Derivs - Equity

Hong Kong’s Legislative Council is set to debate key legislation on Wednesday that will govern the city’s mandatory over-the-counter derivative G20 commitments.

Laurent Kssis, a partner and head of exchange-traded fund sales, trading and advisory for institutional investors at market maker Bluefin Trading in London, has left the firm.

Derivatives Week is unveiling its Global Derivative Award winners in two stages this year. First up are the winners of the Global Derivatives Editorial Awards determined by the editorial team. The winners of the bank, interdealer broker and law firm awards will be decided by the results of the Global Derivatives Survey. The survey runs until July 22 for the bank and law firms, and runs until July 29 for the interdealer brokers.

Bill Brodsky’s career in derivatives spans the birth of some of the pivotal products that are now taken as basic derivative building blocks. He was lured to the Chicago Mercantile Exchange in 1982 as Windy City futures officials were planning the first equity index futures. Bookending that, is the VIX suite of derivatives: on his watch as chairman and ceo of the Chicago Board Options Exchange volatility derivatives have become a key part of the trading and investing landscape.

Dushyant Chadha, head of equity derivatives for the Americas at Deutsche Bank in New York, is set to join UBS.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore has proposed requiring reporting of derivative positions over SGD8 billion (USD6.3 billion) for non-financial specified persons.

Structured products linked to the Nikkei 225 are becoming popular with retail investors in South Korea, despite the nation’s traditional aversion to the Japanese index. Market officials in the country have seen a recent uptick in the volume of transactions, colloquially referred to as high fives in Korea, which in this case involve the combination of the Nikkei with the Kospi.

Fixed income investors are increasingly considering Eurostoxx 50 dividend swaps in an effort to increase yield.

ICAP has appointed Jan de Smedt, an ex-senior director in licensing and sales at S&P Dow Jones Indices, as global head of indices in London.

Iain Flockhart, the ex-head of delta 1 trading for Europe, Middle East and Africa at Barclays in London, is set to join Bank of America Merrill Lynch in a similar role, also based in London.

Investors in Japan are considering three-to-six-month calls on the Nikkei 225 in preparation for the country’s Upper House election and Bank of Japan meeting this month.

BlueCrest Capital Management has hired Niek Koster, the ex-head of single stocks structuring and trading in global equity-linked products at RBC Capital Markets in London, as a portfolio manager, also in London.