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Rato can take the lead in combating the “financial balance of terror”.

“When we were marketing our Asia hedge fund five years ago, one head of a large US fund of hedge funds observed: ‘Shanghai, eh? I bet you get great sushi there’”

“By the end of the year we’ll have seen a lot of money being shifted around between hedge funds. Investors are getting anxious about returns and will certainly be rethinking their allocations and redistributing assets.”

It’s not just Sarbanes-Oxley; changing global capital flows also threaten the US’s pre-eminent status as a financial centre.

A new product, and a new law, could herald the beginning of institutional investment in global markets.

Are things finally starting to move forward in the much-heralded property derivatives market?

Since the passing of the UK’s Enterprise Act in April 2004, UK bankruptcies have doubled and individual voluntary arrangements (IVAs) – whereby borrowers can enter into a formal arrangement with their creditors – have risen fivefold. This is now becoming uncomfortably clear in the credit card ABS sector where charge-off levels were up from 4.72% in June 2005 to 7.04% in June 2006 according to S&Ps European Credit Card indices. Excess spread in these deals is trending commensurately downwards, from 7.13% to 6.31% over the same period.

By John Ferry

Depending on whom you believe, July was either a return to the black for hedge funds or a continuation in the red. In July, the Greenwich Van Global Hedge Fund Index lost 0.20%; the RBC Hedge 250 index returned –0.11%; and the HFRI Fund weighted composite index returned –0.24%. Credit Suisse/Tremont’s overall index returned 0.29%.

Allocating a far greater proportion of their assets to foreign exchange is one way pension fund managers can help solve the widely predicted global pension crisis, according to Bilal Hafeez, managing director, global head of FX strategy at Deutsche Bank.

The SEC’s decision that it would not appeal against the judgement of the US Court of Appeals to strike down the regulator’s Rule amendments, which required hedge fund registration, has received a big thumbs-up from hedge fund managers, lawyers and consultants. The Alternative Investment Management Association, in particular, minced no words when giving its opinion about the overturned regulation. AIMA executive director Florence Lombard said: “We are pleased to see that the SEC has decided to take a fresh look at its proposal for hedge fund regulation. AIMA urges the SEC to ensure specifically that it permanently remove the requirement for non-US hedge fund managers also to register in the USA if they are already fully regulated in efficient jurisdictions, such as the UK and France. The requirement for dual registration, imposed by no other regulator worldwide, was unnecessary, expensive, led to complex issues for managers having to comply with very different sets of rules and created an un-level playing field.”

The abrupt departure of John Eley from Hotspot FX has set tongues wagging across the foreign exchange markets. News that Eley had relinquished his post as president and chief executive was announced in a bland release issued by Hotspot’s new parent, Knight Capital, on 10 August. A week later, Eley was still listed on Hotspot’s website as being in his previous position, suggesting his departure was not one that was part of a considered strategic thinking process.