Bloomberg – Most of the gains in Brazil’s currency and interest-rate futures markets this year are over, said Beny Parnes, chief strategist at BBM Gestao de Recursos Ltda., manager of Brazil’s top-performing hedge fund.

BBM pared back leveraged bets that yields on rate futures will fall and the real will strengthen after its Bahia 1 Fundo Investimento Multimercado jumped 86 percent this year, said Parnes. Bahia 1 has outperformed all 683 Brazilian hedge funds that manage more than 100 million reais ($53 million) as the central bank slashed the benchmark rate five times and the real surged 22 percent against the dollar.

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Chicago Tribune – Government attempts to revive the economy could decide what happens to trading volumes at CME Group Inc.

A $1 trillion federal deficit could flood the market with enough government bonds to stabilize volumes, while a Federal Reserve policy to spur borrowing by keeping interest rates near zero could slice further into volumes at the Chicago-based exchange operator.

U.S. Treasury bonds and other interest rate futures represent about 40 percent of the 7.63 million contracts traded daily this month at the CME Group’s Chicago Mercantile Exchange and Chicago Board of Trade.

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Tags: chicago board of trade, chicago mercantile exchange, chicago tribune, contracts, economy, exchange operator, federal deficit, federal reserve policy, federal-reserve, government bonds, interest rate futures, interest rates, trillion, u s treasury bonds, u-s-treasury