Derivs - People and Markets

Barclays Capital has scrapped the role of associate director and replaced it with v.p., a title commonly used by the now defunct Lehman Brothers.

Citadel Investment Group has lost three London-based equity options traders.

Standard Chartered Bank has hired four senior traders in the Americas in a bid to expand in fx options and G10 spot trading in Latin America, as well as interest rate derivatives.

Todd Steinberg, head of equity and commodity derivatives for the Americas at BNP Paribas in New York, has left the bank.

Broadpoint DESCAP, the arm of Broadpoint Capital focusing on asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities and rates products, has launched an advisory group.

BNP Paribas has joined with Boerne, Texas-based retail products distributor Advisors Asset Management to launch a six-year, principal-protected structured note at the end of the month on the bank’s Millennium Multi-Asset Dynamic Index.

Market participants are preparing for fixed coupons on senior tranches of the iTraxx and CDX indices after a move two weeks ago to convert to points upfront from running spreads in the 3-6%, or mezzanine, layer of the iTraxx main in Europe.

Société Générale is considering a broader U.S. rollout of Lyxor Asset Management, its Paris-based hedge fund of funds replicator because of an uptick in reverse inquiries from investors with appetite for hedge fund exposure, yet concerns about liquidity.

UBS was the leading issuer of callable bull/bear contracts in Hong Kong in 2008, a year in which the market saw an explosion in sales at the expense of warrants.

Banks in Hong Kong and Singapore are attempting to ramp up their capacity to sell structured products and hedging tools to sovereign wealth funds throughout Asia.

In response to backlash received overnight, the U.S. House Agricultural Committee voted to keep a provision that would mandate the central clearing of credit default swaps over designated clearinghouses, eliminating terms that might have offered a potentially costly alternative.

Advisors Asset Management has hired David Seibert as a v.p. of structured products. He will work to promote structured products to the 35,000 broker/dealers and investment advisors AAM distributes to in the U.S.