Currency Trading Volume Reaches Records for U.K., North America
By Catarina Saraiva at Bloomberg
Currency markets reached record highs in October for average daily trading volume in the U.K. and North America, according to central bank reports.
The average daily volume was the greatest in the U.K., where it totaled $1.82 trillion, up 24 percent from a year earlier and 8 percent higher than in April, the Foreign Exchange Joint Standing Committee said in a statement on the Bank of England’s website today. In North America, daily turnover reached a record $772 billion, results of the Federal Reserve’s Foreign Exchange Committee’s survey showed.

UK Oct Daily Forex Trading Turnover Highest On Record
By Clare Connaghan at DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
LONDON (Dow Jones)–Currency trading flows in the U.K.–the world’s biggest dealing hub–grew by 8% in the six months to October, taking the daily average to $1.821 trillion, the highest turnover since the survey began in 2004, data released by the Bank of England showed Monday.
On the year, trading in foreign exchange was up 24% in the U.K., the Foreign Exchange Joint Standing Committee said in its semiannual report that is coordinated with other major central banks around the world.

Asian Equities: Trading Slowdown Leaves Institutions Short of Commission “Currency”
CLSA Tops List of 2010 Greenwich Leaders for Asian Cash Equities

Wednesday, January 26, 2011 Stamford, CT USA — 2010 was a challenging year for equity brokers building out their presence in Asian markets — many of which are counting on continued growth in the region’s institutional stock markets as well as their own ability to win trading business and relationships away from the region’s established leaders.

The results of Greenwich Associates’ 2010 Asian Equity Investors Study show that the pool of commissions paid by institutional investors to brokers on trades of Asian equities was flat to just slightly higher from 2009 to 2010 — despite strong stock market performance that drove the MSCI Asia Pacific Index to a two-and-a-half year high in Q4 2010. On a per capita basis commission payments actually declined year-over-year — a drop that was offset by the arrival of new institutional market participants.

The fact that many institutions actually reduced the amount of commissions paid on Asian equity trades over the past year represents a challenge for brokers large and small that have continued to make investments in the region. Specifically for up-and-coming brokers, the contraction in commission payments on the part of many individual institutions has left some potential new clients “under-budget” in terms of the commission payments available to pay for research-related services and limited in their ability to allocate trading business beyond their list of current brokerage relationships.

Brokers can take some solace in the fact that the growth trends in Asia remain very positive when viewed over a longer period. “The Asian equity commission pool has more than doubled over the past five years, making it one of the fastest growing markets in the world,” says Greenwich Associates consultant John Feng. “It illustrates Asia’s appeal to firms with global or region-wide ambitions, though the year-to-year volatility also underscores the need for a long term commitment to the region for those who have made Asia a center piece of their growth strategy.”

Greenwich Leaders

Brokers looking to win market share in institutions’ Asian equity research and trading business will have to capture it from a group of established market leaders led this year by CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets. CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets and Credit Suisse lead the market with a 9.5% share in Asian equity trading with institutions in Asia Pacific, followed by Morgan Stanley and Deutsche Bank (who are essentially tied with markets shares of 8.6-8.9%), and then by Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and UBS (who are essential tied with market shares in a band between 7.8% and 8.3%). These firms are the 2010 Greenwich Share Leaders in Asian Equity Trading.

CLSA also leads the market in Asian Equity Research/Advisory Services with an institutional voting share of 10.3%, followed by Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, and Morgan Stanley—which are all essentially tied with shares between 8.8% and 9.3%. These firms, along with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and UBS are the 2010 Greenwich Share Leaders in Asian Equity Research/Advisory.

CLSA is the 2010 Greenwich Quality Leader in Asian Equity Research/Analyst Service Quality and Asian Equity Sales Quality. CLSA is also a Greenwich Quality Leader in Asian Equity Trading Quality, along with Deutsche Bank and Morgan Stanley.

Deutsche Bank tops the list of 2010 Greenwich Share and Quality Leaders in Asian Flow Equity Derivatives. Deutsche Bank is joined as a Greenwich Share Leader by Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse and UBS.

