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One-month euro/dollar option volatility fell to 10.2% last Wednesday after having traded as high as 10.8% late the previous week. Concern over how the U.S. advance into Baghdad would play out triggered foreign exchange player's fears leading into the weekend of April 5. The nervousness lifted last Monday and vol was subsequently pushed down to 10.5%, according to a New York-based trader. The euro traded at USD1.07 last Wednesday, unchanged from the week before.

Yannis Matsis, managing director and global head of credit derivatives at ING in London, resigned from the firm last week. He reported to Lau Veldink, global head of trading and sales for investment-grade fixed-income products. Veldink and Matsis declined comment.

Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen (Helaba) has entered an interest rate swap on a recent USD500 million bond offering to convert it into a floating-rate liability. The firm is keeping the proceeds in dollars to match dollar assets, according to a firm official.

Equalt, the alternative asset management arm of Crédit Agricole Indosuez with EUR650 million (USD695 million) of assets under management, plans to launch a capital structure arbitrage hedge fund. The fund will use over-the-counter derivatives, including credit-default swaps, according to Pierre Valentine, cio for all of the firm's quantitative strategies in Paris. The asset manager's plans for the capital structure fund are still in the early stages, but he said it is likely to launched by year-end.

Jim Fowler, senior foreign exchange options trader at AIG Trading Group in New York, has quit the firm. Donald Lee, senior v.p. and global head of fx options and head of foreign exchange in Greenwich, Conn., to whom Fowler reported, declined comment. Fowler could not be reached.

Goldman Sachs has lured Mark Lynch, a capital structure arbitrage trader from JPMorgan in London, to work on its proprietary trading desk in New York. Lynch will report to Derek Smith, managing director and head of credit derivatives trading at Goldman in New York, who declined comment. Lynch could not be reached.

Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan are separately preparing to offer derivatives referenced to their joint TRACX credit-default swap indices, which could revolutionize the market. Traders at major rivals said options on the index could lead to a new market in volatility trading in credit-default swaps.

JPMorgan has appointed Ashley Bacon, head of Asian interest rate trading in Tokyo, and Michael Davie, head of non-euro interest rate swap trading in London, as co-heads of European interest rate trading in London as part of a reorg of its rates group. Previously, there was a business head for European interest rates in London, Rob Standing, who oversaw the entire group, including trading. Standing left in February and his departure caused a reassessment of the organizational structure, said Sarah Oppler, spokeswoman in London. Bacon declined comment and Davie did not return calls.

ISDA's collateral committee is finalizing the first-ever standardized collateral asset definitions. The document will provide definitions of various types of commonly exchanged products to help speed up the negotiation stage of collateralization agreements, according to officials. "It's a step to reducing operational risk," said Robert McWilliam, head of counterparty exposure management at ABN AMRO in London. Common collateral instruments for derivatives transactions include government securities, such as U.K. Gilts. The definitions are expected to be released in May.

Lehman Brothers has hired Adrian Valenzuela, head of hedge fund marketing at Morgan Stanley in London, to manage the equity derivatives flow sales business in London. In addition, Michael Ward, equity derivatives salesman at Deutsche Bank, will join Lehman to market equity derivatives in London and report to Valenzuela, said Mary Matthewson, spokeswoman in London. Valenzuela will report to David Bizer, European head of equity derivatives sales and research in London, who declined comment. Valenzuela confirmed the move.

Jonathan Laredo, former head of structured finance for Europe and Asia at JPMorgan in London, is planning to launch a structured credit fund that will use over-the-counter derivatives. The fund will invest in a range of structured credit products, including secondary market collateralized debt obligations and credit-default swaps, according to officials familiar with the plans. Laredo declined comment.