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The U.S. dollar gained in the spot market last week driving players to snap up options on dollar crosses to capture short-term volatility.

Ford Motor Co.'s loan-only credit-default swaps were active last week, trading about seven basis points tighter to the 200-210 bps range Wednesday and then widening a few points Thursday.

Portfolio managers from Goldman Sachs Asset Management and Sparx Asset Management have formed Four Seasons Asia Investment and are preparing to launch their first hedge fund.

Leo Melamed, chairman emeritus of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, has been named honorary dean of the China Institute of Financial Derivatives at Peking University.

Merrill Lynch has transferred Duncan Cameron, a senior equity index trader from Tokyo, to its London equity index trading group.

Leveraged certificates or knock-out products were introduced in Europe about four years ago and contribute to a substantial part of the total daily volume of structured product trading.

Morgan Stanley has added Alex Kenna for its New York credit proprietary trading group as an executive director reporting to Michael Pohly, managing director in proprietary trading.

Morgan Stanley has added to its German institutional sales team, hiring Christian Salow as a director from JPMorgan.

The U.S. government passed the Financial Netting Improvements Act into law last month, clarifying treatment of inflation and other newer swaps in bankruptcy situations.

Société Générale Asset Management Alternative Investments is set to manage a collateralized debt obligation with a feature allowing gains from a trading account in the CDO to sop up losses from defaults.

Loan-only credit default swaps tightened the first week of the New Year, mainly due to technical trading, traders said.