360T Podcast Series

360 Trading Networks

As a technology provider for the global foreign exchange market, 360T interacts daily with a wide spectrum of international financial institutions that contain a wealth of expertise, knowledge and insight regarding the world’s largest asset class. In our podcast series we look to tease out just a fragment of this information inviting our listeners to join an exchange amongst industry professionals with each episode.The episodes themselves consist of short, informal interviews with senior figures from market-leading firms within the FX industry, exploring some of the key trends and themes they see impacting the market today. Tracing the evolution of technology, liquidity, credit, data analytics, market structure, trading strategies and more, this podcast series offers a wide range of unique insights regarding how the FX market today is developing around us. read less

BusinessBusiness

Start Here

Episode 48: Nathan Vurgest, Director of Trading, Record Financial Group

Episode 48: Nathan Vurgest, Director of Trading, Record Financial Group

In this episode Nathan Vurgest, Director of Trading at Record Financial Group, talks in-depth about how data is changing and shaping FX trading desks. He outlines the challenges facing buy-side firms as they try to access and make sense of all the trade data which they generate internally, explains how traders are evolving to provide more value beyond just FX execution and highlights that this broadening role introduces new complexities around effectively measuring best execution.

Episodes

Episode 48: Nathan Vurgest, Director of Trading, Record Financial Group

Episode 48: Nathan Vurgest, Director of Trading, Record Financial Group

In this episode Nathan Vurgest, Director of Trading at Record Financial Group, talks in-depth about how data is changing and shaping FX trading desks. He outlines the challenges facing buy-side firms as they try to access and make sense of all the trade data which they generate internally, explains how traders are evolving to provide more value beyond just FX execution and highlights that this broadening role introduces new complexities around effectively measuring best execution.

Episode 47: The 2024 Crystal Ball with Colin Lambert, Co-Founder of The Full FX

Episode 47: The 2024 Crystal Ball with Colin Lambert, Co-Founder of The Full FX

As is something of a tradition on the 360T podcast now, Colin Lambert, Co-Founder of The Full FX, joins as a guest to review the accuracy of his 2023 predictions and make a series of new ones for the year ahead. Lambert receives some gentle criticism for making "obvious" predictions last year, which perhaps prompted him to be more daring this year as his 2024 predictions encompass cybersecurity threats, why the shift to T+1 settlement might only be the tip of the iceberg, flash crashes in the FX market, a good year for discretionary trading, cryptocurrency adoptions and more! And although Lambert concedes he is in danger of becoming a reverse indicator with his infamous Trade of the Year, he nevertheless makes his pick for 2024.

Episode 46 - Tobias Rank, Head of Product Sales, Eurex, and David Holcombe Head of Product, Futures & Clearing, 360T

Episode 46 - Tobias Rank, Head of Product Sales, Eurex, and David Holcombe Head of Product, Futures & Clearing, 360T

This episode features two experts, Tobias Rank from Eurex and David Holcome from 360T, taking a deep dive into why more FX market participants are turning towards Exchange for Physical (EFP) products, and how the listed FX marketplace is likely to evolve in the future. The pair also tackle questions about how regulations are changing the economics of OTC trading, whether there is really a demand to support more listed FX trading and the shortcomings of OTC FX clearing.Additional resources about EFPs:FX EFPs – the best of two worldsFX EFP tutorial – mechanics and use cases

Global Head of Solutions Strategy, Fixed Income and FX at Russell Investments

Global Head of Solutions Strategy, Fixed Income and FX at Russell Investments

FX is a highly liquid market, with many different currencies to trade that are constantly moving against one another, so why don’t investors typically think about this asset class when building out their portfolios? In this episode Van Luu, Global Head of Solutions Strategy, Fixed Income and FX at Russell Investments, addresses this question and explains the important role that currency strategies can play in helping investors to diversify a multi-asset portfolio. In particular, he talks about how a currency strategy which leverages three factors — Carry, Value and Trend — can offer low (or even negative) correlation to traditional assets, providing a boost to multi-asset portfolios while generating little or no additional risk.

Episode 44 - Dagmara Fijalkowski, head of global fixed income and currencies at RBC Global Asset Management

Episode 44 - Dagmara Fijalkowski, head of global fixed income and currencies at RBC Global Asset Management

The FX Global Code of Conduct has been a major and ongoing industry initiative since 2015, but it's been well documented that buy-side adoption of the Code has lagged behind other segments of the marketplace. In this episode Dagmara Fijalkowski, head of global fixed income and currencies at RBC GAM, talks about why buy-side adoption of the Code has been slow thus far, what possible steps could be taken to accelerate it and how the Code has brought tangible benefits to both RBC GAM specifically, and the FX industry more broadly.

