Entering 2025, the prevailing macro theme throughout the investment community was that the US dollar would continue its dominant path. Years of US exceptionalism – driven by a booming equity market and a resilient labour market – had cemented the dollar as a must-have hedging tool in most portfolios. For example, if there was a […]
It’s 2025 and you attend another foreign exchange industry conference where, unsurprisingly, the hot topics remain familiar: data-driven FX, streaming swaps, workflow automation, the ‘electronification’ of liquidity, debates on what AI means for our jobs, algo evaluation, and fully automated trade workflows. You return to the office, only to have a conversation with a bank
Crypto’s predictable path from central books to OTC discretion – FX Markets Skip to main content End of drawer navigation content Demand for bilateral trading, like OTC FX market structure, is fuelling crypto’s institutional take-up, finds BridgePort The maturation of any asset class follows a remarkably consistent pattern. From equities to fixed income and foreign
Hedge funds are reloading their short dollar bets – with a few new twists – ahead of US Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell’s highly anticipated keynote speech at the central bank’s annual Jackson Hole conference on Friday, August 22. Garth Appelt, head of derivatives, FX and emerging markets macro trading at Mizuho Americas, says
HSBC, Goldman prevail in shake-up of FX Markets’ Dealer Rankings – FX Markets Skip to main content End of drawer navigation content The pair thrived serving US retail funds, while Morgan Stanley retained title with life insurer clients The third edition of FX Markets’ annual exercise in identifying the top dealers in foreign exchange derivatives
Crackdown on FX vendors could raise costs for dealers – FX Markets Skip to main content End of drawer navigation content MTF designation could cost aggregators and EMSs $3m to set up and $1m in annual maintenance Vendors that must register as multilateral trading facilities (MTFs) may end up passing increased regulatory costs on to
US mutual funds and exchange-traded funds went into April’s tariff turmoil holding the highest net long US dollar position in recent years. According to FX Markets’ Counterparty Radar data, mutual funds’ net long USD notional position, via foreign exchange forwards, stood at $455.7 billion by the end of the first quarter, the highest long USD position
Investors hope US rate cuts will lower FX hedging costs – FX Markets Skip to main content End of drawer navigation content European investors in US assets set to boost hedge ratios as implied yields rise As the US dollar has continued its fall after April’s tariff turmoil, foreign investors in US assets have had
One of the last bastions of cash-only payments in the financial markets is showing signs of wavering. Global banks accepted $325 billion of non-cash variation margin (VM) at the end of 2024, according to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association’s latest margin survey – accounting for a record 31.6% of the roughly $1 trillion in total
In April, after the markets chaos that followed ‘Liberation Day’, Mads Gosvig, who heads asset allocation at the UK’s Railpen pension fund, asked his team to assess the case for an emerging markets premium on US assets. Gosvig’s intention was to provoke discussion, he says. But the task reflected a genuine disquiet, matched at other
Foreign exchange structurers are seeing increased demand from US corporates for options-based hedges that can limit losses on their net investment hedges caused by the US dollar’s selloff. While the economic value of derivatives hedges offsets changes in foreign assets, when those positions hit maturity companies can face hefty mark-to-market payments. Bank structurers, though, say
When the New Taiwan dollar (TWD) surged unexpectedly on May 2 and 5, the country’s giant life insurers were immediately blamed for the move, given their huge size relative to the Taiwanese domestic market. Market participants, however, have mixed views on how active the insurers really were – but they agree the moves were exacerbated
Wells Fargo’s FX strategy wins over buy-side clients – FX Markets End of drawer navigation content Skip to main content Counterparty Radar: Life insurers looked west for liquidity after November’s US presidential election Wells Fargo’s decision to tilt its foreign exchange business towards institutional buy-side clients is paying off, with the San Francisco-headquartered bank seeing
FX options venue SpectrAxe has hired Robert Schultz as chief operating officer for the Americas, effective April 21. Schultz joins from Deutsche Bank where he worked for more than 12 years, most recently serving as a product manager and vice president in FX prime brokerage and algo trading. In his new role, Schultz is tasked
BestX and Tradefeedr, the two main third-party transaction cost analysis (TCA) providers, have launched tools that enable buy-side firms to standardise and automate counterparty selection for cash foreign exchange trades, ahead of request-for-quote or algorithmic execution. The launches are part of a wider push by asset managers to integrate TCA into their trading workflows to
US corporates are having a hard time responding to increased currency volatility as internal restrictions around hedging programmes make it difficult for them to react quickly to the shifting strength of the dollar. Heightened foreign exchange volatility, driven in particular by President Donald Trump’s chaotic tariff announcements, has seen the dollar weaken and made it
Hedge funds are turning once again to hybrid options – a standout feature of 2024’s wave of ‘Trump trades’. This time, though, firms are using the structure to express views on tariffs and the threat of recession. Investors placed high numbers of hybrid option bets on US exceptionalism in 2024, as they correctly predicted that
