London loses top spot as euro-derivatives venue; Ether futures launched at CME; Oil futures near 60 USD; Retail trading reaches record at CME; 58B USD invested in stock funds in a week;
London loses top spot as euro-derivatives venue
London has lost the trading share of euro derived swaps from about 40% mid 2020 to about 10% in 2021 January. According to the data by IHS Markit, the trading was picked up by venues in Amsterdam and US.
London lost over 6B euros worth of share trading as well due to Brexit. However in a counter move, UK managed to reach an agreement with Switzerland to allow trading of Swiss shares in the UK. Since mid 2019, European investors are banned from trading in Swiss venues and Switzerland had a ban on trading Swiss shares in the EU. As the UK is no longer a member of the EU, it is free from the original embargo.
Ether futures launched at CME
CME launched trading of Ether futures on 7th February. The front-month Ethereum future prices saw a rise from 1669 USD at the start of the week to 1868 USD by the closure on Friday. Settlement of Ether futures price will be determined by the trades at CME based on a VWAP calculation.
Oil futures near 60 USD
WTI futures prices reached back to the 2019 starting price levels of 55-60 USD. Oil prices took a beating in 2019 and with the Covid-19 lockdowns enforced around the globe, the futures prices went below zero for the first time in history in April 2020.
Oil prices have been rising since April 2020 and ended the last week with 59.72 USD per barrel of WTI crude oil.
Retail trading reaches record at CME
CME declared that the global retail participation at the exchange was up by 50% in 2020 compared to 2019. With the largest retail participation being in equity contracts, participation in metals was also up by 50%. The chief commercial officer at CME, Julie Walker also mentioned that the digital education programs have had reached over 15 times the participation in physical events.
58B USD invested in stock funds in a week
According to data published by EPFR, nearly 58B USD worth of money was invested in to stock funds within a week. Technology focused funds seem to be at the forefront of the investments. Comparatively, bond and other fixed income based funds received only about 13.1B USD investments.
Given the historically low yields in bonds and the rapid growth of the equity markets, many investors seem to have moved money from their cash holdings in to equity funds.
