Derivs - Equity

Remi Colinmaire, a managing director in index trading at Goldman Sachs in London, and Joseph Bryan, an index trader, have left the firm.

Asset managers and pension funds have been buying up dividend swaps over the last few weeks in quantities that market officials report they have never seen before.

Roland Wetherall, a former director in equity derivatives trading at Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong, has joined Rabobank in the same position.

Singapore-based hedge fund manager Woori Absolute Partners is seeking to buy long-dated vega positions on Asian equities for its Woori Absolute Asia Multi-Strategy Fund.

Some equity default swap contracts on Citigroup may be triggered if its stock price falls now that the company has been removed from the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Chicago Trading Co., a private proprietary trading firm and liquidity provider on U.S. derivatives exchanges, has hired Michael Kamal, an over-the-counter derivatives quantitative specialist formerly with Merrill Lynch.

Credit Suisse has reportedly asked Kurt Ersoy, managing director and head of derivatives marketing for Asia Pacific, to take a six month sabbatical.

MF Global has established an Asian institutional equity derivatives sales operation with the appointment of Alexis Depaepe, manager, and Nolan Harte, associate, in Hong Kong. They joined last Thursday.

Nomura has begun marketing unique swaps from its delta-one desk, whereby it manages a portfolio of stocks based on themes and give clients a one-for-one return without them needing to invest directly.

Hedge funds have been selling correlation swaps on single stocks in the Euro STOXX 50 at a clip this week in a bid to raise cash to meet rising redemptions. They are taking a view that correlation in those names will be lower than what is implied by the price of the swaps, which would enable them to lock in a profit at the maturity of the trade.

David Ratzker, formerly of Yorkville Advisors, has joined NIR Group as a portfolio manager heading up the Roslyn, N.Y-based alternative investment firm’s structured equity investments.

Chris Neale, an ex-managing director in equity derivatives trading at UBS, is set to join proprietary trading firm TradeLink in London as an index trader next week.