Derivs - Equity

The Singapore Exchange will allow dual currency trading on its listed exchange-traded funds from June 15, allowing investors to trade foreign currency ETFs in Singapore dollars.

Hedge funds have been selling September out-of-the-money payer options on the Markit investment grade credit default swap index and buying puts on the Standard & Poor’s 500 over the last week in order to take advantage of the relative value of credit and equity volatility.

The Securities and Markets Stakeholder Group, an influential division of the European Securities and Markets Authority, has criticized a proposal from the pan-European regulator for technical standards on margin calculation models for central counterparties.

Japanese financial firms with over-the-counter derivatives holdings have not adequately decreased their wrong way risk--the combination of counterparty credit risk and market exposure--since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, according to Japan’s central bank.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation plans to open an office in Japan officially in June-or-July, but it may not be ready for the Nov. 1 start for mandatory clearing and reporting of over-the-counter derivatives.

Lorne Kerr, director of equity derivatives sales focusing on hedge funds at Societe Generale in New York, has left the firm.

Goldman Sachs has hired Moran Baldar to join the index flow derivatives trading team in New York.

Talks are underway in the U.S. to create a click and trade multi-dealer structured product platform, the first of its kind in the country.

Depressed yields on five-year U.S. Treasuries are stifling the issuance of U.S. dollar longer-dated equity-linked capital-protected structured products.

Buyside firms should monitor central counterparties on a daily basis once regulations are finalized because of risks associated with margining and counterparty exposure, said Else Braathen, head of the risk management domain at portfolio software firm SimCorp in New York.

Ian Collins, head of sales, global markets at HSBC in Sydney, left the firm two weeks ago.

Private investors long Australian dollar via dual currency deposits are looking at two-or-three month AUD-denominated equity-linked structured products referencing Hong Kong single stocks or Asian baskets in a bid to increase yield as the AUD depreciates.