JANUARY 2021 - CURVEGLOBAL NEWSLETTER
No images? Click here ![]() Happy New Year! Let me start with my warmest wishes for 2021. As we face an array of political, economic and health challenges around the world, it would be easy to be downbeat, but I’m reminded that fiendishly complicated things are fiendishly difficult; on the other hand, we seem to have an enormous resilience within each of us, our communities and businesses. To that end, I spent my first days back phoning colleagues and customers to ask them about their outlooks for the year ahead. While I heard a lot about “home schooling”, “lockdowns”, and other work-based “challenges”, I didn’t hear a single person say “2021 will be worse than 2020” – but did hear a lot of talk of “positives” and “opportunities”. And me? Well, I start the new year with an overwhelming tsunami of enthusiasm, for CurveGlobal, for LSEG, and our ability to change the world for the better. I’ll touch on more reasons to be positive below. Monthly Traded Sides ![]() Open Interest ![]() CurveGlobal Markets is a futures exchange, and it is notoriously difficult for exchanges to gain traction and market share at the best of times. So why am I so optimistic? Well, on our record day at the end of last year, we were nearly 40% of the market in 3M sterling!* And let’s be honest, it’s not easy persuading people who are working from home to look at another screen or indeed to try new things, especially with the COVID lockdown. So, why have CurveGlobal Markets volumes grown month over month? Well, it appears that if you provide good or better pricing on the exchange electronic order book, offer free fees and clearing, and allow people to trade blocks off the exchange at fractional prices, they really like it. But above all else, what has been so exciting for me is that as we review the sales pipeline and recent wins, it’s the ease of getting those clients trading. A process that a couple of years ago felt Herculean in effort now feels like falling off a log. Getting a client live often involved a new trading system or new clearing broker, execution broker, docs or pipes. It’s just not like that anymore; the infrastructure is “turnkey” for the asset managers, hedge funds, and prop firms alike. From seeing “a price” a trader likes or from being offered a price by the broker, to being execution “ready” is taking less than a week – including risk sign-offs. I’ve previously discussed the macro reasons to be optimistic, from speedy RNA COVID-19 vaccine development, PCR testing ability changing the way we manage medical diagnosis, to computer processing power of new chips and protein unrolling. These are just a few of the reasons to be optimistic, so join me, join us and trade at CurveGlobal Markets. Best, ![]() CurveGlobal Markets LIBOR Fallback Process In anticipation of LIBOR cessation at the end of 2021, watch our video highlighting our LIBOR transition plans outlined in May 2020, and the latest market developments for SONIA futures. The Benefits of Competition and Choice Do you want to benefit from ZERO execution and clearing fees, and best execution, while generating significant capital efficiencies? Watch our video to see how CurveGlobal is driving the benefits of competition and choice. Press Articles of Note (includes subscription content)LCH PLANS LIBOR SWAP SWITCH TO RFRs US SWAP MARKET MAY BECOME MULTI-RATE WORLD, SAY DEALERS NEW ISDA ‘FALLBACKS’ CRITICAL TO MAKING LIBOR TRANSITION A ‘NON-EVENT’ To find out more about CurveGlobal or to offer suggestions on improving this newsletter, contact us at +44 20 7797 1055 or info@curveglobal.com. |