Derivs - Interest Rate

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.

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.

Barclays Capital has launched five-year structured notes, with a portion referencing three-month Euribor and another three-month Swiss franc Libor.

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.

CME Group is planning to expand its clearing services within CME ClearPort to cater to interest rate swaps sometime in the second quarter.

A pair of Citigroup interest rates traders, Alex Tan and Abel Theo, have left the firm.

Corporates in Hong Kong, China and Taiwan are starting to enter into contracts that fix interest-rate payments instead of taking the floating leg.

The soon-to-be created European Supervisory Authority (Securities and Markets) will be responsible for regulating clearing houses under new plans revealed today.

Nomura Securities International is looking for a U.S. strategist to cover interest rates derivatives and volatility as it plots a doubling of its fixed income research headcount in the U.S.

The majority of Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee members at the European Parliament and officials at the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee, are supporting Michel Barnier as the European Commissioner for Internal Market & Services.