New for Traders: Week ending December 14

Commodities

• CME Clearing Europe introduced two near over-the-counter (OTC) iron ore contracts for clearing: Iron Ore 62% CFR China Average Price Options and Iron Ore 62% CFR China Calendar Swaps.
• The European Energy Exchange plans to launch three new futures contracts for trading of hydroelectric power from the Scandinavian and Alpine regions, along with wind power from northern Europe.

• The Tokyo Commodity Exchange Inc. (TOCOM) and Nikkei Inc. launched new indexes based on their co-branded indexes. The Nikkei-TOCOM Leverage Index, which is available on a daily basis on TOCOM’s website, is designed to realize a high-risk/high-return investment strategy based on the expectation of a bullish market.

• On Dec. 10, ICE Futures Europe reopened the daily futures market for the carbon credit Phase II EU Allowances and Certified Emission Reductions, and launch a new daily futures contract for Phase III EU Allowances.

Managed Funds

• The Hedge Fund Association announced that it has created a High Net Worth Advisory Board that will develop global educational programs and  networking events for high net worth investors.

Financials

• NASDAQ OMX Group Inc. will acquire Thomson Reuters’ investor relations, multimedia solutions and public relations businesses for $390 million, and integrate the acquisitions into its corporate solutions unit.
• CME Clearing Europe and Euroclear Bank signed a tri-party collateral management agreement under which Euroclear will manage securities collateral for clients. CME Clearing Europe also chose BNY Mellon to provide a tri-party collateral service to members.
• The London Stock Exchange’s bond trading business, MTS, and ICAP’s BrokerTec introduced the RepoFunds Rate daily repo index for Eurozone sovereign bonds, designed to reflect the effective cost of secured funding in Germany, France and Italy.
• Alternative exchange traded funds (ETF) provider ProShares listed its ProShares Merger ETF on BATS Exchange. The ETF is designed to track the performance of the S&P Merger Arbitrage Index, and is the second ETF family listed on the BATS Exchange.

Options

• The Miami Options Exchange (MIAX) launched on Dec. 7 after receiving regulatory approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission. It is the 11th U.S. equity derivatives market.
• The International Securities Exchange (ISE) will launch trading in Mini Options on March 18, 2013. ISE is the first exchange to confirm a launch date for the options, which will represent a deliverable of 10 shares of an underlying security. Mini Options will initially be listed on APPL, AMZN, GLD, GOOG and SPY.

Forex

• Thomson Reuters enhanced its FX matching platform designed to boost capacity, scalability and performance. New features include a graphical user interface and click to trade capability.
• Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) will launch two new cash-settled forex futures contacts for the Indian rupee (INR)/U.S. dollar and Brazil real/U.S. dollar beginning Jan. 28, 2013. ICE is the first U.S. exchange to launch an INR futures contract.

Technology

• SuperDerivatives, a provider of derivatives data and analytics, introduced DGX, its real-time cash and derivatives market data platform. DGX is designed to deliver cash and derivatives market data—including coverage of 800,000 bonds; 50,000 stocks, indexes and ETFS; and 4,000 CDS curves—to the user’s desktop, iPad and/or mobile device.
• NASDAQ will now include U.S. consumer demand data on the NASDAQ OMX Event-Driven Analytics service. The index, which will be delivered to the service five minutes before it is sent to other end-users, predicts trends in American consumer spending.
• SGX and Eurex will offer market access through their data center linkage beginning in January.

• NASDAQ OMX chose SunGard to support connectivity and post-trade workflows for members of its planned NLX European derivatives market. The market will offer trading in EUR and GBP-dominated short- and long-term interest rate derivatives when it launches next year.

Regulation

• The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) approved LSE’s planned acquisition of LCH.Clearnet, saying that following a thorough investigation, it “concluded that the deal did not raise competition concerns.”

• The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) unanimously approved a determination requiring swap dealers to guarantee trades involving six classes of credit default and interest rate at registered clearinghouses.
• CME Group Inc. dropped a lawsuit challenging CFTC trade-data reporting rules after the agency withdrew certain requirements governing the routing of trade price and volume information.
• The CFTC approved CME’s application to establish its CME Repository Service, a swap data repository. The exchange will waive reporting fees for the service through Sept. 30, 2013, including back-loaded trades.
• CME Group Inc. and the National Futures Association chose AlphaMetrix360 as their electronic data aggregation services provider. The new partnership is designed to create a system to collect bank balances for depositories holding customer-segregated, secured amount and sequestered funds for futures commission merchants.

• The U.S. Treasury Department exempted forex swaps and forwards from Dodd-Frank regulations that will apply to other derivatives. The agency explained the decision by saying that “unlike other derivatives, FX swaps and forwards already trade in a highly-transparent, liquid and efficient market.”