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I have never understood the attraction of gold. So I have watched with complete bafflement as its price has seemingly gone on a never-ending rally pretty much ever since Gordon Brown decided to sell half the UK’s gold reserves back in 1999.

As we all know, while execution in FX is generally excellent, for many of us the cost of dealing FX for physical delivery is exorbitant. In fact, many of the spreads quoted make even those in gold look reasonable. It has long baffled me that small punters can trade equities at the same price as institutions, but when it comes to buying physical FX, they have to hand over their arms and legs, even liver and kidneys too.

The Parker FX Index has reported a 1.34% return for February. A total of 78 investment programs reported results; 55 showed a positive return, while 23 made losses. On a risk-adjusted basis, the index was up 0.47% in February and the range of performances was from a positive 6.80% to a negative 4.94%. The top three funds on a reported basis were Alder Capital Global 20 Program of Dublin, Ireland (+6.80%), the Trigon FX Program of New York (+6.59%), and the ABN Amro Currency Fund of London, UK (+6.52%). The top three performers on a risk-adjusted basis were the Julius Baer Currency Hedge Fund (+4.44%), the ABN Amro Currency Fund (+3.18%), and the Trigon Currency Program (+3.04%). Parker says managers benefited from the dollar trending lower.

Icap has hired Cathy Lyall as its chief operating officer of exchange projects. The experienced and respected Lyall was previously managing director, EMEA, of the Chicago Board of Trade before its acquisition by the CME. She has also held a number of positions in the Australian trading and derivatives markets.

The highly respected Gavin Wells is pulling out of Citi after a 14-year stint at the bank. Wells who joined the bank after serving as an officer in the British army, marched swiftly through the ranks and was ultimately in command of its e-commerce trading force. Following Well’s decision to retreat back into civilian life, Citi is redeploying its forces into more specialist areas.

Compliance teams should not relax their procedures as the Securities and Exchange Commission considers a proposal to liberalize the use of exchange-traded funds

Bear Stearns Asset Management has introduced the Bear Stearns Current Yield Fund (YYY) onto the American Stock Exchange.

The Swiss Federal Banking Commission (SFBC) estimates that about 150 foreign exchange (forex) traders are registered as financial intermediaries in Switzerland, who have not been subject to regulation under Swiss banking and finance legislation.

The consequences of the credit squeeze have so many dimensions that we can appropriately speak of the end of an era, or of history in the unfolding.

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The Securities and Exchange Commission last week let the American Stock Exchange reinstate a revenue sharing program designed to encourage ETF traders and market makers to quote aggressively. The program was supposed to be extended at the end of December but had inadvertently been allowed to lapse, officials said. It is now being extended until December. The exchange pays ETF specialists $0.0024 per share whenever a specialist buys or sells ETFs and ends up being a liquidity provider in that transaction. If the specialist is not a liquidity provider on the transaction, he will only retain $0.0004 per share. Registered traders will receive $0.0010 per share and designated Amex remote traders will receive $0.0015 per share when they end up being liquidity providers. Amex will cap payments at 43,478 shares executed because the exchange caps customer transaction fees. Several traders said the program will prop up Amex’ ETF business as the exchange transitions to its merger with NYSE Group.

The Security Traders Association of New York has appointed Anthony Dudzinski, ceo and chief operating officer of XShares Advisors, an ETF developer, as the chairman of its new ETF committee. The committee will be responsible for scouting out trading opportunities in the ETF market for STANY member firms. He has over 23 years in the industry, including as the chief of M.H. Myerson & Co., a Nasdaq- and OTC market maker, and chief operating and compliance officer of Argent Securities.