Financials

• Chicago Board Options Exchange and CME Group announced that, as part of an agreement between the exchanges, CBOE began disseminating values for a new volatility benchmark index using futures options data on CME Group's 10-year U.S. Treasury note contract. The CBOE/CBOT 10-year U.S. Treasury Note Volatility IndexSM (ticker symbol VXTNYSM) is the first volatility index based on U.S. government debt to be calculated and disseminated by CBOE.
• HKEx will launch futures on the CES 120 index that includes A-shares, H-shares and other shares of mainland companies. HKEx will also introduce futures on the CSOP FTSE China A50 ETF, the iShares FTSE A50 China Index ETF and the China AMC CSI 300 index ETF.

• Japan Exchange (JPX) will partner with Nikkei to develop a new Japanese index, which will consist of companies that are listed on the cash equity markets within the combined JPX. This will include companies from the TSE 1^st Section, TSE 2^nd Section, TSE Mothers, OSE 1^st Section, OSE 2^nd Section and JASDAQ markets.
• LME will introduce LMEClear, its self-clearing platform, in 2014, and a launch date will soon be announced. LME COO Adrian Farnham said that “to go final on a date we need to agree an exit date with LCH.Clearnet. We’re close to agreeing that, we expect we’ll announce it in the next couple of weeks.”

Options

• LSE will launch trading in single-stock options in June, with the offering to include 19 contracts on energy and mining companies listed in the UK. LSE’s Turquoise unit will also offer trade options on companies from BP to Rio Tinto from June 10, with the products to be cleared through LCH.Clearnet.
• OCC announced today that its Board of Directors approved the adoption of a policy that would require clearing members to restrict exercises in certain accounts, including market maker and joint back-office accounts to the extent each respective account is net long at the end of the trading day. The required netting would occur within each options series. 
• CBOE, ISE, NDAQ OMX PHLX, NYSE Arca and NYSE MKT are being sued by a group of investment firms including Citadel Securities for improper charges on millions of options trades over a period of seven years. The lawsuit alleges that the exchanges found out last year that a prominent firm had been mismarking orders as coming from public customers when they were not, resulting in improper fees being charged to market makers such as Citadel.

Commodities

• CME Group announced it has expanded its centrally cleared, over-the-counter agricultural swap offering through the introduction of a new U.S. dollar-denominated palm oil swap.
• CME will launch two new U.S. crude futures by year-end, to take advantage of the fast production growth in the US, according to Reuters.
• The Nasdaq OMX Group, Inc. and World Steel Exchange Marketing, LLC announced a strategic partnership to develop financially settled steel and steel scrap futures products to be traded on the Nasdaq OMX Futures Exchange, Inc.

Technology

• The London Metal Exchange this week opened its Asian Helpdesk, which will provide full technology support for users throughout the Asian trading day. The new Systems Operations desk is located at the Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing New Generation Data Centre in Tseung Kwan O.
• CQG, Inc. announced the launch of the latest iteration of its CQG Labs web-based testing site. CQG Labs (cqglabs.com) serves as a test bed for experimentation with alternate forms of data and analytics delivery to the trading industry using a cloud infrastructure.
• RTS Realtime Systems Group announced plans to open its newest data center in Dubai, the first Middle East site in its global data center network.
• SunGard has developed the Protegent Compliance Platform, a consolidated technology platform to help financial firms achieve competitive advantages by streamlining their regulatory compliance management.
• NASDAQ OMX is converting The NASDAQ OMX Futures Exchange to new technology, based on the NASDAQ OMX trading systems. The conversion is expected to take place in the third quarter of 2013.

Forex

• SGX will launch futures in the INR, SGX, AUD and the AUD/JPY cross in 3Q13, Reuters reported. According to SGX head of derivatives Michael Syn, “it’s playing to our natural geographical advantage that most of the key trading heads, the key price-makers and many of the key policymakers are based where we are matching and where we are trading.”