Episode 43 - Adrian Lee, President and CIO, Adrian Lee & Partners

Episode 43 - Adrian Lee, President and CIO, Adrian Lee & Partners

While the consequences of geopolitical events are felt in the currency markets first, in the long-term it is fundamentals that continue to drive this asset class, says Adrian Lee, the President and CIO of Adrian Lee & Partners, in this episode. He discusses emerging trends across both, as well as identifying the fault lines in the global economy where we might see the next big risk factors emerge from. Lee also discusses how and why investor attitudes towards currency management are changing, helps to get beyond some of the jargon surrounding these services and makes the case for active over passive currency management.

Episode 42 - Saeed Amen, Co-Founder, Turnleaf Analytics

Episode 42 - Saeed Amen, Co-Founder, Turnleaf Analytics

How is artificial intelligence (AI) likely to change the way that financial products, including FX, are traded? This is the key question addressed by Saeed Amen, co-founder of Turnleaf Analytics, in the wake of the recent hype around this technology sparked by new tools such as ChatGTP. Amen outlines some of his own experiments with AI chatbots, discusses the importance of having access to high quality data in order to train AI models and helps to parse through some of the terminology and misconceptions surrounding this technology. He also addresses how AI will change the role of the human trader, predicting that the curation of trading activity and then providing a narrative around this will become increasingly important.

Episode 41: The 2023 FX Industry Crystal Ball

Episode 41: The 2023 FX Industry Crystal Ball

Colin Lambert, Co-Founder of the Full FX, joins 360T to review his 2022 predictions and is surprised to find that while he achieved mixed scores on the forecasts he claimed were “certain” to happen, his “wildcard” ones fared much better. Perhaps this is a sign of what an unpredictable year it was? Looking ahead, Lambert picks out the key themes which he thinks will define the FX industry in 2023 and once again makes a series of predictions for the year ahead. And finally, completely undaunted by the poor results of previous years, he once again announces his Trade of the Year.

Episode 40 - Ivan Asensio, Head of FX Risk Advisory, Silicon Valley Bank

Episode 40 - Ivan Asensio, Head of FX Risk Advisory, Silicon Valley Bank

In our latest podcast episode Ivan Asensio from Silicon Valley Bank discusses two recent papers, which he co-authored looking at the impact of FX on firms looking to raise equity and those preparing for an IPO. The results of both, he argues, help to make the case that FX should be viewed as a strategic rather than operational concern within organisations.Asensio also talks about how the marketplace has shifted to “a new paradigm” where controlling costs has replaced growth as the primary focus, and claims that this makes effective FX management more important than ever.

Episode 39 - Pedro Jobim, Chief Economist and Founding Partner, Legacy Capital

Episode 39 - Pedro Jobim, Chief Economist and Founding Partner, Legacy Capital

We are in a period of economic uncertainty with rising inflation, divergent central bank policies, supply chain constraints and geopolitical turmoil fueled by a land war in Europe.Against this backdrop how should investors be positioning themselves and what should we expect in the currency markets? These are amongst the questions that Pedro Jobim from Brazilian hedge fund Legacy Capital addresses in our latest episode.Jobim also provides his economic outlook for Brazil ahead of what is shaping up to be a potentially contentious presidential election there later this year.

Episode 38 - Hugo Gordon, Senior Policy Advisor at the Investment Association

Episode 38 - Hugo Gordon, Senior Policy Advisor at the Investment Association

The Investment Association (IA), which represents UK-based investment firms managing £9.4 trillion of assets globally, recently published a briefing paper calling for reform on FX sub-custodian timestamping. In this episode Hugo Gordon from the IA explains why this issue, which might initially seem to be something of a niche concern, can have significant ramifications for investment managers and outlines steps which can be taken by both buy-side and sell-side firms to help resolve it.Gordon also discusses the FX Global Code of Conduct, highlighting some of the factors which might have slowed buy-side adoption previously and areas where increased clarity has been welcomed by the IA’s membership.

Episode 37 - Eoin Fahy, Head of Responsible Investing at KBI Global Investors

Episode 37 - Eoin Fahy, Head of Responsible Investing at KBI Global Investors

In this episode Eoin Fahy from KBI Global Investors provides a buy-side perspective on ESG investing, arguing that applying these principles to investment decisions actually helps rather than hinders the overall performance of portfolios. He also explains how the considerations around ESG investing have grown substantially more sophisticated in recent years as its popularity has exploded and ponders how these principles will ultimately be applied to the FX market.

