Derivs - Equity

Macquarie is lining up a London team of structurers, traders and salespeople from Bear Stearns to fire up a new equity derivatives group.

Investors are turning to more basic equity trades as they attempt to protect gains made in previous months, with traders and strategists reporting a flight to simplicity.

Citigroup has created a model portfolio to measure the impact of conditional overwriting, a derivative overlay that the firm's back-testing shows can provide significant out-performance on more basic strategies.

The Royal Bank of Scotland has established a new derivatives role designed to increase sales and drive revenues from the firm’s key corporate clients in Asia.

The Japan Bank for International Cooperation plans to provide an equity stake in The Currency Exchange, a fund that provides currency and interest rate hedging for borrowers in emerging markets.

Firms have been issuing increasing numbers of warrants in Hong Kong relating to offshore indices--in particular Taiwan.

Investors are keen to sell equity correlation to take advantage of some of the premiums being offered in the market by dealer desks.

U.K. investment house Meteor Asset Management is marketing a structured note linked to the real estate market.

Nomura is to service its high-net-worth clients with the ability to write call options on Japanese stock they hold, on the back of a joint agreement with Rampart Investment Management.

Lucia Pelliccioli, head of product development for Europe, Middle East and Africa at JPMorgan in London, left this week.

Alan Zagury, co-head of exotic equities trading, has left JPMorgan in London for Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong.

Louis Capital Markets has recently been granted the license to broker equity derivatives in Hong Kong by the Securities and Futures Commission.