Derivs - People and Markets

Investors are shifting to short-dated September or October puts on the S&P 500, targeting strikes between 1,900 and 1,800.

Some market participants have been unwinding long options positions on the dollar against the yen in a bid to take profit as the Japanese unit has steadily weakened against the greenback. At the end of last month, $/¥ was trading at 101.36. On Monday, spot on the pair was 104.28.

Andrew Simpson, ex-coo at Rate Validation Services, has been appointed head of post-trade at Euronext as the exchange operator makes a push to expand its post-trade services following a demerger with parent company IntercontinentalExchange earlier this year. Simpson will be responsible for developing Euronext’s relationship with LCH.Clearnet and its clearing strategy for both cash and derivatives markets.

PIMCO potentially sought to limit the amount it needed to pay from its credit default swaps on Argentine bonds when it voted against including two Japanese law-restructured notes from being included in the upcoming CDS auction, according to market officials.

Buyside participants, in particular insurance firms and pension schemes, have not adequately invested in risk management infrastructure and are not pricing their derivatives exposures or collateral charges effectively in light of new rules and accounting standards.

Investors have been selling puts on the euro against the dollar in a bid to take profit on any downside options they still hold, following a further decline in spot on the currency pair after somewhat hawkish Federal Open Market Committee meeting minutes were released on Wednesday.

Investors have been trading vanilla options on the euro against the dollar this week, following the recent spot decline in the currency pair.

Marcus Robinson has been appointed head of SwapClear Australia in Sydney, in a new role that is part of LCH.Clearnet’s bid to expand in the region.

First Trust has listed a new exchange-traded fund on the NASDAQ OMX which began trading last Thursday. The ETF, known as First Trust Strategic Income ETF, is the firm’s first multi-asset income fund that is actively managed, and provides a low-cost alternative to traditional fixed-income funds through diversification and the use of multiple asset classes.

BM&FBOVESPA, Brazil’s sole bourse, has unified its four clearinghouses for different asset classes into one single platform, which began live operations Monday for exchange-traded and over-the-counter derivatives. The firm will now look to launch equities in 2015.

Matthew Karwelies, an equity derivatives sales official at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, has joined UBS.

Overall credit default swap notional that was reported to swap data repositories last week decreased by 30% from the previous week, according to data from the International Swaps and Derivatives Association. Overall interest rates derivatives trading that was reported, however, climbed by 8%.