Derivs - People and Markets

Members of the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee voted on Monday to create a European Securities and Markets Association, which will be given powers to approve which over-the-counter derivatives are considered standardized enough for central clearing.

Franck Lacour, head of equity derivatives volatility trading at Barclays Capital in London, left the firm last week.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. voted Tuesday to pass its Safe Harbor proposal. The vote was in two parts, with the first motion passing unanimously and the second passing by a narrower margin of 3 to 2. Now the proposed rule will be published in the Federal Register, and then a 45-day comment period on the Safe Harbor proposal will begin.

Ping An of China Asset Management, a subsidiary of Ping An Insurance, has launched a market access exchange-traded fund that gives investors access to the performance of China A-shares using over-the-counter derivatives.

Royal Bank of Scotland and National Australia Bank have partnered up on a capital-protected equity structure targeted at Australian retail investors.

The Bank for International Settlements is advising trade repositories to report data from participants in real-time when possible, with a minimum lag of one business day.

The Bank for International Settlements today recommended over-the-counter derivatives CCPs regularly check their procedures for coping with the failure of a member firm.

Three equity index traders at Nomura in London resigned yesterday and are reportedly planning to set up a hedge fund focused on volatility trading.

Nomura has hired James Land from Westpac Banking Corp. to head up all of fixed income for Australia, a new role for the firm.

Banks have stepped up their issuance of reverse convertibles linked to the stocks of other financial institutions.

Edward Chen, head of non-deliverable forwards trading for Morgan Stanley in Asia, has left the bank.

The front-end of the credit default swap spread curve on Goldman Sachs became inverted late last week for the first time since mid-2009, meaning the cost of buying protection on the firm became more expensive over the shorter term than the long term. Traders are attributing the move to jump-to-default risk—essentially the fear that negative headlines and regulatory pressure on the firm could ultimately cause it to fail.