On April 19, 2012, FIASI took great pleasure in welcoming three new inductees into the Fixed Income Hall of Fame: 

• Mr. Bob Auwaerter
  Head of Fixed Income Group, Vanguard
• Mr. Lim Chow Kiat
  President, GIC Asset Management
  Acceptance Speech 
  Induction Speech by Jack Malvey
• Mr. Glenn Reynolds
  Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, CreditSights

The dinner and induction ceremony was attended by over 300 professionals from varied ares of the fixed income and financial arena. Click here to learn more about past Hall of Fame awardees. Click here to see photos and video from the event.

Corporate Credit ETF's

Guest Speaker: 

• Eric Beinstein, Head of US High Grade Credit Strategy and US Credit Derivatives Research
  J.P. Morgan

As always, members' participation is free. Non-member fee is $60.00.

Update on Bond Market Opportunities

Guest Speaker: 

• Rick Rieder, Managing Director, is BlackRock's Chief Investment Officer of Fixed Income, Fundamental Portfolios, and head of its Global Credit Business and Credit Strategies, Multi-Sector, and Mortgage Groups. He is a member of the Fixed Income Executive Committee and of BlackRock's firm wide Operating, Leadership and Capital Committees.

As always, members' participation is free. Non-member fee is $60.00.

The financial services sector remains in a very difficult period as firms of all types grapple with rolling crises, onerous new regulations, changing business models and continued intense competition. Although the data suggest a recent uptick in financial sector employment, anecdotal evidence suggests that in many key locales and business disciplines, supply continues to greatly exceed demand for financial talent.

With this in mind, and because managing one's career has become a job in itself, FIASI sponsored a unique event on April 4th that combined the best of our Speaker Series and Networking traditions. The event included an informal talk and networking session with several financial services recruiting professionals as well as representatives from eFinancialCareers.com, the pre-eminent website for our industry. Topics included the 2012 hiring outlook for key segments of the financial services industry, what companies are looking for and recent trends in compensation, including new deferred provisions.

Look for more opportunities and events in future months to help you build a strong network and understand the current employment environment.

Important new regulatory changes are going into effect that will influence the business practices of many Fixed Income Researchers. The CFTC has announced final rules for research that involves derivatives. These are likely to go into effect in the middle of 2012 (please click the link for details).

• http://www.cftc.gov/ucm/groups/public/@newsroom/documents/file/federalregister022312b.pdf

In addition, FINRA has recently posted its second draft of comprehensive new rules for sell-side fixed income researchers. This version changed in substantial ways from the draft last fall. Its comment period ends in early April, so interested parties must speak up shortly.

• http://finra.complinet.com/en/display/display_main.html?rbid=2403&element_id=10593

Regardless of your side of the business, changes of this magnitude for the dealer community are destined to have profound ripple effects on the buy-side, rating agencies, independent research providers and others.