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Credit-default swap spreads on Ford Motor Credit and General Motors Acceptance Corp. widened last week after second quarter automotive sales figures failed to live up to expectations.

Gage Olcott, an equity derivatives sales staffer at CDC IXIS North America in New York, has left the firm.

Standard Life Investments plans to extend its use of derivatives from large scale asset allocation shifts to more micro asset tweaking and eventually shorting corporate debt.

Schroder Investment Management has sold an innovative capital-protected target redemption note (TARN) in Hong Kong, which pays investors a coupon linked to both six-month dollar LIBOR and the Standard & Poor's 500.

--Gary Walker, partner at Field Fisher Waterhouse in London, commenting on the impact of an Enron Australia/TXU Electricity court case in Australia and the Financial Services Authority's decision to look into the matter.

The National Bank of Canada has set up a New York-based equity derivatives trading desk.

Barclays Capital has recruited John Lovisolo, a credit derivatives staffer at Deutsche Bank in New York, for a senior credit derivatives sales role.

Mark Galant, ceo at fx trading shop Gain Capital, said retail and high-net-worth foreign exchange dealers are starting to lure small and mid-sized corporates as well as hedge funds away from the bulge bracket houses.

The price of protection on Citizens Communications, the U.S. telecommunications company, widened 90bps last Tuesday to 310bps in response to a three-notch downgrade by two of the ratings agencies.

The evolution of the credit derivative market and structured credit innovations is changing the way fixed income managers, such as pension funds, manage their liabilities.

Cantor Fitzgerald is readying a structured product and has applied to list it on the American Stock Exchange, which will give investors exposure to both a single exchange-listed equity and a basket of Treasury STRIPS.

Credit derivative traders are expecting tranched credit index products to take flight in Asia in the coming months on the back of a new underlying index.