Derivs - FX

A number of Hong Kong-based hedge funds have been executing trades on the Taiwanese dollar/yen cross, according to a fund salesperson in the region.

Alaric Lau, managing director and head of China fixed income sales at Nomura, has left the firm. Based in Hong Kong, he was responsible for selling flow credit, fx and rates derivatives to Chinese banks and state-owned entities for hedging purposes.

Standard Chartered is advising investors to sell straddles on the U.S. dollar/yen cross to take advantage of what the firm believes could be a gradual strengthening of the yen against the U.S. dollar.

Société Générale is bullish on emerging markets and its fx strategists are recommending a quark outperformance call option to express that sentiment.

Traders have been buying puts on the Canadian dollar, positioning for a loonie slide against the U.S. dollar, possibly because of the Bank of Canada’s official stance against its currency strengthening.

Regulations issued by the Bank of Thailand earlier this month have cleared up questions over what hedging and speculative transactions are allowed by Thai banks and investors, particularly when the trades reference foreign assets or are done with a foreign counterparty.

Gary Gensler, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, has pushed back on certain points of the Obama administration’s draft Over-the-Counter Derivatives Markets Act of 2009, a consolidation of previously voiced positions on the market.

Union Bank is plotting an expansion in fx derivatives, which will see a broader array of derivatives traded for end users.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch has hired Chris Bae, managing director in equity derivatives trading at Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong—a possibility reported earlier by Derivatives Week (DW Online, 8/3); and Thomas Gillie, a senior fx options trader from Credit Suisse in Singapore, who left last month (DW Online, 7/9).

Toronto Dominion Securities plans to build up its Asia fx options business. The Canadian bank recently hired David Turner to head up fx options trading in Singapore.

Greg Miesner, a managing director at JPMorgan Private Bank, is leaving to join Morgan Stanley’s hedge fund sales team in New York. The hire is the latest in a series of senior additions to sales.

Goldman Sachs has reportedly been buying six-month dollar calls against the euro over the last week.