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Forex Capital Markets has reached an agreement to acquire certain assets of Hotspot FX’s retail business, Hotspot FXr. The decision is believed to have been a factor in the recent departure of Mike Williams from Hotspot, where he was senior managing director of Knight Capital, Hotspot’s parent. Knight will continue to run its institutional Hotspot FXi platform and integrate it into its electronic businesses.

Emma Davey is to leave her role as membership and business development manager at the London Metal Exchange and join the UK’s Futures and Options Association, where she will assume responsibility for member liaison and communications.

Steve ‘Mugger’ Merrigan joined Commerzbank Corporates and Markets as a senior technical analyst earlier this month, where he reports to Karen Jones. Merrigan was previously at Royal Bank of Scotland, but like so many talented individuals in the market, he started out at Midland Bank in the 1980s.

There’s nothing like building a team out of a group of disparate individuals. And it seems fair to say that what’s currently going on at Bank of America is really nothing like building a team. The bank is staggering from one PR crisis to another following the take over of Merrill Lynch, and while it does, it seems to be doing its best to demoralise the BofA veterans. Last week, while waiting to see if they still had a role in the newly merged entity, they had to contend with the news that Merrill had rushed through bonus payments to its staff. This week, reports suggest that they have been told that any bonus they might have been expecting has been deferred until 2010. The bank won’t comment, but if management adopt the usual Forming – Storming – Norming – Performing approach to team building, I’ll wager that the bit that includes going down the pub for a few sherbets will require former Merrill staff to get the beers in.

FX really is a market of contradictions. Consolidation is impacting the market across the spectrum.

The Parker FX Index has reported a +0.66% return for December.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has obtained a federal court order freezing the assets of companies Atwood & James Ltd and Atwood & James SA and the individuals Michael Kardonick and Gary Shapoff. The court has also issued an order prohibiting the destruction of documents as well as appointing a receiver.

Various semi-official bodies released volume figures this week, providing a useful picture of the health of the market.

It didn’t take long for Timothy Geithner, the new US Treasury secretary, to make his presence felt. Before his appointment had even been confirmed, Geithner rolled out the ‘M’ word, effectively accusing China of manipulating the yuan.

Around the time I started in the FX market back in 1981, a new form of humour was emerging in the UK, labelled alternative comedy. Its detractors claimed that it wasn’t funny. I wonder if the same accusation could be made for what have become known as alternative investments?

In a high-profile move, Grigory Marchenko has been appointed as chairman of the National Bank of Kazakhstan (NBK) for the second time, replacing his successor, Anvar Saidenov.

"The negative net revenues for FICC in the quarter were due to losses from investments, including corporate debt and private and public equities, and trading in credit products. These results were adversely impacted by unprecedented weakness across the broader credit markets..."