- The Intercontinental Exchange re-launched its credit swaps futures two years after delisting the contract, the Wall Street Journal reported. According to an ICE spokeswoman, some 50 of the new credit futures traded on Monday, for $5 in notional volume.
- The London Metal Exchange aims to reduce its warehouse queues through the use of new measure to increase the amount of metal withdrawn from warehouses, compared to material brought in.
- London South East Trading is expanding its reach into Europe with the launch of an European Union-wide program to boost small and medium-sized enterprises, the Financial Times reported. LSE has signed up around 25 fledging enterprises that are likely to require capital for expansion.
- Eris Exchange aims to complement its swap-futures range by launching swaptions, in response to growth in USD contracts.
- Rusal CEO, Vladislav Soloviev, stated that speculators have distorted the price of LME-traded aluminum, the Financial Times reported.
- Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II: European regulators settled on a definition of high frequency trading in the unpublished MiFID II draft, with the definition being “the submission on average of at least four messages per second with respect to all instruments traded on a trading venue or at least two messages per second with respect to any single instrument traded on a trading venue.”
- The European Securities and Markets Authority introduced a second level of validation requirements for registered trade repositories to ensure the completeness of data submitted on swap transactions under European Market Infrastructure Regulation. The first layer of validation has been in place since December 1, and the second layer will be implemented from this October, IFR Asia reported.
- EU: Financial Services Commissioner Jonathan Hill stated that he will ensure that EU law does not conflict with a proposal on total loss-absorbing capacity from the Financial Stability Board, Bloomberg reported.
- The Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Timothy Massad announced steps to “improve the operational aspects of swap execution facilities (SEF) trading”, the Trade News reported. Massad also addressed the issue of whether trading of certain swaps should be required to be anonymous, and stated “we have heard market participants express concern about potential negative consequences of this practice with respect to its effects on liquidity and participation, and I have not heard a compelling justification for it.
- The London Stock Exchange is in discussions with at least six parties who are keen on purchasing Russell Investment Management, the investment arm of LSE’s subsidiary Frank Russell Co., the FT reported.
- Nasdaq admitted that it was responsible for Twitter’s earning leak after its Shareholder.com unit published the first quarter results before the close of trading on Tuesday, Fox Business News reported.
- CME Europe CEO Cees Vermaas stated that the exchange is focused on increasing volume in its contracts and developing a multi-asset derivatives exchange after seeing good progress in its first year, FOW magazine reported.
- The Japan Exchange Group will assist Hanoi Stock Exchange in setting up a derivatives trading system in Vietnam by end-2016, and the Japan-based group may introduce the settlement system of its Japan Securities Clearing unit.
- Czech Power Exchange Central Europe (PXE) and Austrian Central European Gas Hub (CEGH) will launch the CEGH Czech Gas Spot Market on May 4, 2015. The Market will be operated by PXE and clearing will be provided by the European Commodity Clearing (ECC).
- CFTC Commissioners Mark Wetjen and J. Christopher Giancarlo are advocating for lawmakers to make it easier for foreign authorities to access derivatives trade information from US data repositories. Both Wetjen and Giancarlo want to remove the present requirement that non-US regulators must guarantee US warehouses against lawsuits to gain the data, according to MLex.
- The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Bank of America Corp regarding whether it broke rules meant to safeguard customer accounts, Bloomberg reported. According to the Wall Street Journal, investigators are looking at a variety of large, complex trades and loans over a three-year period meant to save on funding costs and free up billions of dollars in cash and securities for trading that the firm would otherwise have needed to keep off-limits.