Derivs - Equity

Matthew Totham, managing director and head of equity trading at Morgan Stanley in Hong Kong, is relocating back to the firm’s London office.

Institutional investors are entering option strategies to profit from the decorrelation between the S&P500 and euro/U.S. dollar.

Institutional investors are increasingly buying calls on the PowerShares DB U.S. Dollar Index Bullish Fund with the view that the greenback will continue to strengthen through to the end of the year.

Zurich-based index provider STOXX has launched the STOXX China A 50 Equal Weight Index, which will be used to underlie exchange-traded funds and structured products.

Stephane Avis, managing director and head of single stock exotic trading at Deutsche Bank in London, is relocating to Hong Kong.

Robert Beck, senior single stock trader at Citigroup in New York, has left the firm.

The international reach of Dodd-Frank may result in Brazilian businesses choosing to hedge with a non-U.S. firm to avoid any regulatory burdens involved in complying with U.S. regulation.

Thomas Jarck, the ex-head of index flow trading in global equity derivatives at Deutsche Bank in New York, has joined Nomura to run index volatility trading, also in New York.

The Hong Kong Exchange is planning to introduce options trading on the CES 120 Index, which tracks the performance of Chinese firms listed in Hong Kong and the mainland.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has hired Steve Moses, the former head of equity derivative sales at Nomura in New York, in a senior equity derivative flow sales role, also in New York.

Italian Derivatives Exchange Market, the equity derivatives market of Borsa Italiana, has launched European blue-chip single stock dividend futures.

Traders in Japan are starting to see demand for six-to-12-month puts on the Nikkei as investors look to hedge against potential decreases in the country’s equity markets following record growth.