In 2010, Greenwich Associates interviewed 259 Asian equity fund managers and analysts, 107 buyside trading desks and 84 users of equity derivatives products at institutions based in Asia. Greenwich Share Leaders are identified based on reported votes for Asian equity research/advisory services, trading commissions and derivatives market penetration for individual brokers by these institutions. Greenwich Quality Leaders are firms that have distinguished themselves by receiving quality ratings from institutional clients that exceed those awarded to competitors by a statistically significant margin.

For more information contact:
Joan Weber
+1 (203) 625 4354

Hi all,

I’ll share with you today the very well produced video that Andrei Knight sent us for our 10th Anniversary and that we broadcast at our last ITC in Barcelona last month!

Thanks Andrei for being such a good contributor and for your kind words!

Hi all,

Today I’ll share with you the greetings that James Chen sent us for our 10th anniversary during our conference in Barcelona 3 weeks ago!

Thanks for your nice words, James!

Hi all,

Another video greeting for our 10th Anniversary… this time from Ashraf Laidi! He was in Madrid when he recorded this. It was just a week before coming to Barcelona to attend our Anniversary Dinner!

Ashraf Laidi was one of the guest speakers at our International Traders Conference in 2009.

Hi all,

Here is another video that was broadcast at our International Traders Conference 10th Anniversary edition… This time it’s Valeria Bednarik, speaker of our ITC Barcelona 2009, who sends us anniversary congratulations from her home in Buenos Aires, Argentina!

Thanks Val, that’s our proud to work with you!

Hi everyone

Here you have a great family picture of the 4th edition of FXstreet’s International Traders Conference that took place here in Barcelona a couple of weeks ago.

I want to thank to Larry Levy for allowing us to publish this very special picture.

Francesc

Photo: Larry Levy (c) TraderSpeak.com & e-Forex.net

Hi all,

At the ITC Barcelona 2 weeks ago, we broadcast video greetings that guest speakers of other ITC editions had sent us to congratulate us for our anniversary!

I’m going to upload them here, one after the other. I will start with Dirk du Toît, from DayForex, right from South Africa!

Hi everyone

As you all know, last Friday after 3 days of intensive social networking, trading and education, we put an end to the 4th edition of the International Traders Conference.

We can proudly say that this year’s ITC has been a great success.

The level of demanding of the attendees was very high as almost 50 percent of them were returning attendees, so they knew what we had to offer them.

So seeing the level of satisfaction we have accomplished is a matter of great happiness for me.

Since last Friday, the positive feed-back received has been overwhelming so today I could not resist to share with you one very special feed-back we have received this very morning that made my day.

I want to thank Michael J. Davies for his kind words and tell him that we are extremely happy that you are already considering attending to ITC 2011.

Thanks!

Francesc

———————————-
From: Michael Davies
Date: Tue, Oct 26, 2010 at 9:33 AM
Subject: ITC 2010 - thank you message
To: maud fxstreet <maudATfxstreet.com>

Dear Maud,

I would like to offer my personal thanks to FXStreet for hosting last week’s ITC in Barcelona.

Despite Rob Booker’s sad absence, your choice of speakers gave us a very comprehensive mix of different trading styles.

Barcelona provided a wonderful backdrop to the ITC and has quickly risen to the top of my list of European city destinations.  I fully understand why you prefer to host the ITC on your home soil rather than take it on the road.  You not only have a beautiful city for us to enjoy but the full backup of your technical staff on hand to offer assistance.

FXStreet were wonderful hosts.  Your organization was superb.  You spared no effort to ensure that we were catered to and well fed and watered throughout.  I appreciate the effort you put into the ITC and your hospitality and attention to detail went well beyond my expectations.

Thank you so much, not only to you personally for the help you gave me with my hotel problems prior to the ITC starting but to all the staff of FXStreet, many of whom sadly I did not meet.  Please feel free to post my comments and I look forward to ITC 2011.

Kindest Regards,

Michael

Michael J. Davies
Germany
———————————-

Hi everyone

After three exhausting days, the International Traders Conference 2010 ended last Friday afternoon so the team brought all the stuff back to the office with the help and the company of our guest speakers.

After visiting the office, all went for a nice dinner and some deserved drinks.

Triffany Harmmond was the guest photographer for a day and sent us these three nice pictures.

Thanks Triffany

Francesc