Derivs - Credit

Investors are keeping tabs on the outcome of this Thursday’s European Central Bank’s policy meeting, which could see Mario Draghi, ECB president, spell out details of state intervention in the region’s troubled bond markets.

South Korea’s Financial Services Commission is looking to stimulate its exchange-traded fund business by relaxing regulations on index-tracking funds, according to China’s Xinhua News Agency.

Fears that Australia’s resources boom is finally coming to a close drove credit default swap prices on the nation’s biggest miners to rise sharply within the last week.

The European Parliament has set an indicative date of Oct. 23 for a plenary discussion on legislative proposals for the amended Markets in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR) and Markets in Financial Instruments Directove (MiFID).

Sovereign credit markets have been in a holding pattern for most of August ahead of what should be a very eventful September.

The Munich-based Assenagon, which manages around EUR2 billion in assets, has created a unit that will use credit default swaps to go long credits.

China’s National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors has released a major update to its credit derivative definitions contained within its master agreement.

Innovation in product development, open access and full margin transparency for buysiders and sellsiders were some of the attributes that set CME Clearing apart from its competitors over the last year, according to market participants. That helped the firm land the 2012 Clearinghouse Of The Year award from the editors of Derivatives Week/Derivatives Intelligence.

UBS has named Kevin Arnold as head of FICC distribution in America in New York, starting September when he relocates from London. His predecessor Andrew Kleeger will head of FICC in Latin America, a newly-created position, also based in New York.

Sovereign debt markets are pinning their hopes on action from the European Central Bank. Mario Draghi stoked the fires with his press conference earlier this month, when he suggested that the central bank is ready to intervene in the government bond market.

Barclays has hired Mark Vaillant as a salesman in emerging market fixed income and fx sales in London.

Japanese dealers will have a pricing advantage over foreign firms as they will not have to include credit valuation adjustments into their risk management capital ratios for domestic yen-denominated derivatives when new Basel III standards are enforced in March.