Deutsche Bank is looking to hire two to three mortgage-backed traders as part of an initiative to put its agency mortgage-backed trading team under the umbrella of fixed-income derivatives, said Jon Kinol, managing director of fixed-income derivatives and cross-rates trading in New York. The desk, which deals with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac-related products, has previously been alongside other mortgage products such as commercial mortgage-backed securitizations.
Having the agency MBS trading within the fixed-income derivatives group makes sense because of the correlation between such factors as mortgages, swaps, interest-rates and volatility, Kinol explained. "There are a lot of interrelationships between these products. A lot of what we do on the derivatives side is driven by mortgages and a lot on the mortgage side is driven by volatility," he said. Kinol continued that the bank wants to add mortgage trading personnel now to grow its mortgage business by leveraging off the derivatives angle.
The hires will report to Trip Mestanas, who recently joined Deutsche Bank from Goldman Sachs as a managing director and head of agency MBS trading.
