Derivs - Equity

Asset managers and pension funds have been increasingly buying CBOE Volatility Index call options, aiming at strikes of 16 and 17, while volatility hedge funds are considering put and put spreads on a VIX exchange-traded note.

Leonteq Securities, formerly EFG Financial Products, has hired Walter Treur and Anders Stromberg in senior structured product positions in London.

Credit Suisse is seeing greater interest this year from investors in strategies that use its algorithmic indexes to time portfolio allocations to CBOE VIX futures as tail risk hedges.

Andrea Sozzi Sabatini, the former head of equity derivatives and structured retail sales for Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America in London, has joined Julius Baer in a new role.

The move by the Chicago Board Options Exchange to extend trading in Vix futures to 24 hours will drive greater liquidity in the Vstoxx as investors look to participate in spread strategies between both underlyings, according to traders.

European regulators are already focusing on disclosures in structured products aimed at retail investors ahead of EU regulations aimed at making the industry more transparent being implemented.

Volatility across asset classes declined to record levels last week, shifting the S&P 500’s term structure, steepening the skew and opening up ratio risk reversal strategies for investors.

Maurice Nadjar-Primack, a managing director in emerging markets equity trading at Barclays in London, has left the firm.

Large insurance companies are buying index options or variance swaps with two-year maturities on the Nikkei 225 and TOPiX against the S&P 500 or Eurostoxx 50 as a relative value trade.

US investors are pushing out maturities on their structured products and notes, extending the transactions beyond four-to-six years in a bid to gain better yields.

Pension funds are entering into total return swaps on the Eurostoxx 50 to collect carry, driven by low volatility in other classes and the knock-on effect of the European Central Bank’s recent announcement regarding its liquidity programme. The funds are buying short term and selling long term TRS on the underlying in an effort to collect positive carry and roll-down.

Laurent Ichard, ex-co-head of equities distribution at JPMorgan in London, has joined Citigroup as head of pan-Asia equity derivative flow sales in Hong Kong.