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What Is MarketsWiki?

MarketsWiki is an online open source knowledge base for current and historical information about the global exchange traded capital, derivatives, environmental and related OTC markets. MarketsWiki is powered by content contributions from paid readers of the John Lothian Newsletter, Environmental Markets Newsletter and Frontier Markets Newsletter and from a team of professional financial journalists, educators and consultants.

Event Spotlight

Understanding Credit Derivatives

When: Jan. 13-14, 2009
Where: Chicago
Register: [1]
Details:
This two-day program from the Institute For Financial Markets (IFM) provides insight into the fastest growing segment of the derivatives marketplace and educates participants on the characteristics, mechanics and applications of both OTC credit derivatives as well as the newborn exchange-traded credit products.

Who should attend: credit risk managers, treasury managers, credit analysts, fixed income managers, financial analysts and traders.

Compelling topics include:

• What are credit default swaps (CDS) and what are asset managers doing with them?
• What are five uses for CDS trading?
• Total rate of return swaps (TRS): How are they used to leverage portfolio asset allocation? This is a highly leveraged means to gain an exposure to both credit risk and price risk.

MFA's Network 2009

When: Feb. 8-10, 2009
Where: Key Biscayne, Florida
Register: [2]
Details:
Network 2009 is MFA's alternative investment industry networking conference and exposition for professionals in the hedge fund and alternative investment industries. Network 2009 will feature an extensive educational program, special networking opportunities, and an informative exhibition of products and services of interest to industry professionals.

Network 2009 attendees include investment, hedge fund and fund of funds managers; prime, securities and futures brokers; pension fund managers; and service providers who support the industry.

Your full conference registration includes entrance to the keynote speakers, general sessions, and entrance into the exhibit hall, breaks, breakfasts, luncheons, and evening receptions. Sponsorship opportunities and exhibit booth space are also available.

MFA characterizes itself as the global voice of the alternative investment industry. Its members are professionals in hedge funds, funds of funds and managed futures funds, as well as industry service providers. Established in 1991, MFA is the primary source of information for policy makers and the media and the leading advocate for sound business practices and industry growth. MFA members include the vast majority of the largest hedge fund groups in the world who manage a substantial portion of the approximately $2 trillion invested in absolute return strategies. MFA is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with an office in New York.

Sponsorship opportunities and exhibit booth space are also available.

Job Providers and Hunters

Looking for work? Looking to hire someone? MarketsWiki serves both sides of that equation.

If you are a manager with a job opening to fill, you can post the details for the opening on our Job Postings page. Also, we just created (in November) a new feature so that people can identify themselves on their biography pages as looking for work. Take a look at the Job Seekers category to see who's hunting -- you might find the right person just by looking here!

If you're one of those people looking for work, and if you have a biography page here in MarketsWiki, tag yourself as being in the job market! You can do it yourself if you have wiki editing access; take a look at our handy help guide: Using the Job Seeker Template. If you don't have a page yet, or don't want to edit the page yourself, just get in touch and we'll help you get set up!

There's no cost to either employer or job hunter; our goal is simply to help the community stay connected.

Featured Article

ISE Launches Options Trading on the NASDAQ Q-50 Index
NEW YORK, Jan. 7, 2009 - The International Securities Exchange (ISE) announced today that it has launched options trading on the NASDAQ Q-50 Index (Ticker: NXTQ), a benchmark that tracks the 50 non-financial securities that next qualify for inclusion in the NASDAQ-100 Index. The NASDAQ-100 Index comprises the 100 largest domestic and international non-financial securities listed on The NASDAQ Stock Market based on market capitalization. Options trading on the NASDAQ Q-50 Index began trading on ISE on Dec. 23, 2008. Timber Hill LLC serves as the primary market maker for this new product.

"We are excited to partner with NASDAQ to provide investors with the ability to trade options on a diverse basket of the fastest growing non-financial companies listed on The NASDAQ Stock Market," said Kris Monaco, director of new product development at ISE. "This new product will allow ISE's customers to trade their views on some of the most closely watched securities listed on NASDAQ's marketplace."

"Our partnership with ISE will give investors who use the NASDAQ Q-50 Index in their portfolios the additional flexibility of incorporating options into their trading strategies," said John Jacobs, executive vice president, NASDAQ OMX Global Index Group. "We are very pleased to work with ISE to expand the reach of our proprietary index products."

The NASDAQ Q-50 Index is a market-capitalization weighted, price return index that commenced calculation on Oct. 10, 2007 with a base value of 150.00. It does not contain securities of financial companies including banking and investment companies, as these are ineligible for NASDAQ-100 Index inclusion.

(more on ISE index options)

MarketsWiki Spotlight

(Statistics snapshot as of December 29, 2008. Average visitor statistics are based on site traffic in the last month.)

