Derivs - Equity

Macquarie has hired Iain Butler as a Japanese single stock options trader based in Tokyo.

Elie Scemama, a senior equity derivatives flow salesman at Citigroup in London, has left the firm.

Credit Suisse has hired Bernadina Suen from Deutsche Bank as a sales executive covering fixed income for Hong Kong.

Citigroup is eyeing the opportunity to list warrants on the Taiwan Stock Exchange.

Citigroup has hired Tim Collins, ex-head of equity synthetics at RBC Capital Markets, as a managing director in prime brokerage sales.

V2 Capital is planning a long-only portfolio correlated to the Standard & Poor’s 500 that will trade vanilla equity over-the-counter options, Chicago Board of Exchange FLEX options and listed options. The strategy, which is aimed at institutional investors, comes in response to the recent trend towards exchange trading and vanilla OTC options from risk-averse investors.

Credit Suisse has begun marketing so called three-year drop-back certificates linked to the performance of the Eurostoxx 50.

Olaf Kasten, co-head of Asia equity derivatives trading at BNP Paribas in Hong Kong, left the firm two weeks ago.

One of the collateral victims of the subprime crisis was the overthe-counter variance swap, particularly those used on single stocks. This instrument for trading volatility appeared in the late 90s, together with the emergence of several other volatility products, including the volatility swap.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s structured products unit will likely hire three industry professionals next month, Kenneth Lench, head of the unit within the Division of Enforcement, told Derivatives Week.

The slide in BP PLC’s share price is set to hit investors who have purchased structured products linked to the oil leviathan which are nearing expiry.

European lawmakers have proposed a ban on financial services employees being allowed to hedge their bonus payouts. The hedges popped up last season when deferred bonus payouts were being pushed by regulators and staffers.