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Richard Kershaw, senior derivatives salesman at Morgan Stanley in London, has teamed up with Joost Wissink, head of equity arbitrage at BlueCrest Capital Management, to set up a hedge fund.

Morgan Stanley last week was forced to correct a Bloomberg page showing its TRAC-X Asia credit-default swap index after discovering the listing contained four incorrect reference entities.

Interest-rate derivatives players are seeing municipal derivatives structures make a comeback as yield enhancement instruments.

National Australia Bank announced last week that recently uncovered losses stemming from foreign exchange option trades will total around AUD360 million (USD278.7 million).

Bryn Mawr Trust Wealth Management is inching down the credit ladder in search for more yield within investment-grade corporates and plans to swap about 5% from its double-A allocation into single-A bonds.

Alliance Capital Management is looking to increase its global bond effort by hiring roughly three portfolio managers and three research analysts for offices in London and Tokyo.

The latest flow of funds data released by the Federal Reserve updates the aggregate supply and ownership trends in the U.S. corporate securities market to the end of last year's third quarter.

Investors booked profits last week, locking in some recent gains and leading to wider spreads for the market in general.

In a major victory for the securitization market, the Federal Reserve has declared that asset-backed conduits are not considered deposits of the banks that sponsor them, effective immediately, according to Stephanie Martin, associate general counsel of the Board of Governors of the Fed.

--Chris Ricciardi, head of global structured credit products group at Merrill Lynch, speaking on the creditworthiness of trust preferred CDOs. For complete story, click here.

Five-year credit-default swap spreads on hotel group Accor widened 30 basis points last week even though the group's annual revenue reports were in line with market expectations.