Derivs - FX

CVA desks and hedge funds are buying outright payers and payer spreads on iTraxx Main as the index roll provided new impetus for investors looking to hedge.

Participation in fx options across most currency pairs has been significantly reduced in recent weeks due to record low realized and implied volatilities, according to fx traders.

Propriety trading desks and hedge funds are focusing on reversion trades in the Japanese equity markets due to large dispersions in intra-sector single stocks, according to traders and strategists.

Approximately 75% of buysiders are unable to process many of the newer and more complicated products such as swaps, swaptions and swap futures, without manual intervention, according to a survey conducted by TABB Group and SimCorp.

Parvest, the flagship international fund range of BNP Paribas Investment Partners, has begun offering a low volatility emerging market equities fund.

Hedge funds are selling puts on the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets exchange-traded fund (EEM) and country specific ETFs, such as the Market Vectors Russia ETF Fund (RSX), to position for upside in the underlyings.

Chinese authorities and bourses are now looking to launch equity options trading on single stock and index underlyings sometime in the second half of the year. Stock options were originally slated for Q2 this year.

Last week saw a key micro event in credit markets, the semi-annual index roll, causing volumes on swap execution facilities to spike and hit new records in CDS index transactions.

Vontobel is rolling out an online pricing platform for structured products to licensed financial institutions in Singapore.

The Korea Exchange may not be able to deliver an expansion to its derivatives-based product lineup until the end of the year, due to concerns from the country’s regulator surrounding the volatile nature of the underlyings being considered.

Manvir Nijhar, the former co-head of equity derivative flow sales for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Citigroup in London, has joined BNP Paribas in a senior equity derivatives sales role, also in London.

Mirae Asset Group listed Monday on the Korea Exchange the first synthetic exchange-traded fund in South Korea for 2014, which tracks the Markit iBoxx US Dollar Liquid High Yield 0-5-year Index