Derivs - Equity

Andrew Song, a senior equity derivatives trader at Barclays Capital in London, has left the firm less than eight months since joining.

Credit Suisse has issued a barrier reverse convertible structured product linked to three underlying indices that also gives investors the opportunity to participate in an appreciation of gold, the first such product issued by the firm.

Morgan Stanley has issued two separate reverse convertible structured products in Germany, Switzerland and Austria that are linked to Daimler with deep barriers of 25%.

A hedge fund stepped into the market today to buy a put butterfly spread on the SPDRs Retail Exchange-Traded Fund (XRT) worth USD138 million, expiring sometime this month.

Wells Fargo Funds Management has named John Manley as chief equity strategist.

London-based Octopus Investments has launched a global strategies fund that will invest in structured UCITS III funds that use derivatives to achieve investment returns.

Mohamed Ali Bacha, head of equity derivatives trading at Nomura in London, left the firm last week.

Investors should sell short-dated puts on the American oil exchange-traded fund because puts on the ETF are currently more expensive than they should be relative to other equity indices and economists predict less price reduction in the sector overall than 2008-9, even if there’s a crisis, according to a note strategists from Barclays Capital.

Macquarie Capital is in the process of scaling down its delta-one business in Europe and the U.S. to focus more on the business in Australia and Asia.

Observers are raising questions about a little discussed part of Hong Kong’s over-the-counter derivatives reform plan: small automated trading systems will be allowed to act as designated central clearing counterparties.

The Royal Bank of Canada has hired Mandy Kan, former senior single stock options trader at JPMorgan in Hong Kong, to head its single stock trading desk.

Hong Kong’s proposed version of a local trade repository with links to a larger global repository is the most efficient solution for future over-the-counter derivative data management in smaller Asian markets.