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Credit Suisse First Boston has hired Gianluca Lesiana, a structured equity products salesman covering the Italian market at Bear Stearns in London, as a director in a similar role. Lesiana will report to Vito Elia, director in equity derivatives. Rebecca O'Neill, a spokeswoman for the company, confirmed the move. Lesiana could not be reached for comment.

Volumes in dry freight derivatives are set to double next year as end users, such as utilities and coal shippers, look to hedge out the rising cost of moving freight, according to market participants. Philippe van den Abeele, managing director at Clarksons Securities, a London-based shipping broker, estimated the total financial value of dry freight derivatives traded over the last year was around USD20 billion, a five-fold increase year-on-year.

Citigroup Global Markets has transferred Joe Lizzio, co-head of sovereigns, agencies and supranationals trading in New York, to the newly created position of product and sales manager for North American structured credit products. Lizzio reports to Steve Jones, head of global structured credit products, said Danielle Romero, spokeswoman in New York. Neither Lizzio nor Jones returned calls.

One-month implied volatility on dollar/yen leapt to 10.8% last Wednesday, up from 10.1% the previous week as the greenback continued its gradual slide against the yen in the spot market. The dollar traded at JPY108 in the spot market Wednesday down from JPY109.6 the week before, said a New York-based trader. With outstanding trades on the currency pair being heavily favoring yen calls/dollar puts, any small move in spot keeps implied volatility on the currency pair high, he explained. One-month 25-delta risk reversals stood at 1.8% in favor of yen calls last week, compared with 1.3% the week before.

Fergus MacDonald, v.p. in credit derivatives at Goldman Sachs in New York, has left the firm. MacDonald could not be reached. Bruce Corwin, spokesman in New York, did not return calls by press time.

Investors have been piling into five-year credit default-swaps on the Philippines sovereign in the last two weeks on the back of uncertainty shrouding presidential elections scheduled for May, as well as the tough domestic economic situation. "The election is now under the spotlight," said one credit head. Dealers are concerned that a victory for populist candidates could derail ongoing reforms. In addition, rumors of an impending sovereign debt issuance triggered demand for credit default protection.

Richard Kennaugh, former co-head of credit derivatives trading at Chase Manhattan Bank in New York, has resurfaced at Deutsche Bank in London. Kennaugh takes the new position of managing director, head of trading for Europe in the firm's loan exposure management group, according to Harriet Benson, spokeswoman in New York. He reports to Stuart Lewis, regional head of Europe, she said. Neither Kennaugh nor Lewis responded to messages.

Catequil Asset Management, a New York-based multi-commodity hedge fund founded by alumni from Julian Robertson'sTiger Management, expects to become more active in trading electricity derivatives and will hire opportunistically if it finds a suitable candidate. Paul Touradji, co-founder and managing partner, said Catequil has entered financially settled electricity derivative trades on a limited basis and expects to become more active in this market in the long term as liquidity improves. "Up until two years ago, one had to be a physical player," he noted, adding that market leader Enron collapsed just as liquidity in financial instruments was taking off.

Goldman Sachs is transferring Japanese market veteran Joshua Ackman, credit derivatives trader in Tokyo, to its New York office in the coming weeks, according to market officials. Ackman was not in the office last week and could not be reached for comment. He reported to Can Uran, head of global credit derivatives trading in Tokyo, who did not respond to messages. Orlando Camargo, spokesman at Goldman, did not respond to calls regarding Ackman's replacement.

Plans to extend the Hong Kong dollar interest rate swaps curve out to 15 years have been put on the back burner because of falling liquidity in the front end. "This is being delayed until next year," said Aaron Poon, Hong Kong head of rates trading at JPMorgan. The bulge bracket house helped kick-start a 12-year Hong Kong dollar swap rate a few months back (DW, 9/24) and dealers had hoped to launch a 15-year rate before year-end. "The market has been very choppy--a lot of banks have become risk averse and [are] holding flat positions until the end of the year," said an official at Bank of America. "Some players seem to be taking an early holiday," added Poon, noting that overall swap volumes are down.

JPMorgan, a co-founder of the TRAC-X credit default swap index, has requested information about trading procedures on iBoxx, its bitter rival backed by a consortium of 11 market makers, including ABN AMRO and Deutsche Bank. JPMorgan's overture is surprising because the backers of TRAC-X and iBoxx have been locked in a peevish version of the struggle between PlayStation and Xbox in an effort to win market share. Like the fight for video game supremacy, there is only room for one credit default swap index, according to dealers. iBoxx began trading in the U.S. on Oct. 20. Despite the approach to iBoxx,Tom Benison, head of credit derivatives marketing for North America at JPMorgan in New York, said the firm has no plans to trade its rival's index. The objective is to better understand the product with the ultimate goal of moving toward one standard index.

Standard Chartered has recently sold its first foreign exchange options on the Zambian kwacha and the Tanzanian shilling against the U.S. dollar. Charlie Brown, head of structuring in London, said the counterparties on both transactions were local corporates.