Derivs - Equity

Investors may soon see structured equity products listed on exchanges as banks look to save costs by using electronic platforms to quote standardised products, instead of individually pricing them over-the-counter.

The process of minimising line items in a portfolio has been a driving force behind trade compression and termination tools, but whether or not it is the ideal solution has been questioned by some market participants. Gabriel Suprise investigates.

LCH-CME basis swaps have been growing in frequency as dealers seek to balance exposure between one or more central counterparties, reports Beth Shah.

Tools that enable firms, whether buyside or sellside, to reduce the number of line items in a portfolio, while keeping the same risk profile, are changing the way market participants trade derivatives.

The US has raced ahead of Europe and the rest of the world in implementing derivatives regulation since the global financial crisis in 2008. So it will come as no surprise that US buy and sellsiders are also ahead in implementing compression and similar tools to tidy up their balance sheets. However, Europe is not far behind, as Hazel Sheffield reports.

The opening of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect in November, designed to enable Chinese investors to buy shares in Hong Kong, and international investors to access China’s A share market, promises to open up a new era in Chinese derivatives trading. As Hazel Sheffield reports, market participants are proceeding cautiously, but are confident that the market is going to get big.

New futures on a 10 year US Treasury Note Volatility Index, which allow investors to hedge interest rate volatility with a single product for the first time, are gaining traction. As the US is ending quantitative easing, market participants are tipping volumes to surge in the first quarter of 2015 as investors look to hedge their fears over looming rate hikes. Beth Shah reports.

Concern is growing over the European Securities and Markets Authority’s process of establishing definitions and thresholds in the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive – a critical part of which is the process for determining whether an instrument is liquid. If thresholds are calculated incorrectly, market makers may be less willing to provide liquidity to clients, prompting concerns that other market participants may use public data to trade against them, according to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.

Fresh concerns about downside risks to global demand sent markets lower and option volatility higher in the first few sessions of the year. As if to acknowledge growing expectations for a more volatile 2015, changes in the level of S&P 500 implied volatility set a new record before the first full week of trading was even complete. Investors saw new reasons to worry about the political stability of the eurozone and about its economic path, as Greece moved toward elections and PMI and inflation data suggested weaker growth prospects for the EU. In addition, the continued drop in oil prices led some participants to wonder whether the weak energy market was indicative of worsening broader global demand.

BNP Paribas is six months away from finalising its acquisition of the Royal Bank of Scotland’s equity derivatives business, according to Nicolas Marque, global head of equity derivatives at BNP Paribas in London.

The opening of the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect in November, designed to enable Chinese investors to buy shares in Hong Kong, and international investors to access China’s A share market, promises to open up a new era in Chinese derivatives trading. As Hazel Sheffield reports, market participants are proceeding cautiously, but are confident that the market is going to get big.

Equity derivatives volumes were a lot higher in December at many of the large exchanges than a year earlier.