Derivs - People and Markets

Morgan Stanley has added several staffers in fx and emerging market sales and trading, continuing its aggressive global expansion.

The Italian Commissione Nazionale per le Società e la Borsa is consulting with the industry on whether to increase transparency in cash-settled equity derivatives by introducing formal disclosure rules.

Chak Wong, managing director and head of corporate structuring solutions at Barclays Capital in Asia, left the firm last week for an academic position.

UOB Asset Management has begun distributing Singapore’s first exchange-traded fund that synthetically garners exposure to China A-shares.

The notion of engineering basis trades on CME Clearing versus ICE Trust was floated this morning at the fourth annual OTC Derivatives Operations and Processing Conference in New York.

The U.S. House Agriculture Committee just passed Rep. Collin Peterson’s derivatives bill, with several major amendments.

The coming over-the-counter derivatives regulations in the U.S. and Europe will result in billions of dollars of new fees for brokers, clearing houses and alternative swap execution facilities, according to JPMorgan analysts.

JPMorgan has hired Andrew Kent, the former senior index options trader at Deutsche Bank who left in the wake of large trading losses last year.

Collin Peterson, chairman of the U.S. House Agriculture Committee, is holding a hearing today at 2 p.m. to discuss his over-the-counter derivatives bill.

Barclays Capital is reviewing its employee pay structure. Richard Broadbent, an independent director, is overseeing the project and will report his findings early 2010. The firm will then decide whether it will increase staffers' basic salaries.

It's an open question whether older, non-standardized credit default swaps will need to be cleared when U.S. reforms are enacted, according to panelists at the fourth annual OTC Derivatives Operations and Processing conference in New York this morning.

Four major dealers have signed master agreements with Lehman Brothers Special Financing, allowing the bankrupt firm to buy new over-the-counter hedges.