Derivs - Credit

Andrew Kleeger, managing director and head of credit sales in Hong Kong at Goldman Sachs, has reportedly left the firm and is expected to be taking a role at UBS.

The Reserve Bank of India is planning to require that all credit default swaps have rated underlyings because it believes CDS spreads alone should not be relied upon by investors. But some traders are unsure the ratings will be heeded.

Mizuho Securities USA is bolstering its fixed income division, and is seeking traders and sales personnel for a new high-yield team.

Markit is preparing a tradable cash bond index that would track the most liquid investment grade corporate bonds in North America. The firm is working with multiple market makers on the project but a timeframe for launch could not be determined.

The sovereign CDS market has captured the headlines in recent times by highlighting fiscal deterioration in several European countries. But the past week has seen an emphatic rally, driven by a combination of technical and fundamental factors. The Markit SovX Western Europe index, a key barometer of European sovereign risk, tightened to 76basis points today.

Patrick Pearson, head of financial markets infrastructure within the European Commission's internal market division in Brussels, told Derivatives Week in an exclusive interview with London reporter Rob McGlinchey that the Commission is collecting data from dealers and end-users with a view to drawing up a benchmark of bid/ask spreads. The aim is to help shave users' hedging costs and determine how expensive it would be on top for users to clear their trades.

The industry is considering a late roll of single-name loan protection contracts.

Standard & Poor’s is considering downgrading a series of synthetic collateralized debt obligations on which Lehman Brothers Special Financing Inc. served as swap counterparty.

UBS has hired two senior Goldman Sachs derivatives pros in Asia.

Jan Cernohorsky, head of fx options product development at Commerzbank in London, left the firm a few weeks ago for reasons that could not be determined.

Swiss private bank Lombard Odier has hired Kevin Corrigan, former London-based v.p. and select portfolio manager of European and global credit at Goldman Sachs Asset Management.

The daily drama in the sovereign credit default swaps market seems exclusively focused on Greece, but it was not too long ago that Iceland served as the poster child in the global credit crisis. Yesterday while protests ignited in Athens, for five-year CDS protection on Iceland tightened by 14 basis points to close at 528 bps, a significant improvement from the start of the month.