Derivs - People and Markets

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) has urged US regulators to disregard recommendations that the asset management industry should be regulated like large banks.

The internationalisation of China’s capital markets, dollar/offshore renminbi currency volatility and northbound investment on the Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect programme are driving more trading in renminbi currency futures, according to Hong Kong exchanges and Clearing Limited.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) is centralising trade data submissions from trade repositories and trading venues via European national competent authorities, facilitating data harmonisation, transparency and access.

Demand for principle-at-risk products has created a growth opportunity in structured products, but the industry needs education to evolve, according to panellists at the SPA-2015 Structured Investments conference in New York.

A central counterparty stress test framework proposed by LCH.Clearnet assesses risk impacts in several adaptive scenarios under the cover 2 requirement and a default auctioning protocol.

Lufthansa is one of several airline credits to have seen its CDS spreads tighten in line with the falling oil price. But a plane crash at one of its subsidiaries last week has led to investors focusing on the German firm, and the scrutiny is inevitably negative.

MarketAxess has announced another four dealers joining its platform to trade European credit, including Mizuho, which is making a fixed income trading push.

Rising volatilities in the dollar and the euro are driving demand for rate-linked notes and structured products in Asian markets as interest rates remain low, according to panellists at the Structured Products America 2015 conference in New York.

Progress on global derivatives reform is at a critical juncture. The goal of enhanced transparency, identified by the G20 following the 2008 crisis as crucial to the supervision of the financial system, remains only partly addressed because of a number of practical and legal barriers that limit data sharing across jurisdictions. As a result, the cross-border identification of systemic risk remains challenging for macroprudential authorities.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association unveiled the members of the five regional determinations committees that make binding decisions regarding credit events, succession events and auctions to determine the final price for credit default swap settlement globally.

The overall credit default swap notionals and trade counts that were reported to swap data repositories last week both increased by 15% compared to the same time last year, according to data from the International Swaps and Derivatives Association.

The Bank of England has signed a co-operation agreement with the European Central Bank to share clearing house information and boost currency swaps lines, after the ECB lost a court case to try to force euro trades to be cleared in the eurozone.