Foreign Exchange

State Street has bought Currenex, the online foreign exchange trading platform used by currency traders, including banks and hedge funds. State Street has $564 million in cash - which observers see as a handsome price - but says the purchase will accelerate its growing participation in the electronic foreign exchange trading market.

"Over the last two years we've observed that there is a great need for an electronic platform that supports the trading of large blocks of foreign exchange (FX)," says Vijay Kedia, president and CEO, FlexTrade. FX-trading is still conducted over the telephone, which makes it prone to information leakage, says Kedia. "

Global Forex Trading (GFT) has been chosen by Strategy Runner as the company's first partner in the online foreign exchange trading market. Online forex traders will have access to algorithmic trading architecture based on Strategy Runner's technology and GFT's forex dealing operation. "We are constantly establishin

World initial public offering (IPO) activity hit a record high in 2006 with $227 billion raised on 1,559 offerings between January and November, up $167 billion on all of 2005, according to a study by Ernst & Young. The centre for IPO activity was the Hong Kong Stock Exchange with 17 per cent of all IPOs, followed by