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U.K. transport group Arriva has decided to stop entering cross-currency swaps.

Barclays Capital has hired Hermann Bader, a corporate equity derivative sales official at JPMorgan in London, in a similar role covering sales to Germany.

ABN AMRO's Timothy Tsang, Asian head of private investor product distribution in Hong Kong, has left the firm.

Steven Audi and Kevin Robik, who worked together at Bear Stearns in the mid-90s, have formed Balance Asset Management and are planning to launch an event-driven fund in New York with USD300 million.

Calyon last week hired Hyun Soo Shin, marketer at Good Morning Securities in Seoul, to boost its Hong Kong-based equity derivatives sales desk.

Barclays Global Investors, which runs USD370 billion in fixed income globally, is planning to ramp up its participation in the structured finance bond market.

Hedge funds have been snapping up short-dated index volatility and selling long-dated vol to profit from a sudden steepening of term structure.

Allegations of market abuse abounded last Friday when the FTSE100 options and futures expiration price spiked minutes before the contracts were due to expire, landing substantial volumes of previously cheap out-of-the-money call options heavily in the money.

Structurers are rolling out tweaked capital-protected fund structures in a bid to lure back investors put off by recent hedge fund underperformance.

French broker Exane has opened a dedicated exotic options desk in Paris to boost its index and single-stock variance swaps trading.

Market players were snapping up euro puts last week as the currency deteriorated sharply against the U.S. dollar and investors positioned for further slippage.