Most-Viewed Pages (excluding the main page)

• John J. Lothian
• Chicago Board Options Exchange
• Patsystems Plc
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Newest Article Pages

• ‎John S. Gaine
• ‎John Walls
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Newsletters

John J. Lothian & Company, Inc. launched Frontier Markets Newsletter (FMN), edited by Rob Luke on September 2, 2008. This newsletter focuses on trading and investment related topics from emerging market countries, but will also include some coverage Brazil, Russia, India and China. The theme for the newsletter is Invest in the World.

If you are interested in subscribing, email to Rob Luke. FMN will be offered for free until January 1, 2009 and will thereafter be priced at $250 per year. A subscription to FMN includes a subscription to the John Lothian Newsletter.

• Archive
• Subscribe to FMN

The John Lothian Newsletter is a daily email intelligence briefing edited by John J. Lothian dedicated to promoting a greater understanding of the futures and securities industries, and the capital and derivatives markets, through the dissemination of information and commentary.

The John Lothian Newsletter was launched during the summer or 2000 and was offered for free for its first 3 years. In 2003, the newsletter switched to a voluntary pay format. Readers are asked to pay for the newsletter if they find it valuable. An annual subscription for the John Lothian Newsletter in 2008 is $115. Enterprise rates are available for organizations with 5 or more readers.

• Archive
• Subscribe to JLN

Environmental Markets Newsletter is a daily email intelligence briefing editd by Jim Kharouf that includes news, notices, press releases and price data about environmentally-based markets.

Environmental Markets Newsletter and the John Lothian Newsletter are designed to keep readers informed in the fast growing environmental market space and the futures and securities industries respectively. Both aggregate public and restricted access information available over Internet in an easy to use, reader friendly format. Utilizing a headline, lead paragraph and hyperlink format, readers can quickly assess the stories they want to read more on and those they want to glance over.

Environmental Markets was launched in June 2006 by John J. Lothian & Company, Inc. and is offered on a subscription basis for $150 per year. New readers are welcome to receive Environmental Markets FREE for one month. Enterprise rates are available to organizations with 10 or more subscribers. Environmental Markets subscribers receive 2 daily emails, one first thing in the morning in the U.S. that covers the environmental market space. The second email, the PM edition of Environmental Markets, is a full copy of the John Lothian Newsletter. The John Lothian Newsletter also includes an Environmental Trading section.

• Archive
• Subscribe to EMN

Headlines

Obama's SEC Pick Is No Joe Kennedy
By Steven Pearlstein
When Franklin Roosevelt was looking for someone to head the new agency created to prevent the kind of corrupt Wall Street practices that had brought the stock market and the economy to their knees, he didn't turn to a pinstriped banker or a fancy-pants lawyer or even a hard-bitten prosecutor. He tapped Joseph P. Kennedy, a politically ambitious bootlegger and dealmaker who knew exactly how to play the game, circumvent rules, rig markets and get the better of his customers. The best way to catch pirates, Roosevelt figured, was to hire another pirate. Unfortunately, this is one page from the New Deal playbook that Barack Obama has decided not to copy. His nomination of Mary Schapiro to be chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission is as safe and predictable as it is disappointing. What it means is that we will have lost the best opportunity yet to root out the deeply embedded cynicism and corruption that have spawned one scandal after another on Wall Street over the past 20 years. (more)

CBOE to end member control this year: Brodsky
(more)

Satyam Chief Admits Huge Accounting Fraud
By Heather Timmons AND Bettina Wassener
A top Indian outsourcing company massively inflated its earnings for years, the chairman said. (more)

Hedge Funds Try To Cope
David Serchuk
Bernie Madoff and a bad 2008 have made the secretive hedge fund world open up.
The hedge fund industry has known little but growth, until now. At the 2008 Markets Media Global Financial Summit in New York City in December, Sam Hocking, co-global head of sales at the prime brokerage for BNP Paribas, speculated that up to 3,000 hedge funds that were trading in 2008 will be gone by the end of 2009. A recent report by Citigroup speculated that hedge fund assets could fall below $1 trillion. We know that funds flame out from time to time, but investors have always lined up to buy shares in new ones. Maybe not anymore. (more)

Cracks appearing in foreign exchange market claims report
Electronic trading in foreign exchange has become the norm. The emergence of high-frequency trading shops and the burgeoning retail market have driven trading volumes into uncharted territories. However, beyond the front office, where most of the innovations have taken place over the last decade, cracks are appearing that might derail the growth of the foreign exchange market in the long term. (more)

