Learning Curve

With less than 10 months to go before the expected implementation of the Settlement Discipline Regime in February 2021, the sell-side’s preparations are well underway. Given the potential impact of SDR on banks and broker-dealers, there is extensive ground to cover ahead of the go live date.

In a negative interest rates environment, dividend strategies are becoming increasingly popular as a way to create positive yield for investors.

As UK loan, bond and derivative market participants work to the deadline of December 31, 2021 to stop using Libor, one of the biggest hurdles is how to calculate the new reference rate: Sonia.

Nearly six years ago to the day the European Commission adopted the technical standards for the European Market Infrastructure Regulation (EMIR) that, among other things, mandated the reporting of derivatives contracts to trade repositories.

The breakdown of trust in ISDAfix following allegations of collusion and manipulation in 2012 led to a complete overhaul of the benchmark. A recent report by the Financial Conduct Authority proves that the hard work is paying off, reaffirming the potential for the model to be applied to other benchmarks.

Inline warrants are growing in popularity as a means of generating returns when volatility is low.

​New regulations have uncovered heaps of data that markets are struggling to handle. But as participants discover issues exist they did not realise existed, the data revolution will result in safer and more efficient markets for all.

As banks struggle with tracking brokerage costs, they need to work out ways to properly manage cost transparency by normalising their trade data.

Proponents of the ISDA Common Domain Model say that if properly implemented, it could generate major cost savings for financial institutions. But what is it, what prompted its creation and how could it work with distributed ledger technology?

Not a day goes by without some analyst, regulator or senior exchange executive weighing in on where the clearing of euro swaps should reside post-Brexit.

Equity repo, a way to lend shares to the market, is a key parameter in equity derivatives trading but is yet to be fully considered and monetised. Given the opportunities that exist in the space, market participants would do well to change tack.

Deal-contingent hedging can be a great way to hedge risks associated with mergers and acquisitions, but a number of pitfalls can flummox first time users of these specialist derivatives.

While market capitalisation weighted indices and portfolios have been incredibly popular in recent years, data show that their equally weighted brethren can have an edge with lower concentration risk and better performance.

To make trading algorithms useful for derivatives execution, measurement of their effectiveness must be carefully tailored to each user, writes Yuriy Shterk, head of derivatives product management at Fidessa.

Risk management is, by nature, evolutionary, but the 2008 financial crisis marked an inflection point that changed the paradigm for the industry. It ushered in an era of greater regulatory scrutiny, with risk management emerging as a leading priority for financial firms and policy makers, who pledged to establish new rules that would enhance market stability and mitigate the likelihood of another financial meltdown.

Progress on global derivatives reform is at a critical juncture. The goal of enhanced transparency, identified by the G20 following the 2008 crisis as crucial to the supervision of the financial system, remains only partly addressed because of a number of practical and legal barriers that limit data sharing across jurisdictions. As a result, the cross-border identification of systemic risk remains challenging for macroprudential authorities.

2014 continued to be an active year for financial regulation in the EU, with a push to finalise much of the outstanding primary legislation on the regulatory reform agenda and to move towards implementation of regulation already in place. The derivatives market will be particularly affected by the new regulatory landscape and the market will face many new challenges into 2015 and beyond, which we consider further below.

In today’s regulatory environment there are numerous know-your-customer checks that need to be performed and accurate client and counterparty data checks that need to be made to ensure global regulatory obligations are met. Not only do firms need to make substantial changes to their internal processes to meet these requirements, they must ensure that the counterparty and client data they hold is accurate from the outset and then efficiently managed on an ongoing basis. Legal entity data management is far from a simple task, however, and with a swathe of risk management and investor transparency requirements due to enter into force over the coming years, firms need to give this critical activity the appropriate consideration.

The introduction of T+2 has marked another milestone in the effort to reduce systemic risk for firms trading European securities. But what about other asset classes, such as derivatives? The inconvenient truth is that the world of derivatives, which some view as a much riskier investment choice, lags a long way behind equities in terms of operational efficiency. Here Steve Grob, Director of Group Strategy at Fidessa, looks at the reasons why and suggests how derivatives market practitioners can not only learn from their equity counterparts, but leapfrog ahead of them.

