Derivs - Credit

The chairman of the National Conference of Insurance Legislators taskforce on credit default swaps has asked the U.S. Congress to build some flexibility into how it defines covered versus naked CDS before it forces any regulation on the industry.

Market participants are pondering the impact to derivatives contracts of Syncora Guarantee, formerly XL Capital Assurance, becoming insolvent after the monoline insurer stated Thursday that for statutory accounting purposes it has a negative net worth.

Sean George, head of credit derivatives trading at Bank of America, and Masaya Okoshi, head of investment grade credit trading, are set to join Deutsche Bank this summer.

The poor performance of the Korean won—which reached a low of 1,600 against the U.S. dollar last week—is sending spreads on credit default swaps referencing the nation’s sovereign debt wider.

Barclays Capital has added staffers to its proprietary trading team in New York in the wake of its integration with Lehman Brothers North America.

UBS is considering making changes to its U.S. correlation team spanning New York and Stamford, Conn.

Etan Zellner, a director in Deutsche Bank’s Saba proprietary credit trading group formerly under Boaz Weinstein, has resurfaced at Lehman Brothers in New York.

More than 250 London-based Dresdner Kleinwort staffers, including derivatives traders, are now said to be involved in plans to sue the firm over slashed bonuses, raising questions about whether they can continue taking risks for the bank.

Brevan Howard Asset Management is planning a series of UCITS III funds targeted at pension funds and other institutions that will invest in derivatives such as fx options and inflation swaps.

Amit Arora, an ex-correlation trader at JPMorgan, has landed at Pacific Investment Management Co.

Markit’s CDX North America High Yield and LCDX, both tradeable credit indices, look set to be re-tranched as dealers aim to boost flow and create new relative value trading opportunities.

The 7-10% tranche of the CDX North America Investment Grade index is now being quoted in points upfront.