Derivs - Equity

BNP Paribas is advising investors to buy call options on the VIX for those who don’t expect the holiday season in the U.S. and Europe to be quiet.

The Hong Kong Securities and Futures Commission has hired Ron Chiong, the ex-head of single stock volatility trading at Standard Chartered in Hong Kong, as a senior manager in risk and strategy, a newly-created role.

The Pension Federation and other major players in the Dutch pensions market have criticized recently releases technical standards on over-the-counter derivatives regulation proposed by the European Securities and Markets Authority, saying the measures will cost them more and may not make the OTC market safer.

Equity managers charge roughly 70% more in fees than their fixed income peers, according to a Camradata Live survey of investment managers.

NYSE Euronext said it is in talks with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to settle charges it violated regulations that bar an exchange from sending data on a private feed to some clients more quickly than on public feeds.

Russia has introduced reforms for the debt and equity markets to make it easier for foreign investors to gain direct access to domestic corporate debt amid threats of an impending crisis.

UBS is marketing separate barrier reverse convertible structured products in Europe, with capital protection linked to the Eurostoxx 50 and coupon payments linked to the three-month interest rates of Canadian dollar CDOR and Swedish krona STIBOR. The CDOR and STIBOR structures, which are being offered in addition to the firm’s Euribor, CHF Libor and USD Libor products, are rare benchmarks for European-wide investors, according to structurers.

Pension fund have increasingly favored fixed income over equities in recent years, raising their portfolio’s exposure to the former from 28% to 40% in 2011 and cutting back on the latter from 61% to 41% during the same period, according to data from UK Pensions Regulator and Pension Protection Fund.

Hang Seng Bank is preparing two non-principal protected equity-linked structured product programs to be marketed to investors in Hong Kong.

Endowments and foundations in the U.S., particularly the larger funds, are increasingly turning to derivatives for both hedging and to maintain tactical asset allocation targets, according to a report from DW sister publication Foundation and Endowment Intelligence. The report, which looks at the increasing use of interest rate, equity, credit and fx derivatives, also examines how funds are managing counterparty credit risk.

Investors should enter a volatility spread, buying a Dec. 2013 80% put on the HSCEI and selling a put on the S&P 500 at 0.6% as a volatility arbitrage play, according to strategists at BNP Paribas in Hong Kong.

Nicolas Pocard and Robert Timsit, ex-equity brokers at GFI Group, have joined London-based interdealer broker Forte Securities in new equity derivative sales roles.