Derivs - People and Markets

Emergent Asset Management is building a basket of short positions in the U.S. dollar in its Emergent FX Fund, set against long exposure to currencies in countries that are likely to benefit from growth in commodities—namely Brazil, Australia and Canada.

The London Stock Exchange has ruled out clearing credit default swaps due to problems it foresees valuing them, Raffaele Jerusalmi, director of derivatives in Milan, told Derivatives Week.

CIBC has hired William Bamber as a managing director and global head of structuring in Toronto.

RBC Capital Markets has come to market with a structured note giving investors exposure to the total return version of the Standard & Poor’s 500, meaning index gains as well as dividends.

Peter Nathaniel, chief risk officer at the Royal Bank of Scotland, warned yesterday at the GARP conference in London that clearing bilateral over-the-counter derivatives on exchange will not eliminate counterparty risk.

Stephen Withers, executive director and head of trading for Asia at Banco Santander in Hong Kong, left the bank recently.

A court case involving Standard Chartered unit SC First Bank as the defendant and four corporate plaintiffs who lost money on fx derivatives kicked off yesterday in Seoul District Court.

Goldman Sachs has tapped Shantanu Shete, head of hedge fund sales for Asia Pacific at Citigroup, to work in a fixed income sales role. Previously based in Singapore, Shete will relocate to Hong Kong.

Starting tomorrow, all tranche trades on the CDX North American Investment Grade index series 12 will bear a fixed coupon of 100 basis points for the first time.

Various fx players were scuttling Tuesday to scoop up one-touch options positioned for a sharp decline in the U.S. dollar against the Canadian dollar in the next one-to six-months.

Roger Cole, director of banking supervision and regulation at the U.S. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, told Derivatives Week at today’s Global Association of Risk Professionals conference in London that banks will need to revisit the models they are using to value derivatives.

Northern Trust is expanding its over-the-counter derivatives business with additional services and personnel. By the middle of next year, it plans to have launched new services for valuing and processing trades for its asset management and pension fund clients, addressing their increasing use of equity- and credit-linked instruments.