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The most requested record this week at weeklyFiX FM is...

I was prompted this week to send an open letter to Alistair Darling, the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, as a result of the extreme volatility and confusion stalking the country’s equity market. The same letter could have been sent to most of his G7 (or G10 or G58 for that matter) counterparts.

The CME has launched a new version of its CME E-quotes information platform. “CME Group partnered with Chicago-based Computer Voice Systems Inc. to transform their data system into a platform that will provide market participants a sophisticated and intuitive tool to reliably engage the latest news, analytics and quotes,” says Brian McElligott, the CME’s director of information products management. "This is another example of our continued focus on providing our customers with the latest market data technology at a significant value to view and analyse our markets and to better reach more informed decisions,” he adds.

In a continuation of its strategy to embed itself with asset managers, FXall has formed a partnership with Linedata Services. This will allow Linedata’s clients to access FXall through its LongView Trading order management system (OMS).

The Parker FX Index, made up of 70 investment funds, fell 0.73% in August. Just 28 managers reported positive results, while 42 incurred losses. On a risk-adjusted basis, the index was down 0.35% in August. Performance s ranged from a high of +16.55% to a low of -16.27%. Year-to-date, the index is up a paltry 1.58%. The top-three performing funds for the month on a reported basis, were: Trigon FX Program of New York, (+16.55%); the UBS O’Connor Currency and Rates Portfolio of London, (+9.43%) and the Richmond Group Global Currency Fund of Richmond (+6.42%). The top-three performers on a risk-adjusted basis were: Trigon FX Program (+6.59%); Capricorn FXG10 Strategy (+6.25%) and the Rhicon Strategic Fund (+5.18%).

Standard Chartered Bank has hired Lennart Augustsson from Credit Suisse in the newly created role of developer, modelling and analytics group, financial markets. The bank says this reflects its interest in expanding its functional programming practices.

Well-placed sources say Richard Gladwin, former global head of FX at Lehman Brothers, has joined Nomura. The Japanese house issued a press release this week announcing that it had hired 150 former Lehman staff to bolster its existing credit, interest rates and foreign exchange businesses. However, it was unable, at the time of writing, to provide any firm details about Gladwin. Martin Zinkin, who ran Lehman’s e-commerce offering is also believed to be making the move, together with several other staff. More details are expected later.

The US Federal Reserve is stepping beyond efforts to bolster and support short-term financial markets: it is replacing them.

The long-anticipated ISDA auction settlement of Lehman CDS trades took place October 10 amid heightened nervousness in the market about what the impact of the final settlement price will be. The key issue in the Lehman auction is the net open interest (buyers versus sellers) for the contracts – which initially shows US$4.92 billion to sell.

A flight to safety by investors kept exchange-traded funds from bleeding assets during the month of September. While the $579.5 billion in ETF assets is a loss of about $2.9 billion for the month, according to the latest ETF Snapshot from State Street Global Advisors. The loss is modest compared to most equity indexes, which lost about 10%, said Tom Anderson, head of ETF strategy and research at SSGA.

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