This week’s editorial meeting raised a number of issues that we will explore in the coming weeks. These include a look at what may replace the Libor index if investors lose confidence now infamous benchmark.
Lie-bor.
The Libor scandal continues to heat up with investor lawsuits starting to trickle in. And the race to replace the index is also hotting up. Back in mid-July Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke suggested that a number of market rates could replace Libor as a benchmark for lending rates, including a “switch to a market-based indicator.” He said other possibilities include repo rates.
The repo rate suggestion could have the best future as recently launched GCF Repo Index could seems to fit the bill. Compiled by the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the index is the weighted average of interest rates paid in general collateral finance repos by banks. It’s a benchmark based on actual calculations rather than reported estimates: all GCF trades are based on real transactions, centrally cleared and collateralized by US treasuries, agencies and mortgage backed securities.
Other offerings include the Euro interbank offered rate, or Euribor, the level at which European banks could borrow for different periods in euros; overnight index swaps (OIS), which track market expectations for central bank rates; and the eurodollar rate, which is the rate for dollar-denominated funds deposited at banks outside the US.
Meantime, according to Bloomberg, the British Bankers’ Association is looking to overhaul Libor by making banks “base their submissions on actual trades, open submissions to independent verification and increase the number of firms that set the rate.”
ICE overhauling energy contracts.
Looking to get out ahead of Dodd-Frank requirements, IntercontinentalExchange (ICE) announced that starting January 2013, “all cleared OTC products listed on ICE’s OTC energy market will be transitioned to futures products.” According to the Wall Street Journal, ICE is effectively restricting its customers’ use energy swaps, “which are traded on an open platform similar to futures, but not on a futures exchange.” We’ll take a look at what these means for some of our members that are major commodity users.
Cry for yourself Argentina.
Argentina’s economy is currently facing stiff headwinds as the global downturn finally catches up to the country, which until recently saw rapid growth. Stringent capital controls, dollar-sniffing dogs, tariffs and nationalization of some private companies are just a few of the measures taken by the government of President Cristina Kirchner to pull the country out of a deepening rut.