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We were all worried at Euromoney this week, what with all the headlines about swine flu, when our esteemed editor rang in sick on Monday. He claimed he was feverish, felt a bit clammy and was shaky. Thankfully, it turns out that he was merely suffering from wine flu. This is a common affliction that seems to regularly do the rounds in the office, but normally on Fridays. It seems it’s contracted by simply glugging too many bottles of Rioja. Luckily, our leader was back on his feet by Tuesday and he arrived in the office just in time to see me disappear off to the Fifth International Rouble Settlement Forum, which was being hosted by Icap at its London headquarters.

JPMorgan has added new functionality to its Treasury OnLine cash management system. It now provides real-time, inter-company netting, along with improved cashflow forecasting capabilities. The enhancements are fully integrated with Treasury OnLine’s existing risk analysis and FX trading functions, allowing the bank’s clients to execute spot, forwards and swaps.

Standard Chartered believes that a significant step towards the monetary union of the members of the Gulf Cooperation Council will be taken next week. GCC leaders are meeting on May 5 to discuss where the common central bank will be located. In a brief note by Marios Maratheftis and Mary Nicola, Standard Chartered quotes a senior GCC official as saying four states want the honour.

Although Deutsche Bank doesn’t break down the numbers, some further proof of how profitable FX is for those who can manage flow came with the release of first-quarter figures from the bank. Revenues for what it describes as sales and trading (debt), which includes FX, came in at a whopping €3.8 billion. And even though volumes are widely reported to have dropped this quarter, Deutsche says its revenues from FX were double what they were back in the same quarter of 2007.

The Bank for International Settlements has just published a paper which it says shows, as most will have probably thought, that “China’s trade balance is sensitive to fluctuations in the real effective exchange rate of the renminbi”.

It seems that activity is picking up in the FX recruitment industry. Among those reportedly on the move this week are Ray Love and Kevin Eldridge from Deutsche Bank in London. I first met Ray in the early 1980s when I took his line as a broker when he was at the Bank of England. Expect him to resurface shortly. Elsewhere, Tom Meacham has left UBS Singapore, where he was an options trader.

Toronto Dominion has hired James (Jim) Cooper from Bank of America/Merrill Lynch as an FX options trader in New York; he reports to Dave Hitchens, the bank’s London-based global head of FX option trading.

As well as seeing the departure of James Cooper, Bank of America/Merrill Lynch has also reportedly seen the departure of Geoff Kot, head of its FX trading operations in Asia.

During 2008, Henderson Global Investors expanded into the advisory business and Ganesh Rajendra has been hired to drive this part of the business forward. Rajendra last worked at Deutsche Bank, where he was head of European ABS research.

Argentine officials are hopeful that a new currency swap deal with China will increase confidence in the peso and give the monetary authority greater power to defend the currency. On March 30 the two nations finalized a three-year currency swap worth $10 billion in order to facilitate mutual trade. So far China has limited these agreements to other Asian countries and this is the first such contract with any Latin currency. China contributes only 12% of Argentina’s total trade and so the real impact on the peso is likely to be small. However, this deal is an important political tool for the Argentinians. As elections loom, this move to maintain a stable currency is being well received.

Xetra International Market, Deutsche Börse’s new pan-European foray, will launch in the fourth quarter of this year. Xetra will enable trading participants in 19 European countries to deal in European blue-chip corporates while settling domestically.

Goldman Sachs received plaudits following its first-quarter results. It beat all estimates when it posted earnings of $1.8 billion, equating to $3.39 a share, compared with expectations of $1.80.