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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.

China’s National Development and Reform Commission announced on July 22 that it would strengthen approval requirements for foreign capital inflow in an effort to control more speculative investments. In a note analysing the potential impact of the changes, Qu Hongbin and Ma Xiaoping, economists at HSBC, say that the major changes include requirements for all foreign investments to seek NDRC approval, stricter reviews of the credibility of foreign investment projects and "the prevention of capital inflows that are not based on real investments."

Promising "a new exchange for the new economic world order", the Singapore Mercantile Exchange (SMX) aims to be the Asian hub of commodities derivatives trading. The exchange, announced on July 9, will offer futures and options trading in precious metals, base metals, energy, agricultural commodities, currency pairs, carbon credits and commodity indices.

How have the constituent parts of the interest rate derivatives market held up through the worst financial crisis in a generation? Total Derivatives provides a case-by-case study.

When the US SEC announced in July that it would impose a 30-day ban on illegal naked shorting in 19 stocks, some hedge funds were up in arms.