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Some readers will be pleased to know that this is my last column before I take a summer break. You can also have a break from my constant haranguing and phone stalking as I nail the biggest stories in the FX market – which is also heading for its summer quiet period. Rest assured though that we are keeping a close eye on the market and any big stories will be posted here on the FiX.

Scarcely a week goes by without some rich investment banker, broker or hedge fund manager contacting us and asking if we can send them an article out of the goodness of our hearts.

You just can’t keep Saxo out of the news. One week, the cycling team it sponsors is winning the world’s biggest annual sporting event, and the next it’s announcing that it has carried out an organizational restructuring of its senior management. With this much news flow, I can only assume that the bank is gearing up for an IPO.

The revival of the CME’s FX futures product line has been one of the financial success stories of the past decade.

The latest turnover figures from Icap, CME and CLS show that while spot volumes (assuming CME’s futures are predominantly used as a proxy for spot) are still growing, the rate of expansion is slowing. The average daily volume on EBS in July was $206 billion, a 9% increase over July 2007. On the CME, total FX turnover rose 2% on July 2007 to a daily average of 640,347 contracts, or $90.2 billion in nominal terms. Growth was stronger in its option contracts, which expanded by 7% over July 2007 to a daily average of $3 billion. This was largely driven by a greater move towards electronic trading, which expanded by 42%.

With the notable exception of the Fed, central bankers around the world seem overly concerned with the threat of inflation

A bit more light has been shed on our report last week that CMC Markets had embarked on a global redundancy programme.

When stock markets enthuse about the Fed going on hold and commodity prices falling back, we can but point out that the underlying problems are worsening.

Moscow-headquartered investment bank Renaissance Capital has teamed up with France’s BNP Paribas to offer investors a diversified form of structured equity exposure to the Russian market.

Armins Rusis is joining Markit’s executive team from Morgan Stanley as vice-president and global co-head of fixed income, alongside a founding partner at Markit, Kevin Gould. Rusis worked at Morgan Stanley for 17 years and was latterly head of US credit trading and global head of securitized and structured credit trading. Prior to that he worked in Europe, until May where he was head of credit trading. He was replaced by Patrick Lynch.