Derivs - People and Markets

When Scott O’Malia, commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in Washington DC, takes up his new role as chief executive officer of the International Swaps and Derivatives Association, derivative trade data will be top of the agenda. Though swap data reporting has been running for two years in the US, there is still no automated way to crunch the data — a problem on both sides of the regulatory fence which O'Malia has been trying to solve for years at the CFTC.

Inna Bochkova, former managing director and head of US flow equity derivatives sales at BMO Capital Markets, has joined Susquehanna International Group.

Investors have been trading puts and risk-reversals on the euro against the dollar on recent days following the recent spot decline in the currency pair.

UBS has hired Amir Heravi, a former equity derivatives trader at BNP Paribas in New York, as co-head of index flow trading, also in New York.

Overall interest rate trading that was reported to swap data repositories last week dropped by 15% from the previous week, according to data from the International Swaps and Derivatives Association. Overall credit default swaps notional that was reported, however, climbed by 2%.

Scott O’Malia, Republican commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in Washington DC, has resigned after four and half years, effective August 8.

Long-dated vanilla options structures on the euro against the dollar that play a bullish $ view, are expected to gain traction as front-end yield differentials have moved in the $’s favour, with strategists expecting such a trend to widen further over the next 18 months.

Christian Maria Kreuser, co-founder of Quirin, a German private bank, has been appointed senior advisor for fund management and structured investment management at Assenagon asset management in Munich.

Turnover in structured products at the SIX Structured Products Exchange in Switzerland declined in June to Sfr1.75bn, a decrease of 9.45% compared to May, according to a quarterly report from the Swiss Structured Products Association.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has published recommendations for an updated version of the Financial products Markup Language, also known as FpML version 5.7.

Banco Central Do Brasil is increasing its use of currency swaps to sell the US dollar in order to provide support to the Brazilian real. The central bank is using currency swaps as a tool to bring liquidity and stability to the country's currency.

The Singapore Exchange is expanding into Hong Kong, establishing a liquidity hub and opening a derivatives trading branch.