Derivs - Equity

Matthew Wong, head of equity derivatives and private investor product sales for Asia at Royal Bank of Scotland, is moving from Hong Kong to the firm’s London headquarters to become its global head of listed derivatives distribution.

Hotly anticipated over-the-counter derivatives legislation from Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) has just been released, and judging by the commercial end-user exemption to an otherwise mandatory clearing requirement, it looks as if end-user lobbyists had an impact in the final hours before its release.

KBC Financial Products, part of Belgium’s KBC Group, is selling its Hong Kong warrants and global convertible bond business and winding down the rest of its Asian operations.

Derivatives officials say the idea being floated in some circles of spinning off swaps desks isn’t feasible and jars with other expected provisions of the forthcoming Senate Agriculture Committee bill.

The Senate Agriculture Committee’s proposals for regulating the over-the-counter derivatives market, which Chairman Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) said would be released today, will now come out Friday at the earliest because the legislative language is not yet finished, according to a Committee spokeswoman.

Steve Seman, an ex-senior equity derivatives trader at Credit Suisse in London, has joined U.K. interdealer broker Forte Securities as a senior broker in its equity derivatives division.

Stakeholders in a clearinghouse operating in Japan will require direct approval from the Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama if they wish to seek ownership of more than 20%, under proposals submitted by the Japanese Financial Services Authority.

Equity derivatives strategists at Morgan Stanley are advocating buying six-month puts on the S&P 500 to hedge downside risk, but using knock-ins referencing the price of oil to reduce the cost of the option.

Kenneth Hon, the former head of equity derivatives trading at Citigroup in Hong Kong, is set to land at Deutsche Bank in the same role.

Salvatore Di Stasi, global head of corporate equity derivatives at UBS in London, has hired a pair of ex-senior staffers at Goldman Sachs and reportedly intends to add more.

Issuers, including Credit Suisse, have been making extra efforts to push issuer callable notes to private banking clients in Hong Kong.

U.S. Senator Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) said earlier today that the final sticking points in an agreement on over-the-counter derivatives reform between himself and Senator Jack Reed (D-R.I.) center on end-user exemptions from clearing and the amount of OTC trades that should go on exchange