Derivs - People and Markets

Nomura Holdings has expanded its investment-banking operations for the Americas with the hiring of five managing directors, including Stephen Cunningham as head of Latin America investment banking.

Salt Lake City, Utah-based Maverick Trading has announced plans to expand its fx division with the hiring of 50 traders at the rate of 10 a month over the next five months.

ProShares has launched the Ultra VIX Short-Term Futures ETF and the Short VIX Short-Term Futures ETF, bringing to 30 the total number of exchange-traded funds in its volatility ETFdb category.

Macquarie Group has named Thomas Caracciola head of Macquarie Futures USA. Caracciola was a v.p, of client relationship management at Goldman Sachs.

The swap execution facilities market are having to wait on regulators to define a key part of the rules before they can hammer out governance and compliance structures, according to panelists at the Wholesale Market Brokers’ Association’s SEFCON II conference in New York yesterday.

Commodity Futures Trading Commission Chairman Gary Gensler was unable to provide any further clarity on whether or not voice broking will continue in the over-the-counter derivatives market once swap execution facilities and pre-trade transparency are implemented.

The Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission have differences in their Dodd-Frank rulemaking proposals that are concerning market participants. CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler today said some differences are unavoidable.

Irregular trading of derivatives in South Korea has soared over the past years, according to an audit of the Korea Exchange by the country’s National Assembly.

Morgan Stanley saw its share price plunged 10% on Friday because of a misreading of a report by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on the bank’s notional outstanding value of derivatives in the second quarter, according to Matthew Burnell, an analyst at Wells Fargo.

Tradeweb Markets reported that notional trading volume of interest-rate swaps surged 90% in the third quarter, reflecting the fact that a growing number of traders are preparing for compliance with new regulations.

Fitch Solutions has launched a new bank credit model, which provides daily financial implied ratings and implied credit default swap spreads for 9,500 global banks.

Russia’s RTS Stock Exchange began trading cash-settled futures contract on the MICEX Index and an option on the futures contract on the index on Sept. 30.