Banks Reap Record $9.8 Billion Trading Derivatives (Update1)

何鸿燊

By Shannon D. Harrington and Matthew Leising

June 26 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. banking industry said it made $9.8 billion during the first quarter trading derivatives and securities as investors started returning to the markets amid signs the recession bottomed.
The surge was led by trading in interest-rate derivatives, which allow investors to hedge against rate swings, as the banks reported revenues that were more than triple any quarter during at least the past five years, the U.S. Treasury’s Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said today.

Revenue rose as banks, constrained by the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, charged “wide” bid-ask spreads, or the fees that traders make from the gap between prices at which they’ll buy and sell the contracts, Deputy Comptroller [url=http://search.bloomberg.com/search?q=Kathryn+Dick&site=wnews&client=wnews&proxystylesheet=wnews&output=xml_no_dtd&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&filter=p&getfields=wnnis&sort=date:S:d1]Kathryn Dick[/url] said in a statement.

Revenue from trading interest-rate contracts soared to $9.1 billion from $1.9 billion a year earlier and from a $3.4 billion loss in the fourth quarter of 2008, according to the report. Currencies contracts accounted for $2.4 billion in the 2009 first period. The banks lost $3.15 billion from trading credit.

The revenue report comes as Congress begins debating an Obama administration plan to regulate the privately negotiated derivatives markets, which the administration said helped to exacerbate the financial crisis. Bets on mortgage-linked securities using credit derivatives brought insurer American International Group Inc. to the brink of bankruptcy when the value of the contracts plunged and it couldn’t meet collateral calls.

The Obama plan calls for the most-common types of derivatives to be moved through clearinghouses designed to contain the risks of a bank default, following the September bankruptcy filing by Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., among the largest derivatives dealers.

The administration also is pushing for some of the contracts to be traded on exchanges or electronic platforms that would increase market transparency.

[ 本帖最后由 何鸿燊 于 2009-6-26 20:32 编辑 ]