Stories

• Briefs 01 July 2003

• Briefs 01 July 2003

• Cleared for energy 01 July 2003

  Les Male and Stephen Wiggins* analyse the risk management advantages of energy clearing

• Comment 01 July 2003

• Credit derivatives: restructuring special report 01 July 2003

• Derivatives under fire again 01 July 2003

  Another day, another derivatives-related accounting scandal.This time, the finger is pointing at Freddie Mac, the second-largest player in the home-mortgage market in the US. In January, the company restated its earnings for 2000-2002 after its new auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers (hired after Freddie Mac fired Arthur Andersen), recommended changes to its accounting policies to reflect higher earnings related to derivatives.

• Emerging Europe 01 July 2003

  Recent warnings by the EC to the countries preparing to join the EU have highlighted areas in need of attention. However,the outlook for their derivative markets is positive

• Eurex enhances portfolios 01 July 2003

  Trading strategies employing Eurex futures contracts can improve returns and lower volatility in stock/bond portfolios, according to research partly funded by the exchange.

• European gas 01 July 2003

• Exchange traded equity derivatives 01 July 2003

  Exchange traded derivatives around the world have risen, with marked increases in the exchange traded equity derivative markets.

• Innovest launches CVaR 01 July 2003

  CVaR is set to facilitate more accurate quantification of firms ' exposure to carbon risk

• Introduction to derivatives: convertible bonds 01 July 2003

  The sixth part of this series details the convertible bond

• Ka-ching: playing by numbers 01 July 2003

  We know that police arrest suspected criminals; we know that prosecutors and judges try and convict bad guys. And we know that the plaintiff's Bar recovers losses for victims who have been abused. But what do regulators do? Surely it ought not to be the same as any of the aforementioned, or else we are paying twice for the same service.

• Latin American fx 01 July 2003

  Acombination of weak anticipated economic growth across the region, with an extremely benign inflationary outlook, resulted in a relatively active month in Latin American currencies.

• Legal definition 01 July 2003

  The regulation and law of derivatives is a complex and largely undefined area. However, "The Law on Financial Derivatives" defines some of these issues

• Merger forms Korea bourse 01 July 2003

  Korea's three futures and securities exchanges are to merge before December 2004 under a government edict to strengthen the markets. The decision comes after more than two years of lobbying by exchanges and sometimes strikes by labour unions to secure better terms.

• Natsource to launch GHG buyers pool 01 July 2003

  Having closed the final design group for its greenhouse gas credit aggregation pool (GG-CAP) in April, Calgary, Canada-based Natsource Asset Management (NAM) is preparing to make it operational by 1 January 2004. At this point the pool's ten participants can begin off-setting their emission reduction obliga-tions by buying project-based credits.

• New issue arbitrage 01 July 2003

• OM HEX mulls index products 01 July 2003

  The merger between Sweden's OM and the Finnish market HEX could pave the way for a range of new index products, according to OM founder and chairman of the board Olof Stenhammar.

• ORM - in the limelight 01 July 2003

  Kannan Amaresh, Shriram Subramanian and Mohit Charnalia* look at operational risk management beyond Basel 2, highlighting ten key focus areas

• Products 01 July 2003

• Quote Unquote 01 July 2003

• Rand swaps 01 July 2003

  South Africa's interest rate swaps market has enjoyed a sharp rise in trading activity in May after trading rather quietly for much of 2003. Hopes of interest rate cuts of as much as 400 basis points in the next nine months brought the market to life after the South African government surprisingly admitted that its official inflation data has been overstated due to the use of outdated figures.

• Sugar proves a bitter pill 01 July 2003

  Clare Hatcher* looks at a recent case that questioned when is a commodity contract a forward physical transaction and when is it a future?

• Tag, your IT 01 July 2003

  IT developments have led to increased volumes and reduced transaction costs in derivatives markets. The key question is who should pay for such IT costs? Nicolas Breteau* analyses the issues

• Taking a view on South Africa 01 July 2003

  Lynn Bolin surveys South Africa's derivatives market

• Taking cover 01 July 2003

  Despite continued uncertainty about rules for the Kyoto Protocol's joint implementation and clean development mechanisms, a range of alternative risk transfer and credit enhancement measures are currently being developed by industry participants to mitigate the risk associated with them. Corinne Smith reports

• Taxation of UK derivatives - Part 6 01 July 2003

  In the final part of our series, Errol Danziger* looks at anti-avoidance

• Technology Briefs 01 July 2003

• The FOW interview - Kevin Davis 01 July 2003

  Emma Davey interviews Man Financial's chief executive

• Under cover 01 July 2003

  GLen Chambers* looks at the market for covered warrants, analyses what exactly the market thinks of these products and asks whether they deserve to be maligned

• Unearthing great talents 01 July 2003

  It seems as though the news of redundancies and discontent in the City is never ending. Hardly a day goes by without reports of another firm cutting back its staff or a senior individual quitting a well paid but stressful City career to do something completely different. There are, however, still thousands employed in the City who are eagerly awaiting an upturn. Firms are aware that they need to retain and motivate these employees and are now looking to address the future needs and ambitions of their businesses by identifying key talent and pushing these individuals forward as managers of the future.

• VaR-va-voom 01 July 2003

  Glyn Holton's new book on value-at-risk* introduces a revolutionary bottom-up approach to understanding VaR. Here, we present excerpts from his book

• Weather derivatives soar 01 July 2003

  The campaign of education and awareness undertaken by the weather risk management market in recent months appears to have paid off. For, according to Weather Risk Management Association (WRMA)'s latest survey of the market (examining activity from April 2002 to March 2003), volume has almost tripled.