The Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s requirement to increase the amount of net adjusted capital needed to operate in the retail FX market to $15 million on January 17 has led ODL Securities to decide it is no longer worth operating in the US. Sources close to ODL say that having pulled out from the west, it will now refocus on the east.

Retail FX provider FXCM has launched a new platform, Active Trader, which it says is aimed at the higher end of the market. The platform has greater depth of book transparency and, unlike most other retail offerings, charges commission, determined by volumes, to trade. FXCM says this enables it to pass on tighter spreads from its liquidity providers. Accounts will require minimum deposits of $25,000 or a history of active trading.

The decision of the Federal Reserve to turn on the printing presses will result in a re-run of the 1970s. For investors the best safe havens are hard assets, including gold – Keynes’ “barbarous relic”, writes Lincoln Rathnam.

VTB, Russia’s second-biggest bank, announced worse-than-expected results for the third quarter after making a loss of $369 million following the doubling of its provisioning levels. Analysts at Nomura reckon that the biggest challenge facing VTB is that the equity capital of the bank declined by $1.5 billion in the third quarter alone. The bank’s chief financial officer has said that it needs to raise tier 1 capital and is hopeful that its minority shareholders will come to the rescue. In the third quarter, the bank’s capital adequacy ratio fell to 14% from 15.8%, although it’s still well above the Russian minimum level of 10%. The bank’s tier 1 ratio dropped to 12.7% from 14.4% in the second quarter.

A research report by Gulf Finance House raises the possibility of Kuwait going back to a dollar peg because of extreme volatility in the FX markets and to unfreeze its money markets. "Based on conversations with treasurers, the presence of FX risk premium is effectively imposing a barrier against the flow of funds from cheaper sources in the GCC to Kuwaiti banks," says the report. "Accordingly, dinar interbank rates remain the highest in the region, even after the recent moves of the Central Bank of Kuwait to activate repo facilities of 1% overnight and 3% one-month." Kuwait adopted a basket peg in May 2007 to contain inflationary pressures. The other GCC countries have their currencies pegged to the dollar.

With the current scrutiny on budgets, it is inevitable that IT spending will come under some pressure. According to a recent report from consultancy Celent Communications: "Global information technology spending by financial services institutions will reach $358 billion in 2008." This is a 4.5% increase over 2007, but is, says the firm, "substantially lower than the 6.4% growth achieved in 2007. The financial crisis and economic uncertainty have financial institutions tightening their belts."

European Commission digs its heels in over central counterparty.

Can this year be any worse for IPOs? 296 is the number of IPOs withdrawn or postponed in 2008; $1.1 billion is the amount raised from the seven IPOs completed in the US during the second half of 2008, with the $145 million offering by Grand Canyon Education being the only US deal to price in the fourth quarter of 2008, when global IPO revenues to bank arrangers slumped 98% compared with the fourth quarter of 2007. Bankers aren’t enthusiastic about IPO prospects for 2009 but at least the annual comparisons are going to be easier.

Goodbye SLS, hello APF.

Premier Foods seeking approval for rights issue and placement.

Where there is market turmoil, you can bet your bottom dollar there will be a lawsuit. And indeed, more than betting, these days investors are handing over money on a long-term basis to fund managers who will pick out lawsuits that are likely to pay out.

Argentina’s restructuring veteran says debt default plans are unrealistic

TraderTools has secured an additional $7.5 million of funding. Edison Venture Fund put in $7 million, with the remainder raised from the company’s management. Edison is a specialist at providing capital to companies in their expansion stage; it has experience of FX through an investment in online FX specialist Gain Capital. TraderTools says the funding will be used to expand sales, marketing and development of its Liquidity Management Platform.

As the ban on shorting 34 financial stocks lifted in the UK on January 16, shares at first rose but then fell sharply the following week after more bad news from banks. The Financial Services Authority is forcing hedge funds to disclose short sales of financials. Lansdowne Partners admitted to shorting Barclays Bank on one day that the bank lost 25% of its value. There were only six reports of short sales of more than 0.25% of a company. Barclays and RBS, however, saw much of their value wiped out in January as stock was sold off. The Australian Securities and Investments Commission extended its ban on shorting financials that it imposed last September. The ban will remain in place until March 6.

Investors who supported those bank capital raisings may be regretting it already.

On January 12, Bradesco announced that it had promoted Luiz Carlos Trabuco Cappi to chief executive, replacing Marcio Cypriano. Cappi previously headed the bank’s insurance unit. Cypriano will continue as chairman and chief executive of the bank until the annual shareholder meeting in March. After 10 years in the role Cypriano was not able to renew his contract because he had reached the mandatory retirement age of 65 years.

Downsizing in CLO, CDO, CSO; upscaling mortgage and ABS.

Structured products are proving neither as safe nor as lucrative as investors were led to expect. However, discomfited clients are prompting those banks that have survived to devise products better suited to difficult conditions. Peter Koh reports.

Analysts debate just how clued up Trichet and the council are to the problems of the real world.

Following its takeover of Merrill Lynch, some clarification has started to emerge from Bank of America about its management structure. Chris Allington and Chris Vogel are co-heads of G10 currency trading; Peter Antico is head of Americas rates and local-currency trading; Luke Halestrap is head of EMEA rates and local-currency trading; Chris Hodson is head of global rates electronic trading and market making; Mitch Nadel is head of Japan/Australia rates and currency trading; Nicolas Rabeau and Neh Thaker are co-heads of global rates and currencies exotics trading; Jin Su is head of Asia-Pacific rates and currency trading excluding Japan/Australia; and Frank Rawlins and Behnouche Mostachfi are co-heads of global FX options trading.

Foreign exchange prime brokers and their exchange-traded product counterparts, the full commission merchants (FCMs), will be fully aware of the complexities involved in modern risk management. To an extent, the uptake of electronic trading has made their task far easier – there are clear audit trails, and trade confirmations are, in most cases, sent out in almost real time.

Bill Schwab has been appointed global head of real estate at the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (Adia). Schwab joins from JPMorgan, where he was managing director of European real estate finance.

Dan Condon has joined Standard Chartered as e-channels product manager in Singapore. Condon was previously vice-president, sales, at FXMarketSpace. Meanwhile, sources say Jens Andersen has left his role at Morgan Stanley in New York, where he was head of Americas trading for FXEM. He is believed to be going to Caxton.

Yes, the share prices of RBS, Lloyds and Barclays have been crushed. The equity markets simply must adjust to banks' reduced status

Banco do Brasil has agreed to buy a 50% stake in Banco Votorantim for R$4.2 billion ($1.84 billion), much less than originally expected. Last year there were rumours that Banco do Brasil would buy 49% of Votorantim for R$6.5 billion. The combined entity will have R$553.3 billion in assets, R$275.7 billion in deposits and a credit portfolio of R$232.8 billion.

Russian fund group Da Vinci Capital Management has launched the marketing campaign for its latest investment vehicle. The CIS Private Sector Value Fund (PSVF) is designed to offer investors the chance to profit from the opportunities available in private equity in Russia and other members of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Credit Suisse has announced the formation of a new group in its EMEA global markets solutions business (GMSB) designed to address what co-head of global investment banking Jim Amine describes as a “unique opportunity” presented by the current debt market dislocation.

Academics at the University of Portsmouth are undertaking an unconventional study into new business methods, commissioned by transition consultants Advanced Workplace Associates (AWA).

According to Euromoney’s favourite Feng Shui queen, Master Lynn Yap, the coming 12 months will be nothing if not harrowing.