Derivs - Equity

UBS listed Tuesday on the Frankfurt and Stuttgart stock exchanges a new tracker certificate that uses a Solactive hedge fund index as the underlying.

The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has issued an order filing and settling charges against broker-dealer Merrill Lynch for allegedly failing to diligently supervise its officers', employees', and agents' processing of futures exchange and clearing fees charged to its customers. The Commission’s order requires the firm pays a $1.2mn civil monetary penalty.

Volatility arbitrage hedge funds were seen last week buying far out-the-money November 2014 and March 2015 calls on realized S&P 500 forward variance swaps.

Société Générale is seeing interest among macro hedge funds for outperformance options that pit a newly created Japan buyback index against the Topix Total Return Index.

Investors are shifting to short-dated September or October puts on the S&P 500, targeting strikes between 1,900 and 1,800.

First Trust has listed a new exchange-traded fund on the NASDAQ OMX which began trading last Thursday. The ETF, known as First Trust Strategic Income ETF, is the firm’s first multi-asset income fund that is actively managed, and provides a low-cost alternative to traditional fixed-income funds through diversification and the use of multiple asset classes.

Goldman Sachs has had a request to settle out of court dismissed after Libya’s sovereign wealth fund alleged the bank deliberately exploited a relationship of trust that ended in the fund entering equity derivatives trades amounting to in excess of $1bn.

Matthew Karwelies, an equity derivatives sales official at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, has joined UBS.

ING Investment management has expanded its emerging market equities team with the appointment of Ashish Goyal, ex-investment manager at Eastspring Investments in Singapore, as head of emerging market equity. Robert Holmes, ex-fund manager at Griffin Capital Management in London, will report to Goyal in his role as senior portfolio manager emerging market equities.

David Haldane, head of equity derivatives for Australia and New Zealand at Citigroup in Sydney, has been appointed head of equity derivatives for EMEA in London with effect from September.

The next five years will continue to be a time of adjustment as sell- and buy-side firms get used to the realities of the financial markets, post-crisis. Change will be the only constant – and with change, comes opportunity.

Vontobel Financial Products has hired Thomas Süssli in Singapore, a former structurer at Credit Suisse, to lead the firm in the Asia Pacific.