EU Threatens Credit-Swap Law as Clearing Deal Falters
By John Rega and Shannon D. Harrington
Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) -- The European Union revived its threat to regulate credit-default swaps after banks backed away from last month’s agreement to process trades through a clearinghouse in the region. “There’s just not sufficient commitment,” Oliver Drewes, spokesman for EU Financial Services Commissioner Charlie McCreevy, said today by telephone. “McCreevy will therefore have to consider the appropriate next steps.” (more)

OCC Formalizes Agreement With Quadriserv To Launch Centralized Securities Lending Marketplace
Chicago, January 7, 2009– The Options Clearing Corporation (OCC) today announced it has reached an agreement with Quadriserv, Inc. to combine their efforts to provide transparency and efficiency to the securities lending industry. (more)

Nasdaq sees major return from derivatives clearing
By Jonathan Spicer
NEW YORK, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Nasdaq OMX's (NDAQ.O) new clearinghouse for interest rate derivatives could yield big returns if it attracts enough users, with one analyst suggesting a jump in the company's 2009 earnings of up to 33 percent. The exchange operator last month bought an 80 percent stake in the International Derivatives Clearing Group, or IDCG, which began clearing swaps based on U.S. dollar interest rates early last week. (more)

Can New Regulation Stop Another Madoff?
Liz Moyer
After a disastrous year that spelled the demise of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and the end of Merrill Lynch's independence, Bernard Madoff's alleged $50 billion swindle has added new urgency to calls to reform regulation of the U.S. financial system. (more)

RGGI States to Develop Low Carbon Fuel Standard
ClimateBiz
Eleven states in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic regions will join forces to develop a low carbon fuel standard to reduce vehicle-related greenhouse gas emissions. (more)

Upcoming Events

Have an event you'd like to list? Put a new section in the Upcoming Events page and we'll put it here on the front page too!

Understanding Credit Derivatives
Jan. 13-14, 2009
Chicago
Get the details here

Commodity and Ingredient Hedging “Margin Management for Optimal Crop Returns” Seminar
Jan. 21-22, 2009
Chicago
Get the details here

NFA Web Seminar To Help CPOs and CTAs File Disclosure Documents Electronically
Jan. 22, 2009
Web
Get the details here

Financial Risk Blueprints for Hedgers
Jan. 27-28, 2009
New York
Get the details here

Citi Financials 2009 Financial Services Conference
Jan. 27-28, 2009
New York
Get the details here

MFA's Network 2009
Feb. 8-10, 2009
Key Biscayne, Florida
Get the details here

Trading Strategies & Tactics for Speculators
Feb. 9-10, 2009
Chicago
Get the details here

Introduction to Exchange-Traded Futures & Options
Feb. 12, 2009
Chicago
Get the details here

Is Algo Trading Within Your Grasp
Feb. 18-19, 2009
NYMEX - New York, NY
Get the details here

Understanding Credit Derivatives
Feb. 24-25, 2009
New York, NY
Get the details here

Introduction to Exchange-Traded Futures & Options
Feb. 26, 2009
New York, NY
Get the details here

25th Annual CBOE Risk Management Conference
March 8-10, 2009
Laguna Niguel, California
Get the details here

34th Annual FIA International Futures Industry Conference
March 11-14, 2009
Boca Raton, Florida
Get the details here

18th Annual FIA Futures Services Division OpTech Conference
Apr. 7, 2009
Battery Park, New York
Get the details here

Is Algo Trading Within Your Grasp?
Apr. 28-29, 2009
NYMEX - New York, NY
Get the details here

31st Annual FIA Conference on the Regulation of Futures, Derivatives and OTC Products
May 13-15, 2009
National Harbor, Maryland
Get the details here

India Summit 2009
May 19-20, 2009
Grosvenor Square, London
Get the details here

Sponsorship, Subscriptions, Editing

MarketsWiki is a companion to the John Lothian Newsletter (JLN), Jim Kharouf's Environmental Markets Newsletter (EMN) and the Rob Luke edited Frontier Markets Newsletter (FMN). JLN, EMN and FMN are daily email overviews of the news, opinions and happenings in the financial markets, environmental markets and emerging markets.

To preserve the integrity of the information here, editing and contribution is limited to paid subscribers of either newsletter (though anyone can read the contents on this site). The subscriptions help pay for our team of professional journalists and technical support consultants, and the limited access ensures that we're not fending off and repairing vandalism and disinformation in our articles.

We are actively seeking sponsors and content contributors to keep this project growing rapidly!

If you'd like information about sponsoring the project, please contact us at info@johnlothian.com for details. If you'd like to subscribe to the newsletters, either to become a contributor or simply to stay informed in the rapidly changing financial world, visit our signup page. And finally, if you're already a paid newsletter subscriber and want access to the wiki, send an email request to Jon Matte, and he'll get you set up with a user id and a startup guide.

MarketsWiki Development Team