Derivs - People and Markets

Michael Di Iorio, managing director and Asia Pacific co-head of equities trading at Nomura in Hong Kong, has left the firm.

Thomas Vergnaud, a portfolio manager in derivatives strategy at Citadel Investment Group in London, has left the firm less than a year after joining.

Qualified foreign institutional investors who are licensed to trade the new China Financial Futures Exchange CSI 300 index may only be able to do so for legitimate hedging purposes, according to new guidelines issued by the China Securities Regulatory Commission.

Over-the-counter credit derivatives traders have been moving to listed equity derivatives in the past week in an attempt to find the liquidity lacking in their market, according to David Silber, managing director of equity derivatives at Jefferies in New York, a firm focusing primarily on listed trades.

With the U.S. Senate bill finalized, players throughout the industry say their final hopes for less draconian rules depend on the conference to merge the bill with the House version, and on federal regulators charged with implementation.

John Craven, director of global markets and head of retail structured products and capital markets for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at Merrill Lynch in London, left last week.

Hedge funds and corporates have been buying up one-week and one-month put options on the euro against the U.S. dollar since Wedneday after being rattled by Germany’s decision to ban naked sovereign credit default swaps referencing eurozone debt.

RBC Capital Markets is working to build out its equity derivatives business, particularly in the U.S. This week the firm announced a string of new hires and the appointment of Donald Dye, a fixed-income veteran, as U.S. head of retail and high-net-worth sales.

Kennett Square, Pa., advisor Chatham Financial plans to launch a currency hedging platform within its microfinance arm, Cygma, later this year in Luxembourg. The aim is to capitalize on USD1-1.5 billion that investors would like to invest in microfinance, but can’t because of excessive currency risk.

The U.K.’s newly formed coalition government appears to have ruled out plans to introduce a tax on financial transactions. The move, which will be cheered by the U.K. banking sector, will come as a blow to other E.U. countries, such as Germany, where politicians are making the case for transaction taxes to be implemented as a way of offsetting the cost of the E.U. bailout fund.

Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission’s Insurance Bureau has given the go-ahead for Credit Suisse to issue a new retail structured instrument onshore.

Credit Suisse has hired Ryan Chan from Standard Chartered as its head of credit structuring in Hong Kong.