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Plan sponsors are turning their attention toward frontier markets as emerging markets continue to gain popularity among institutional investors.

Charlie Berman, a long-standing veteran of the debt origination business at Citi, is moving internally to a new job in investment banking. Berman is a Salomon stalwart, who during a long career has run European debt capital markets, either jointly or solely, and the frequent borrower business.

A ray of sunshine with a fall in commodity prices and financial market optimism, but it can only be a brief respite as clouds return and spread beyond the USA.

The backbiting between the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq OMX Group has escalated, with the NYSE comparing Nasdaq’s share and listing statistics to "A Midsummer Night’s Dream." NYSE member firm and listings departments fired off nearly-identical missives to members and issuers saying that like the romantic comedy, Nasdaq’s marketing of its volume and listings successes "blends identities and blurs the lines between fantasy and reality." NYSE has called attention to what it perceives to be inaccuracies in Nasdaq’s reporting for the past few months, and it promises to continue to do so without "Shakespearean drama."

It seems that lately everyone wants in on currency exchange-traded fund action. Wisdom Tree and Barclays Global Investors recently launched currency ETFs and last week Rydex Investments announced it would launch four currency ETFs that focus on Hong Kong, Singapore, Russia and South Africa. So far no firms have been speculative enough to launch a currency ETF based on the Zimbabwean dollar. Count yourself lucky volatility-hating investors!

It’s often said that it’s far easier to predict where a market is going when you’re sitting on the sidelines. Not being directly involved in a market allows a clarity of thought lost to all but the most intellectually-detached traders. Most people find their views get distorted either by their positions or P&L.

It has become an unwritten rule between the banks that they do not comment when each others’ platforms suffer glitches. And it makes sense not to express any schadenfreude, because the nature of technology means we all have an IT nightmare at some stage.

Last week I wrote that I was considering launching a TV version of the WeeklyFiX. This week I have had another brainwave about how to take the column to a broader audience.

As I have stressed time and time again, there is a lot of excellence in FX. Unfortunately though, when it comes to receiving pitches for the Euromoney Awards for Excellence, there seems to be a misunderstanding that only the big boys need apply.

It’s been a strange week for Saxo.

I don’t think any of the headline above is true, but if you lived in the UK you’d think it was from reading the popular press. I did ask my contact list if they could help me stand this story up. I got an amazing response, including a request to incorporate a story about an Australian bloke who spent AUD1,000 a week on beer. However, having heard what my Euromoney colleagues got up at last week’s Excellence Dinner, I reckon he’s a lightweight.

Although he was, as you’d expect, a little more subtle in his delivery than I have suggested, the testimony of Dan Roth, the president and chief executive of the US National Futures Association to Congress last week, was pretty punchy.