Allocating a far greater proportion of their assets to foreign exchange is one way pension fund managers can help solve the widely predicted global pension crisis, according to Bilal Hafeez, managing director, global head of FX strategy at Deutsche Bank.

The SEC’s decision that it would not appeal against the judgement of the US Court of Appeals to strike down the regulator’s Rule amendments, which required hedge fund registration, has received a big thumbs-up from hedge fund managers, lawyers and consultants. The Alternative Investment Management Association, in particular, minced no words when giving its opinion about the overturned regulation. AIMA executive director Florence Lombard said: “We are pleased to see that the SEC has decided to take a fresh look at its proposal for hedge fund regulation. AIMA urges the SEC to ensure specifically that it permanently remove the requirement for non-US hedge fund managers also to register in the USA if they are already fully regulated in efficient jurisdictions, such as the UK and France. The requirement for dual registration, imposed by no other regulator worldwide, was unnecessary, expensive, led to complex issues for managers having to comply with very different sets of rules and created an un-level playing field.”

The abrupt departure of John Eley from Hotspot FX has set tongues wagging across the foreign exchange markets. News that Eley had relinquished his post as president and chief executive was announced in a bland release issued by Hotspot’s new parent, Knight Capital, on 10 August. A week later, Eley was still listed on Hotspot’s website as being in his previous position, suggesting his departure was not one that was part of a considered strategic thinking process.

The latest in a string of initiatives to encourage companies to list domestically has been unveiled.

The Egyptian government is about to part with one of its hottest assets. Bank of Alexandria, the country’s third-largest bank, with a balance sheet of $6.5 billion, will find itself in the hands of a strategic investor. And the government will find itself a good few Egyptian pounds richer.

Ukraine is likely to issue a new Eurobond in October, after a functioning government was finally installed in August.

A series of rate increases by major central banks means that the equity markets can no longer rely on the excess liquidity in financial markets for support.

Official reassures foreign investors following Pakistan Steel Mills fiasco.

Valuations of sustainable stocks are becoming less sustainable as alternatives become conventional.

2,000,000,000 the estimated annual dollar cost to fund managers tracking the S&P500 and Russell 2000 indices because of index changes, according to an academic study by professor Vijay Singal, of Virginia Tech, Honhui Chen, assistant professor at the University of Central Florida, and professor Gregory Noronha, of the University of Washington at Tacoma.

Gazprom became the largest stock in the MSCI EM index on September 1, after its foreign inclusion factor was increased from 20% to 40%. It now makes up 5.4% of the MSCI EM index (up from 2.8%), 18.6% of MSCI EMEA, and 35.9% of MSCI Eastern Europe. The decision means that Gazprom overtakes Samsung Electronics as largest included company; Samsung has a weighting of 3.7%.

With the US apparently nearing the end of its rate cycle, attention has started to focus again on the possibility of global central banks selling dollars and diversifying their reserves. But has the story has been overstated?

Investors can’t get enough of real estate. But property developers should get ready for the wall of money to shift to emerging markets.

With sentiment and finances in good shape, it’s time for emerging market sovereigns to rethink their debt profiles.

It’s not just Sarbanes-Oxley; changing global capital flows also threaten the US’s pre-eminent status as a financial centre.

Emerging market CFOs need to grasp the benefits of a proper hedging strategy.

Will US issuers and investment banks finally learn to love covered bonds?

The US is buried under a mountain of debt, much of it owned by past or current enemies. The ageing, ill man of Europe gets older and sicker. New economies of the Middle East, Latin America, emerging Europe and Asia are using windfalls to build for the future, and exert their influence across the globe. This is the new financial order. Markets will never be the same again.

Another critical event is now casting its shadow over the global investment banking industry.

The spending of the oil wealth will suck in imports, provide a medium-term economic boom and might swiftly and radically realign the global order of which countries boast what combination of real wealth, jobs and durable economic activity.

Despite the push into credit derivatives, end investors remain on the sidelines.

Anyone that has been in the presence of an investment banker in the past few years will have seen the all too obvious signs of CrackBerry abuse.

After the success of the first phase of the Philippines’ local debt consolidation programme, the republic’s treasurer, Omar Cruz, announced in August the launch of an additional debt exchange offer.

An oft-cited grievance of many a sell-side equity research analyst is that boring numerical analysis of mundane data and events, known as maintenance research in the trade, stifles creativity.

Since the passing of the UK’s Enterprise Act in April 2004, UK bankruptcies have doubled and individual voluntary arrangements (IVAs) – whereby borrowers can enter into a formal arrangement with their creditors – have risen fivefold. This is now becoming uncomfortably clear in the credit card ABS sector where charge-off levels were up from 4.72% in June 2005 to 7.04% in June 2006 according to S&Ps European Credit Card indices. Excess spread in these deals is trending commensurately downwards, from 7.13% to 6.31% over the same period.

By John Ferry

Depending on whom you believe, July was either a return to the black for hedge funds or a continuation in the red. In July, the Greenwich Van Global Hedge Fund Index lost 0.20%; the RBC Hedge 250 index returned –0.11%; and the HFRI Fund weighted composite index returned –0.24%. Credit Suisse/Tremont’s overall index returned 0.29%.

The governing council appears to be split between raising rates incrementally, at 25bp a time, and the short sharp shock of a 50bp hike.

Reports of the death of currencies as an asset class are surely exaggerated. Look for mean-reverting volatility to turn around the performance of currency funds.

Inflation is set to feed into the US economy, with destructive effects. But the beginning of the process won’t be the consumer slowdown that so many expect.