[Hayek]

Let's forget FXCM for a while and have a rest. Here is a news.

=Forex Trading Continues Expansion To New Markets

By Katie Martin
Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES

LONDON (Dow Jones)--Foreign exchange is showing further signs of becoming a key investment tool for specialists in other markets, as a third non-forex trading system has joined the currencies trend.

Chicago-based Trading Technologies International Inc., a major electronic trading provider in the derivatives industry, is set to provide spot forex trading through a new agreement with Hotspot FX Inc.

The move could provide a new and easy way for derivatives professionals to trade forex through systems they already use.

Over half of electronic trading volumes on Eurex, Euronext-Liffe, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and the Chicago Board of Trade come through Trading Technologies, according to the company's estimates.

This is the first time the firm has moved into the $1.9 trillion-a-day cash forex market. It hopes to start offering the service later this year.

"Spot FX will give our users access to a new asset class and new cross-asset trading strategies," said Trading Technologies chief executive Harris Brumfield.

It's not a first for Hotspot, though. In September it became one of three forex trading systems to link with another Chicago-based trading firm, Townsend Analytics Ltd.

Hotspot chief executive John Eley predicts that it will form more agreements along these lines over the coming months.

"Our focus is on the transaction," he said. "How people get to that transaction, whether it's through our own interface or through something like Trading Technologies - we're agnostic."

Townsend, which offers trading in equities, futures and options, fixed income and commodities through its RealTick platform, has now added forex to its offering through Hotspot, Currenex and FXCM.

Earlier this month, Lava Trading Inc, an independent equities trading network owned by Citigroup Inc (C), also launched a forex service by drawing executable prices from four banks. It eventually hopes to aggregate further executable prices through multibank trading systems, although it has yet to sign up any partners.

Cross asset-class trading is designed to cater for macro hedge funds, both by adding forex to existing systems and by offering advanced trading types.

Up to now, though, the model has been untested, so market participants will be keen to monitor take-up of these services.

There's plenty of competition, too. Aside from advanced single-bank systems, other longer-established specialized forex trading platforms, such as FXall, already draw liquidity from a much bigger group of banks - over 50 in FXall's case. While those systems do not offer cross asset-class trading, they do have a strong customer base.