Derivs - Equity

Buysiders are increasingly tapping vanilla puts and calls with weekly expirations as a tool to hedge or take directional views on the S&P 500.

Structured products and equity derivatives are behind a second quarter 23.3% hike in corporate and investment banking revenues compared to the same period last year at Société Générale.

Bloomberg has received temporary registration approval from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to operate a multi-asset class swap execution facility.

BNP Paribas has credited a rise in transaction volumes and the good performance of structured products in Europe and Asia for a 23.3% increase in revenue in equities and advisory compared to the second quarter of last year. The firm posted equity and advisory revenues of EUR455 million in its quarterly earnings report for Q2 2013.

Institutional investors are increasingly entering upside call option and call spread strategies on the Eurostoxx 50 or playing the outperformance of the index against the S&P 500.

State Street has joined the ranks of applicants to the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission to become a multi-asset swap execution facility under Dodd-Frank, less than a week before the final SEF rules become effective.

Jacob Kaippallimalil, the ex-global head of the quantitative trading group at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in New York, has joined UBS in a new role as head of automated market making in New York.

The Chicago Board Options Exchange Futures Exchange will expand its trading hours in late September, beginning with a first phase and then implementing a second phase in the following weeks.

The Hong Kong Exchange is planning to launch futures trading on the CES China 120 index on Aug. 12, the first time an exchange-listed derivative has been offered referencing China A-and-H-shares.

UBS has seen its exchange-traded notes program assets more than triple in 18 months.

Institutional investors in Japan have been unwinding calls and futures on the Nikkei 225, following the recent election that gave the ruling party control of the Upper House.

Investors should look at buying December worst-of calls on a basket of Chinese financial equity with a 105% strike, as those stocks will likely benefit from any government stimulus of the economy.