No money lost on trading, bank says; Uncertainty may hit hiring plans

Brazil’s government is a victim of its own economic success.

Just as I thought the market was winding down for the year and gearing up for all those Christmas parties – yes, some banks are still splashing the cash – it all kicks off in FX. According to one quality newspaper: “A febrile and disorderly foreign exchange market spooked investors on Thursday, after the yen surged to a 14-year high against the greenback and gold drove towards the $1,200 level... Gold took advantage of the frantic forex action to hit another high of $1,194.90 an ounce.”

The Trade Bank of Iraq has connected to the Thomson Reuters Dealing trading service. Thomson Reuters says the deal reinforces its position in FX dealing and further expands its global dealing community.

Customer funds allegedly used to purchase property, develop a hotel and casino, buy cars, a house boat and a submarine.

Given the dollar’s reported travails, it is perhaps no surprise that ICE has seen a substantial increase in its dollar index futures. In terms of contracts traded, activity this year is already 17% higher than in 2008 and November is already a record month, with around 320,000 contracts having changed hands.

Retail specialist FXCM has opened an office in Milan. The subsidiary will be regulated by the Italian regulator, CONSOB, and offer FXCM’s normal services.

The well-regarded and ever-personable Sean Comer has left his role as chief operating officer for Barclays Capital’s FX business and moved to Deutsche, where he will be a managing director. Loose talk suggests that Comer has gone for a substantial pay rise. “Has Deutsche doubled his salary because it does twice the amount of business?” I asked Barclays. For some reason this seems to have upset both Barclays and Deutsche.

It was off to a series of client presentations by BNP Paribas yesterday.

A Chinese-made spanner has been thrown into the rebalancing works with their RMB pegged to the USD. The existing economic situation is untenable, but how will it end?

There are obviously legal sensitivities involved, but until SocGen clarifies why it suspended two senior FX staff, especially if no losses occurred, the departures will remain the subject of speculation – and some of that will be wrong.

I had to laugh this week when I saw that Marcus Bolton, chief executive Americas at Tullett Prebon, had gone in for a bit of mutual backslapping with a headhunter on LinkedIn. “Steve helped us in our search for a salesperson in a very specialised area of the equity markets. His knowledge of the market landscape, what was available and his understanding of what our needs precisely were impressed me greatly at the time. I would not hesitate in using him again or recommending his service to others,” he wrote.

A recent lunch with one global head of FX at a major player yielded a funny story. He told me that someone at his own bank tried to rip him off for a couple of big figures on a decent-sized personal account deal recently. Incredulous, a clerk asked the ‘ripper offer’ if they knew who they were striping up. Apparently that was no deterrent. Still, the clerk is now first in line for a job in the dealing room. I’m glad to see that sense is still rewarded.

It’s a tough call – or put depending on your choice – on Icap.

Last week, the London Stock Exchange trumpeted that it was listing currency-based exchange traded funds. This week, it’s the turn of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange to jump on the FX bandwagon. In what is a first for South Africa, Standard Bank has launched currency reference warrants in what it says is a “response to the growing popularity of currency trading in South Africa.”

Deutsche Bank is motoring this week, despite the cynical view of one of its clients. The bank is poised to add new functionality to autobahnFX over the weekend, including significantly upgraded option and other order functionality, as well as post-trade enhancements. This won’t include, as the client suggested, any ‘Route this order to Barx’ functionality.

You can’t beat deal making, so Eurobase Banking Solutions is a winner. The company has been awarded an integration project by Banco do Brasil, which is Brazil’s largest bank. The project is to provide full front-to-back straight-through processing, with the company’s Siena Front Office as the starting point in the chain.

Steve ‘Wham’ Braithwaite is returning to London after a decade out of the country. Braithwaite, who was most recently Saxo’s head of FX and fixed income trading, is joining RBC Dexia as global head of FX trading. Sources close to Braithwaite suggest that he had grown tied of the commute between London and Copenhagen and that he is looking forward to his new challenge – which is not spending more time with his family, but you never know.

State Street has hired Jason Fromer, former head of FX execution at Putnam Investments in Boston, in FX sales.

The rebuilding of UBS continues; the bank has hired Tim Sharp, who joins the bank in Zurich as a senior options trader. Sharp, who comes from Dresdner Kleinwort, reports to Gideon Hyams. Jason Sie, previously chief dealer at BNP Singapore, and Raymond NG, who held senior roles in London and Singapore at Citi, both join as senior spot traders in Singapore. They will report to Lai Yuk-Nyen, chief dealer at UBS Singapore.

Colin George, just one of the many nice chaps to get spun out of Bank of America Merrill Lynch, has not had to twiddle his thumbs for long. Buzz is that he has resurfaced at Standard Chartered in Singapore, where he will trade options and report to Behnouche Mostachfi, who also once worked for BofA Merrill.

People moves: RBS leavers get the clap

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is believed to have hired Liam Hudson from Barclays NY, where he was a director of FX algorithmic execution. Rumour has it that he will be global head of FX e-trading, although there is no official comment from the bank.

Icap, the world’s premier interdealer broker – I have to leave that claim in once, it’s in every release the broker sends out and deserves a mention for being so hyperbolical – has hired Mark Beeston as business development director for post-trade services. This is a new role. Beeston will report to Mark Yallop, the company’s chief operating officer.

More Currency pairs

Cheap money always looks for a home, even a risky one, and that builds bubbles. But where? Can emerging markets without currency manipulation avoid them?

Global head of spot and option trading, head of structuring Europe and Asia, are both asked to leave.

Word is that Kevan Conlon is to move over to the buy side. He had been trading prop FX at Calyon, but the buzz is that he starts at Infinity Capital Markets on Monday.

Apologies if the column is a bit shambolic this week. I spent Tuesday night at a sleep disorder clinic, where, almost predictably, I got hardly any sleep at all. In fact, I’ve been so knackered that I have hardly been able to keep pace with events in FX over that last few days.

Sometimes, such as after lunch yesterday with one of the market’s bigger cheeses, I wonder if it’s possible to game the algos that seem to be taking over FX. That said, if you want to survive in today’s market, you have to get smart.