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CDO squareds have disappeared from the market and been replaced by leveraged super senior transactions.

The credit market is coming to the end of a natural cycle in which there has been low levels of corporate defaults and credit migrations, said a panel of credit derivatives executives.

The system used to calculate fees for trades on the credit indices is throwing up discrepancies when dealers determine the price of credit options, the majority of which are bets on iTraxx or CDX.

Pradeep Jhanjee, head of structuring rates, hybrids and FX at Credit Suisse First Boston in New York, has joined Barclays Capital.

European derivative officials gathered in London last week for the British Bankers' Association's Credit Derivatives Conference.

Credit derivative dealers were considering unilateral action last week to persuade hedge fund clients to adhere to the International Swaps and Derivatives Association's novation protocol.

Five-year credit-default swap spreads on Delphi Corp. spiked to 2,900 basis points early this week, from 2,100 bps Monday, keeping the credit center stage yet again for many playters.

U.S. dollar puts were being snapped up by currency players last week after the greenback hit a 10-week high against the Japanese yen on Tuesday, moving to JPY113.5 from JPY110.4 the week before.

Sophisticated synthetic investors are diversifying the reference obligations on which they buy protection because of fears about the high degree of portfolio overlap in synthetic CDOs.

Credit houses face increasing difficulty to sell synthetic structured products which do not feature a manager.

Lehman Brothers has hired Raj Dhown, a hard-charging senior credit salesman and latterly co-head of Deutsche Bank's CDO origination and distribution in Europe and Asia.