Derivs - Credit

As the UK general election nears, investors appear to be taking a more cautious approach to equities.

Lufthansa is one of several airline credits to have seen its CDS spreads tighten in line with the falling oil price. But a plane crash at one of its subsidiaries last week has led to investors focusing on the German firm, and the scrutiny is inevitably negative.

MarketAxess has announced another four dealers joining its platform to trade European credit, including Mizuho, which is making a fixed income trading push.

Progress on global derivatives reform is at a critical juncture. The goal of enhanced transparency, identified by the G20 following the 2008 crisis as crucial to the supervision of the financial system, remains only partly addressed because of a number of practical and legal barriers that limit data sharing across jurisdictions. As a result, the cross-border identification of systemic risk remains challenging for macroprudential authorities.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association unveiled the members of the five regional determinations committees that make binding decisions regarding credit events, succession events and auctions to determine the final price for credit default swap settlement globally.

The overall credit default swap notionals and trade counts that were reported to swap data repositories last week both increased by 15% compared to the same time last year, according to data from the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.

Corporate bond indigestion, overstuffed dealer inventories, a Greek showdown and new rules on bank bail-inable bonds created a perfect storm of volatility that caught some traders offside after a busy iTraxx index roll.

An experienced credit trader has left Mizuho in London and is heading to a brokerage firm in Madrid to set up a high yield trading platform.

The overall interest rate notionals and trades counts that were reported to swap data repositories last week increased by 22% and 35%, respectively, from the same time last year, according to data from the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.

VTB Capital’s string of departures has continued into this year, with an experienced credit trader set to quit the bank at the end of the month.

A senior structured credit banker has left UBS's investment bank in London.

LCH.Clearnet is replacing Gavin Wells as global head of CDSClear by promoting the product's head of in-business risk.