Derivs - Equity

Proposals from the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee to establish key information documents alongside investment products would hamper innovation and could freeze markets, according to the European Structured Investment Products Association, in a response.

MarketDirect, the Royal Bank of Scotland’s electronic structured products platform, plans to offer interest rate products to clients later this year. The move comes as single dealer and multi-dealer platforms are expanding offerings via electronic execution.

Paul Thind, head of custom indices Asia Pacific at the Royal Bank of Scotland in Hong Kong, left the firm last month.

Bill Beller, head of Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa equity derivatives flow trading at UniCredit in London, has left the firm and is set to join Sberbank as head of equity options trading in Moscow. Sberbank is Russia’s largest commercial bank

Members of the European Parliament have criticised the derivative contract that Deutsche Bank sold to Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena SpA prior to the latter’s taxpayer bailout.

Members of the CFA Institute have said that companies are not providing enough detail when specifying their derivative and hedging activities.

The International Organization of Securities Commissions has spelled out a series of principles for its members concerning the distribution of complex financial instruments, including asset-backed securities, mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations and derivatives.

Nomura has signed on to Derivative.com, the Zurich-based multi-dealer structured product platform.

Cyril Cannamela, an ex-managing director in exotic equity derivative trading at Royal Bank of Scotland in Hong Kong, has joined Royal Bank of Canada in a similar role, also in Hong Kong.

Leveraged investors should buy one-month puts on U.S. dollar, China onshore yuan at-the-money non-deliverable forwards as CNY continues to appreciate in 2013, according to strategists at Standard Chartered.

S&P 500 implied dividends are trading at a premium relative to historical realized levels, opening up opportunities to sell novel longer-dated dividend yield swaps to monetize the elevated premium.

As regulatory change in the derivatives market begins to take shape, one area that remains ambiguous is the status and classification of contracts for difference.