Six years on since the global financial crisis, Europe has made great progress in transposing the G20’s regulatory framework to reform the over-the-counter derivatives market into law and incorporating that workflow into the single market project. The G20 Leaders Summit in Brisbane in November is an opportune time to reflect on this transit and what remains to be done as the industry seeks to restore the integrity of the global financial system.

As pressures for timely reporting of OTC transactions mount on both sides of the pond, Ian Salmon of ITRS Group explores the challenges that this presents, while explaining why the sell-side requires a fresh approach to avoid heavy fines and reputational damage.

The next five years will continue to be a time of adjustment as sell- and buy-side firms get used to the realities of the financial markets, post-crisis. Change will be the only constant – and with change, comes opportunity.

IFRS 13 “Fair Value Measurement” became effective 1st of January 2013. The International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) issued IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) 13 in May 2011 to improve the consistency of fair value measurements. IFRS 13 establishes a single source of guidance for fair value measurements for all financial instruments. It clarifies the definition of fair value in general as an exit price and enhances disclosures about all fair value measurements.

Years ago, the motivational guru Tony Robbins came to visit my office, searching for the attributes of successful options trading. I was nervous about making a good impression. After all, he was the expert on success who wrote the book on getting the edge. What advice could I possibly offer? During the interview, it occurred to us both that the “secret sauce” of trading is similar to the required attributes of any profitable business. It must have a definable and consistent “edge”, it must be hard for others to harvest (even if the basic business concept is easy) and it requires relentless discipline.

Market practitioners have long looked forward to the enforceability of close-out netting for over-the-counter derivative transactions under the International Swaps and Derivatives Association master agreement in China.

With the Feb. 12 trade reporting deadline fast approaching, the race for European Markets Infrastructure Regulation compliance is now well and truly underway. EMIR is one of many new regulations governing derivatives trading across the globe and, like its North American counterpart Dodd-Frank, is the culmination of the post financial crisis movement towards increasing transparency and reducing risk within the market.

To describe its most recent approach to de-linking the credit risk of a swap provider (a Provider) from structured transactions, on Nov. 12, 2013, Moody’s Investors Service published Approach to Assessing Swap Counterparties in Structured Finance Cash Flow Transactions.

Correlation is probably the single most used statistic (aside from standard deviation as a volatility measure) in the financial industry. From thematic hedging to portfolio management, we often seek the most correlated underlying/instrument to play a particular macro theme or hedge against a portfolio.

As 2014 will mark the fifth year after the post crisis G20 meeting in Pittsburgh, it seems timely to assess how much progress has been made on regulatory reforms to the derivatives market in the last year and what progress we can expect to see in the forthcoming year.

The search for alpha has led more and more buyside organizations, including pension funds, to turn to derivatives. But, in many cases, investor appetite for these products has outpaced the technology used for processing them.

The European Commission has published a legislative proposal for a regulation on financial benchmarks. The proposed Regulation aims to address concerns about the integrity and accuracy of benchmarks by regulating administrators of benchmarks, contributors to benchmarks and benchmark users. The Regulation will also prohibit the use in the E.U. of unauthorised benchmarks, including benchmarks prepared by unregistered non-E.U. administrators from non-equivalent jurisdictions.

The last year has seen regulations mandating reporting of derivatives trades being gradually implemented in a number of key jurisdictions around the world. As a result, it has been and continues to be a busy time for regulators, service providers and market participants alike.

There are three main components to the European Market Infrastructure Regulation: risk management requirements for OTC derivatives that are not centrally cleared; central clearing of certain OTC derivatives, together with a harmonized framework of clearing within Europe; and reporting of all derivatives to trade repositories.

As part of an industry wide move to simplify collateral arrangements, over-the-counter derivative market participants are exploring opportunities to renegotiate existing Credit Support Annexes.

The final framework for margin requirements for non-centrally cleared derivatives has been released by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision and the International Organization of Securities Commissions. The globally agreed standards under the framework require all financial firms and systemically important non-financial entities that engage in non-centrally cleared over-the-counter derivatives to exchange initial and variation margin commensurate with the counterparty risks arising from such transactions.

Recent press reports of Congressional and U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission investigations of possible price manipulations involving financial and energy assets have once again raised the question of what types of behavior constitute unlawful manipulation under the Commodity Exchange Act (CEA), which governs exchange and over-the-counter trading in a wide range of financial and commodities assets and values and can reach activities beyond U.S. borders.