| G7 official warns on risk of one-way FX bets
ESSEN, Germany, Feb 10 (Reuters) - The Group of Seven industrial nations wanted to send a clear message to financial markets to be on their guard over one-way bets, particularly in the currency markets, a G7 official said on Saturday. "We want the markets to be aware of the risks of one-way bets, in particular on the foreign exchange markets," he said when asked to explain a statement issued by G7 finance ministers on Saturday. .
NYBOT Softs Exceed 64000 Contracts in Electronic Trading on February 7
ATLANTA and NEW YORK, Feb. 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Electronic soft commodity futures trading at the New York Board of Trade (NYBOT), a wholly- owned subsidiary of IntercontinentalExchange (NYSE: ICE - News), reached a new high of 64,042 contracts today, or more than 19% of overall daily volume in the listed products. Additionally, today's total volume of 340,190 contracts set a new daily volume record, replacing the previous high of 315,390 contracts set on April 13, 2006. The World Sugar futures contract also set a new volume record with 155,727 contracts traded, replacing the previous high of 153,201 contracts. New open interest records were also set yesterday in NYBOT Sugar No. 11(SM) (703,998), Cotton No. 2(SM) (195,478), and Coffee "C"® (137,834) contracts. NYBOT today also announced extended hours in its electronic markets offered on the ICE platform.
Blurred IMF assessment during vulnerable economic recovery
The International Monetary Fund recently completed its annual article IV assessment of Ukrainian economy. The visit to Kiev surfaced with rather weak recommendations in economic policy as especially continuing currency float and income policy only poorly accommodate the countrys industrial re-structuring with inflationary pressure and mounting foreign currency exposure in households and private enterprise.
In this fashion, activity rebounded profoundly last year as GDP growth, despite renewed energy price hikes and attributable to considerate credit expansion, strengthened from 3.0 to 8.9 percent third quarter of 2006 from same quarter previous year with a resulting and welcoming decline to unemployment. Following currency appreciation, Ukrainian foreign exchange rate nevertheless depreciated in 2006 as an eroding current account surplus combined with increasing financial account volatility.
Sun Life Fourth-Quarter Profit Rises 14% on MFS (Update3)
Feb. 8 (Bloomberg) -- Sun Life Financial Inc., Canada's second-largest insurer, said profit rose for the fifth straight quarter, led by its Massachusetts Financial Services Co. mutual fund unit. Fourth-quarter net income increased 14 percent to a record C$545 million ($460 million), or 94 cents a share, from C$478 million, or 83 cents, a year earlier, the Toronto-based company said today in a statement. Revenue rose 15 percent to C$6.14 billion. Earnings from MFS, the Boston-based fund unit, surged 58 percent to C$71 million as higher stock prices boosted assets under management. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index climbed 6.2 percent in the quarter, leading to net sales of $1 billion at MFS, following three quarters of redemptions. ``We're very positive about the outlook for MFS,'' Chief Executive Officer Donald Stewart said today in a telephone interview.
Rand softens vs dollar, eyes rate decision
JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - South Africa's rand was slightly easier versus the dollar on Wednesday, with market watchers expecting it to tread narrow ranges ahead of next week's central bank decision on interest rates. At 1530 GMT the local currency was at 7.18 against the dollar from 7.1725 at the New York close on Tuesday. It drifted within a four-cent band for most of the session. "It has been a very narrow range for dollar/rand today and I think the rand has been helped by an uptick in euro/dollar and generally solid emerging market sentiment," said Lucy Bethell, strategist at the Royal Bank of Scotland in London. The European Union is South Africa's largest trading partner, and the rand normally tracks movements in the euro currency, which was slightly higher on the day at $1.2994.
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