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CFTC Staff to Host Public Roundtable to Discuss Individual Customer Collateral Protection
October 21, 2010-- Staff of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) will hold a public roundtable on October 22, 2010, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., to discuss issues related to individual customer collateral protection. The roundtable will assist the CFTC in the rulemaking process to implement the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
The roundtable will be held in the Lobby Level Hearing Room at the CFTC’s Headquarters, Three Lafayette Centre, 1155 21st Street, NW, Washington, D.C. The discussion will be open to the public with seating on a first-come, first-served basis. Members of the public may also listen by telephone and should be prepared to provide their first name, last name and affiliation.
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Source: CFT.gov
CFTC/SEC Staffs to Host Joint Public Roundtable to Discuss Issues Related to the Clearing of Credit Default Swaps
October 21, 2010--The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) staffs will hold a public roundtable on October 22, 2010, from 9:00 am to 12:00 pm, to discuss issues related to the clearing of credit default swaps. The roundtable will assist both agencies in the rulemaking process to implement the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
The roundtable will be held in the Lobby Level Hearing Room at the CFTC’s Headquarters, Three Lafayette Centre, 1155 21st Street, NW, Washington, DC. The discussion will be open to the public with seating on a first-come, first-served basis. Members of the public may also listen by telephone and should be prepared to provide their first name, last name and affiliation.
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Source: CFTC.gov
U.S. High Yield Default Update: Default Loss Rate Shrinks to 23 Basis Points Through Third Quarter
October 21, 2010--Summary
U.S. high yield bond defaults continued to run well below average in the third quarter of 2010, with eight issuer defaults affecting a combined $2.5 billion in bonds. Both
measures were up from the second quarter’s very low three issuer defaults on $800 million in bonds; however, the third-quarter uptick failed to move the default rate
significantly from its expected year end finish of roughly 1% ? one of the lowest levels on record, according to Fitch’s U.S. High Yield Par Default Index.
There have been both fewer and smaller defaults in 2010. The average size of bonds outstanding per defaulted issuer has fallen to $265 million this year versus $786 million per defaulted issuer in 2009. This explains why the par-based default rate has
contracted more than the issuer-based default rate, which stands at 1.6% year-to-date versus 0.5% for the par-based rate. This pattern is not without precedent. Prior Fitch research has shown that large cap high yield companies (defined as companies with
more than $500 million in bonds outstanding) show a higher propensity to default during stress periods than in benign default environments. Furthermore, when examining the
composition of the high yield market, Fitch finds that 71% of the market’s par value is concentrated in just one-quarter of the market’s issuers. A lower rate of default among these larger borrowers puts downward pressure on the overall par-based default rate.
Fitch believes that the issuer-based default rate will end the year in a range of 2% to 2.5%, versus the 1% forecast for the par-based rate.
The weighted average recovery rate on all defaults through September is 54% of par, above 2009’s 34.1% of par. The loss rate associated with bond defaults this year has therefore plummeted to just 0.23% when combining the year-to-date default rate of 0.5% with a recovery rate of 54% of par on the defaulted issues.
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Source: Fitch Ratings
ELX Exceeds 80,000 Contracts Of Open Interest In Eurodollar Futures
October 21, 2010--ELX Futures, L.P. (ELX) announced today that it has reached a milestone in open interest (OI) in its Eurodollar Futures contract, which was launched in June 2010. ELX also saw a significant rebound in volume and market share in its U.S. Treasury Futures contracts with large gains in its two-year and five-year Treasury notes in October.
MTD October Highlights:
OI for Eurodollar Futures exceeded 80,000 contracts; Eurodollar OI has more than doubled every month since product launch.
Single day Eurodollar Futures volume and market share records set at 17.7K and 1.4%, respectively.
Market share in Eurodollar contracts reached almost 1%, an increase of over 100% since September.
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Source: ELX Futures
President’s Working Group on Financial Markets Releases Money Market Funds Report
October 21, 2010--The President's Working Group on Financial Markets (PWG) today released a report detailing a number of options for reforms related to money market funds. These options address the vulnerabilities of money market funds that contributed to the financial crisis in 2008.
Following the crisis, the Treasury Department directed the PWG to develop this report to assess options for mitigating the systemic risk associated with money market funds and reducing their susceptibility to runs. The PWG agrees that, while a number of positive reforms have been implemented, more should be done to address this susceptibility.
The PWG now requests that the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), established by the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, consider the options discussed in this report and pursue appropriate next steps. To assist the FSOC in any analysis, the Securities and Exchange Commission, as the regulator of money market funds, will solicit public comments, including the production of empirical data and other information in support of such comments. A notice and request for comment will be published in the near future.
Today's release is one part in a series of steps that the regulatory community will be taking in the coming months to implement financial reform and to help ensure that the financial system continues to become more resilient.
view the Report of the
President’s Working Group on Financial Markets-Money Market Fund Reform Options
Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury
PowerShares files with the SEC
October 21, 2010--PowerShares has filed a post-effective amendment, registration statement with the SEC for 5 ETFs.
PowerShares S&P 500® High Beta Portfolio
PowerShares S&P 500® Low Beta Portfolio
PowerShares S&P 500® High Momentum Portfolio (NYSE Arca, Inc.
PowerShares S&P 500® High Volatility Portfolio
PowerShares S&P 500® Low Volatility Portfolio
view filing
Source: SEC.gov
Huntington Asset Advisors files with the SEC
October 21, 2010-Huntington Asset Advisors has filed an amended and restated application for exemptive relief with the SEC. Applicants request that the relief requested herein extend to any future series of the Trust and to any other open-end investment company or series thereof that is an actively managed exchange-traded fund (“ETF”) (“Future Funds”).
view filing
Source: SEC.gov
Huntington Asset Advisors files with the SEC
October 21, 2010--Huntington Asset Advisors has filed an amended and restated Application application for exemptive relief with the SEC.
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Source: SEC.gov
Fannie & Freddie ‘could cost US $363bn’
October 21, 2010--Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-owned mortgage finance companies, could cost US taxpayers as much as $363bn to the end of 2013, according to their regulator, less than some of the worst-case scenarios circulated by critics of the agencies, but more than projections by the White House.
Since they were rescued by the government in 2008, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have drawn $148bn from the US Treasury to stay afloat as losses on bad loans underwritten during the housing boom turned bad at a record pace.
In August, the Congressional Budget Office said Fannie and Freddie would need $390bn in federal subsidies to the end of 2019. The White House’s Office of Management and Budget had in February estimated the cost to be as little as $160bn for the same period, providing the economy continued to strengthen.
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Source: FT.com
Transatlantic clearing war set to get hotter
October 21, 2010--A transatlantic battle in the derivatives business is poised to heat up after LCH.Clearnet, the UK-based clearing house, said it would launch clearing of a vast untapped section of the interest rate swaps markets “in the next few weeks”.
The disclosure comes a week after rival CME Group, which owns the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, said it had started clearing interest rate swaps.
It will provide a boost to LCH.Clearnet, which has pinned much of its hopes for growth on cracking the US market for interest rate swaps clearing as it is losing customers in cash equities clearing in Europe.
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Source: FT.com
