Derivs - FX

Hedge funds have been buying puts on sterling against the U.S. dollar, brought on by downbeat comments from Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, and the spike in option prices on euro/U.S. dollar.

Standard Chartered has hired Colin George, an fx options trader from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, for its Singapore fx desk.

The notional amount of single name and index credit default swaps outstanding globally for the first half of 2009 was USD36 trillion, 14% less than what was recorded for July to Dec. 2008, according to an update from the Bank of International Settlements.

Donal Galvin, global head of client structured products, has resigned from Rabobank in London.

The leading contender in Japan for clearing over-the-counter derivatives has suffered a series of setbacks, forcing a progress report that was due in October from the Tokyo Stock Exchange to be pushed back at least two months.

Firms who trade over-the-counter derivatives hit out at the lack of clarity from regulators at the Futures and Options World derivatives conference in London this morning.

Non-deliverable forward traders are pricing in a significant strengthening of the yuan against the U.S. dollar with the one-year NDF yesterday at CNY6.605 compared to CNY6.700 a week ago.

One-month implied volatility of puts on the euro against the U.S. dollar spiked by 1.5 percentage points on Monday night—the largest one-day jump since last December.

Russia’s Federal Financial Markets Service has offered a Parliamentary bill to legalize close-out netting for derivatives along existing International Swaps and Derivatives Association guidelines.

Standard Chartered is planning to expand in structured fx- and credit-linked notes across Europe and Asia and recently hired Per Nordstrom and Michael Amorgianos to lead the effort.

Sean Sanders, a Latin American fx options trader formerly with Bank of America, has landed at Tullett Prebon in New York brokering G10 vanilla and exotic options.

Currency derivatives players’ appetite for more exotic trades has been picking up over the last two months, according to P.K. Sinha, director in rates and fx structuring at BNP Paribas in New York.