Derivs - FX

Bank of New York Mellon’s Evolution Currency Option Fund last month bought three to six month call spreads on the Brazilian real against the U.S. dollar.

UBS has hired two senior Goldman Sachs derivatives pros in Asia.

Bank of America has hired Joseph Kraft to head up the firm’s Japanese fx sales and trading business in Tokyo.

Forward volatility agreements—which allow users to speculate on future volatility—are growing in popularity among real money managers such as pension funds and insurance companies.

Private banks in Asia are buying exotics tied to the performance of the yuan and Chinese stocks, which they and their clients are not licensed to trade directly.

Raymond Wong, a managing director at Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong and a member of the firm’s China corporate coverage team, left the firm last week and is tipped for a structuring role at UBS.

Société Genéralé reportedly built a USD2 billion cable put position this week with a strike of USD1.01. At press time, spot was just below USD1.55.

Michel Barnier, the new European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, is set to hold talks with U.K. regulators and government officials March 2 on derivatives reform, financial transaction taxes and the Volcker rule.

Hedge funds were buying short-term vanilla calls on the U.S. dollar against the yen this morning, despite the dollar weakening off the back of a jump in weekly U.S. jobless claims.

Deutsche Lufthansa AG entered a JPY760 million (USD8.3 million) currency forward last week to hedge ticket sales in Japan.

Credit Suisse is marketing three-year notes for institutional investors who are bearish on the long-term prospects of the U.S. dollar.

Hedge funds and corporates were buying calls and puts on the euro this morning, as uncertainty mounted over a Greek rescue package being drawn up in the European Parliament.