Derivs - Equity

The Australian Securities Exchange has launched Equity Clear, a clearing service for over-the-counter equity options.

Dealers operating in South Korea’s highly popular equity-linked autocallable structured product market are finding it harder to hedge positions due to increasing illiquidity in the volatility market.

Standard Chartered has completed the expansion of its flow equity derivative desk in Hong Kong with the appointment of three traders. Rajeev Ranjan and Wallace Liu have been hired as single stock traders from Nomura, while Capan Acar is set to join StanChart from Citigroup in Hong Kong.

The freefall of the Indian rupee over the last month and a half has been slicing returns of foreign investors in Indian equities. That’s fueling substantial over-the-counter put buying on the Indian S&P CNX Nifty index from foreign real money accounts that are fearful the currency slide may hit the equity market as well.

Hedge funds in Asia are purchasing downside protection via three-month 85-95% put spreads on Asian indices, with South Korea’s KOSPI 200 the most popular underlying.

As the potential for a Greek exit from the Eurozone and the uncertainty around contagion to peripheral countries increases, the banking sector once again come into focus across Europe.

Cedric Dechavanne, equity derivatives and volatility strategist at Société Générale in Hong Kong, resigned on Thursday.

Nomura has hired Tony Hayden as managing director and head of its newly-launched delta one business in the Americas in New York.

Societe Generale has launched an electronic platform that allows end users to trade index over-the-counter forwards and futures at the close of their underlying equity market.

Hedge funds in Asia are taking advantage of cheap volatility this week by buying dispersion trades through calendar spreads, variance swaps or straddles of volatility swaps referencing Asia Pacific indices.

Investors spent the early part of this week repositioning for a downturn in U.S. equities via puts on the S&P 500 exchange-traded fund, which added to a steep skew term structure on the ETF that could provide over-the-counter trading opportunities.

Mariana Capital Markets, the London-based boutique brokerage firm, has hired Manvir Nijhar, the former co-head of equity derivative flow sales for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Citigroup in London, as a partner, also in London.