Derivs - Equity

Equity volatility is low compared to the highs of late 2008 and 2009, but a steep skew, which refers to the difference in implied volatility between puts and calls, shows investors aren’t taking the opportunity to hedge and some strategists say that’s a mistake.

Ingo Heinen, the former head of European equity and fund-linked derivatives sales at Nomura Securities in London, has joined Royal Bank of Scotland in a new role heading institutional sales into Germany.

Standard Chartered has tapped Simon Yung from BNP Paribas to head up marketing efforts for its warrants business in Hong Kong.

Tuan Huynh Huu, a director of fund-linked solutions for retail structured products in Hong Kong, resigned from Citigroup this week.

Société Générale is planning to hire an additional 500 people to its markets unit globally over the next 18 months.

CitiFirst, the structured products division of Citigroup, has noticed an increasing interest in instruments linked to domestic underlyings, particularly in Brazil.

New legislation designed to stop hedge funds from using total return swaps to avoid paying withholding taxes on dividends has a big hole in it: it bans the TRS but doesn’t say anything about other derivative structures that have the same effect.

Mark Green, a senior single stock equity derivatives trader at HSBC in London, has left the firm. He joined from Merrill Lynch last July (DW, 5/18) and according to headhunters is going to a hedge fund.

Tsui Keng Ong, executive director and senior equity derivatives marketer for JPMorgan in Hong Kong, has opted to take a one-year sabbatical with the bank’s blessing.

Barclays Capital has unveiled the first note linked to the recently launched S&P500 Dynamic VEQTOR (Volatility Equity Target Return) Total Return Index.

Nomura Bank International has begun marketing four-year structured notes linked to a basket of five financial names and offering a return of 34% if held to maturity.

The Securities and Exchange Commission’s decision to review the extent and nature of derivatives usage by mutual funds and exchange traded funds has created a sweet spot for those already holding an exemption to the Investment Company Act of 1940.