Derivs - Equity

Credit Suisse is marketing three-year notes for institutional investors who are bearish on the long-term prospects of the U.S. dollar. The notes are linked to an equally weighted basket of BRIC currencies comprising the Brazilian real, the Russian ruble, the Indian rupee and the Chinese yuan.

Vincent Van Pelt, global head of equity derivatives at Standard Chartered is taking a one-year sabbatical, according to people made aware of the situation.

Leith Assouad, managing director and head of index flow trading at Citigroup in London, left last week.

If the U.S. financial reform legislation successfully pushes many over-the-counter derivatives onto exchanges, banks and dealers could see a tax break on those deals of up to 12%, lawyers say.

Correlation across asset classes has rocketed as disparate markets react to sovereign debt problems. The move has some arguing derivative book hedges are going to need to be radically re-hedged somehow. But there is also a camp that sees the spike as short-term background noise that can be ignored.

Foreign banks in China are scoping setting up licensed subsidiaries, as opposed to branch offices, because they think regulators are going to let those subsidiaries get more active in onshore trading.

As exchange-traded funds gain popularity and liquidity, they are becoming increasingly attractive to structured product issuers because they’re simpler to use than indexes as underlyings.

Wade Newmark, the former head of derivatives at ABN AMRO and Abbey National, has joined StormHarbour Partners in a new role.

Carl Mason, head of equity derivatives strategy in the Americas at BNP Paribas in New York, has left the firm.

Over-the-counter equity derivatives are the least suitable for standardization and exchange trading, and OTC fx swaps are the least likely to be cleared, according to a survey of market participants done by BNY Mellon and analyzed by the TABB Group. This discrepancy highlights the fact that standardization does not necessarily imply clearing and vice versa.

Marilyn Ramplin, an ex-executive director in prime brokerage and equity derivatives strategy to hedge funds, funds of funds and asset managers at JPMorgan in London, has set up a UCITS (Undertakings for Collective Investment in Transferable Securities) advisory shop.

Strategists at Morgan Stanley are pitching out-of-the-money put option trades on a number of Asian financials, foreseeing increased funding pressure on firms more dependent on wholesale funding amidst continuing sovereign credit concerns in Europe that are seeping into Asia.