Episode 36 - Duncan Higgins, Founder, Sustainable Trading

Episode 36 - Duncan Higgins, Founder, Sustainable Trading

ESG: What Isn’t Being Talked AboutESG has, to put it mildly, been a hot topic within financial services in recent years, but in our latest podcast episode Duncan Higgins from Sustainable Trading argues that while much of the focus has been on products or processes that are ESG-friendly there are myriad of ways that operational processes could also be improved on this front. He goes on to talk about the need to define ESG best practices for the industry, why change needs to be driven from both the top-down and the bottom-up and how firms can avoid initiatives in this area becoming simply “tick-box” marketing exercises.

Episode 35 - Colin Lambert, Co-Founder of The Full FX

Episode 35 - Colin Lambert, Co-Founder of The Full FX

Joining the podcast once again Colin Lambert ruminates on some of the most surprising developments in the FX industry during 2021 and picks out what he believes to be the most consequential news story of the past year. Looking ahead, he argues that the FX Swaps will continue to propel the overall marketplace towards growth in the upcoming BIS survey and makes a series of predictions — including some wildcards — about what to expect in 2022.

Episode 34 - Christian Schoeppe, Managing Director & Founder at SchoeppeFX International Consulting

Episode 34 - Christian Schoeppe, Managing Director & Founder at SchoeppeFX International Consulting

FX automation has been a key theme amongst buy-side firms recently and, as Christian Schoeppe from SchoeppeFX International Consulting explains in our latest podcast, this trend has only been accelerated by the pandemic.He also outlines the existing barriers preventing these firms from automating more of their FX workflows and trading activity, talks about how these barriers can be overcome and provides practical guidelines on how to quantify the benefits of this technology.

Episode 33 - John Quayle, Head of Client Algo Execution at NatWest Markets

Episode 33 - John Quayle, Head of Client Algo Execution at NatWest Markets

Whereas Episode 31 of our podcast series focused largely on the evolution of FX algo designs, here John Quayle from NatWest Markets discusses the evolution of how buy-side firms (and indeed which buy-side firms) are using these products to improve their FX execution capabilities. He discusses using algos to trade emerging market (EM) currencies, why corporate treasurers might be thinking about these products differently from real money or hedge fund clients, how to effectively benchmark the performance of different algos and more.

Episode 32 - Axel Merk, President and CIO, Merk Investments

Episode 32 - Axel Merk, President and CIO, Merk Investments

What are the key factors likely to move currency markets between now and the end of the year and, perhaps more importantly, what risks aren’t currently being priced into the market?These are amongst the questions addressed by Axel Merk from Merk Investments in our latest episode. Merk also discusses the FX liquidity trends, how diverging interest rates could help certain trading strategies and what recent events in China mean for global financial markets.

Episode 31 - Asif Razaq, Global Head of FX Algo Execution at BNP Paribas

Episode 31 - Asif Razaq, Global Head of FX Algo Execution at BNP Paribas

In this episode Asif Razaq from BNP Paribas talks about why the pandemic has driven an uptick in the number of firms using execution algos for their FX trades and traces the evolution of these tools from basic, rules-based strategies to sophisticated and interactive ones which effectively enable human traders to augment their own skills.Razaq also delivers his view on what will come next in the FX algo space, arguing that we are likely to begin seeing these tools deployed across a broader range of instrument types.

Episode 30 - Stuart Simmons, Director, Head of Currency at QIC

Episode 30 - Stuart Simmons, Director, Head of Currency at QIC

Stuart Simmons, Director and Head of Currency at QIC, argues in the latest episode that not only is the London 4pm Fix not a good time to trade FX on behalf of investors, but that in fact it might be the very worst time to do so. Expanding on this, he claims that order flow imbalance lead to herd behaviour amongst investment managers trading at the Fix that in turn causes market impact which negatively impacts execution outcomes. On top of this, Simmons makes the case that the interests of investors are misaligned with both asset managers and their counterparty banks when it comes to using the 4pm Fix as a benchmark.

Episode 29 - Claire Dissaux, Global Head of Economics and Strategy & Elisa Baku, Economist at the Currency Management Specialist, Millennium Global Investments

Episode 29 - Claire Dissaux, Global Head of Economics and Strategy & Elisa Baku, Economist at the Currency Management Specialist, Millennium Global Investments

In March 2021 Millennium Global Investments published a report analysing whether emerging market (EM) currencies were priced as cheap or expensive relative to the global environment. The authors of that report, Claire Dissaux and Elisa Baku — who respectively hold the titles of Global Head of Economics and Strategy and Economist at the currency management specialist — both join the podcast to discuss its findings, and what they mean for investors. They also talk about why currency performance is likely to diverge significantly amongst EM countries and how the pandemic has impacted conditions in these markets.