in a few hours’ time the June 24 trading session would go down in history. The mainstream media were inevitably obsessing about the post-Brexit collapse in sterling, but the credit markets were focused on the Markit iTraxx indices. Big moves were expected by market participants, and they weren’t disappointed.