Derivs - Equity

Marc Baylis, the ex-head of equity derivatives single stock trading at the Royal Bank of Scotland in London, and Sasha Diklich, the ex-co-head of derivatives at Renaissance Capital in London, are set to join Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

As the basket into which trillions of dollars worth of eggs, in the form of OTC derivatives, must eventually be crammed, central clearing counterparties have the potential to become the world's biggest too-big-too-fail institutions.

Nikkei-linked autocallable issuance is being tipped to swell as dealers replace recently knocked out transactions.

Regulating market indices in the same way as interest rate benchmarks would result in additional costs for providers, which would ultimately be passed onto end-users and potentially raise barriers to entry into the indexing business, according to buyside firms.

Jeremie Honvault, an ex-portfolio manager at BNP Paribas in London, has joined StoneHedge Partners, the London-based interdealer broker and advisory firm.

Hedge funds, pension funds and insurance companies are increasingly favouring equity derivatives rather than fixed income products as they seek upside exposure or protection in the current low volatility environment.

Reliance Mutual Fund in Mumbai, the asset management arm of Reliance Group, is launching R* Shares CNX 100 Fund, an exchange-traded fund that can potentially invest in equity derivatives, such as futures, options, warrants and swaps that reference the CNX 100 Index.

The Australian Securities Exchange is planning to offer futures referencing its volatility index, known as the S&P/ ASX 200 VIX, in the second half of 2013, with options referencing the futures to follow.

Credit Suisse is set to launch open-end tracker certificates on its Allocation based on Risk-Return Optimized Weights Total Return (ARROW) 6% index, and ProNotes on its ARROW Excess Return 6% index in Switzerland.

Inflows into cash and synthetic exchange-traded funds referencing Asia ex-Japan regional indices have stalled significantly over the last week, according to traders and structurers in Hong Kong.

The turnover of structured products traded on European stock exchanges in Q4 of 2012 declined by 13.4% versus Q3 2012 and 21.9% year-on-year, according to the latest quarterly report from the European Structured Investment Products Association.

Carolina Minio-Paluello, head of equity and private investor solutions for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Citigroup in London, has left.