Derivs - Equity

Royal Bank of Scotland has appointed Peter Nielsen to the new role of head of markets. With immediate effect, he is responsible for all global banking and markets business, including credit, rates, FX, equities, trading, sales, and syndicate.

Hong Kong-based hedge fund manager Ajia Partners is set to launch a new fund of funds on Monday and is planning to use a risk overlay strategy incorporating over-the-counter flow products like put options to manage its related exposures.

Todd Steinberg, the recently departed head of equity and commodity derivatives for BNP Paribas in the Americas, is reportedly set to join Nomura in New York.

Alex Wohl, the former head of equity derivative sales and trading at Jefferies in New York, has formed Woodlawn Advisors, a boutique catering to institutional clients.

Kokou Agbo-Bloua has joined JPMorgan’s equity derivatives trading desk in London from Goldman Sachs.

The notion of creating correlation indices is being floated anew as the so-called ‘hidden asset’ is becoming a more widely recognised standalone asset class

A bill proposed earlier this month by U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) could force dealers to pay an excise tax on the sale and purchase of options, drastically increasing trading costs.

JPMorgan is reportedly contemplating a major reshuffle of its equity derivative chiefs across all regions.

Interdealer broker Phoenix Partners Group has launched an equity derivative business in New York, London and a new office in Paris.

A group of equity derivatives and structured products lawyers have left McKee Nelson in New York to join the securities and structured finance team at U.K. firm Ashurst in its New York and Washington, D.C., offices.

Multiple central counterparties for clearing credit default swaps are not a good idea. That’s according to research from Darrell Duffie, a finance professor at Stanford University, and PhD student Haoxiang Zhu, who also argue central clearing of only one type of instrument will bring about severe challenges when netting off exposures.

U.K investment shop Investec Bank is planning to launch a pair of structured funds that will target retail investors through independent financial advisors.