Derivs - Equity

Abhishek Gupta, an equity-linked index flow trader at Bank of America Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong, is to join Nomura.

Hedge funds, which are bearish on the Japanese and Chinese economies, are considering equity and fx tail risk hedging strategies in the event of a major economic collapse in the Asia region within the next 12 months.

Structured products linked to exchange-traded or mutual funds are becoming too hard to structure as not enough swap providers are willing to offer exposure to the underlyings at a reasonable price.

European regulators must take into account how adopted asset segregation models will fit alongside the bankruptcy code, according to Ted Leveroni, executive director, derivatives strategy and external relations at Omgeo.

China’s Supreme People’s Court is unlikely to interpret the nation’s bankruptcy law, clarifying provisions similar to close-out netting arrangements, ahead of an actual bankruptcy case, despite active lobbying for judicial guidance from the nation’s regulators.

Horizons ETFs Management, a subsidiary of Mirae Asset Global Investments, has launched an exchange-traded fund on the S&P500 that uses a covered call strategy to generate income from stocks in the index.

London-based alternative asset manager Arrowgrass has hired two senior equity proprietary traders from JPMorgan in new roles.

The issuance of exchange-traded funds referencing more diverse Chinese underlyings could increase should Hong Kong subsidiaries of U.S. or European fund managers receive approval under the renminbi qualified financial institutional investor program by end-of-the-year.

Institutional investors scooped profits by unwinding short-term puts on the iPath S&P 500 VIX Short-Term Futures Exchange-Traded Note (VXX) just prior to comments from U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke on Wednesday, setting out that the U.S. may scale back bond purchases.

Francois Pham-Quang, the former head of European equity derivative sales at Lehman Brothers in London, has joined London-based interdealer broker Forte Securities.

Nomura is shrinking its equity sales, trading and research teams in Australia, which will lead to redundancies.

Brian Alvarez, a single-stock derivatives trader at Citigroup in New York, has joined JPMorgan, as an executive director in equity derivatives, also in New York.