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Bank of America has hired Meri Miller, director in the global hedge funds group at UBS Warburg in New York, as a senior marketer in its global leverage group, a subsection of its global derivatives products group. At UBS, Miller reported to Gary Kaufman, head of the rates and foreign exchange group in New York. Kaufman said UBS would look to replace Miller, declining further comment.

Credit Suisse First Boston has moved two credit derivatives traders to Hong Kong to boost its North Asian presence. Adam Sticpewich, managing director and global co-head of emerging markets credit derivatives moved from London to Hong Kong two weeks ago and the firm relocated Anthony Mason, credit derivatives trader in Singapore, to Hong Kong last Monday, according to a spokeswoman. The desk, which already had one trader, focuses on Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. Mason referred calls to the spokeswoman and Sticpewich did not return calls.

BNP Paribas is recommending clients buy euro puts/yen calls to participate in a possible yen rally caused by the repatriation of funds by Japanese financial institutions. Karim Wilkins, foreign exchange options strategist in London, said the strategy is plain vanilla because implied volatility is low at the moment. "Super-partial-rinky-dinky-treble-knock-out options are not always the best way forward," he quipped.

Deutsche Bank is launching a New York desk that will trade packages of risks made up of swaps, mortgages, agencies and government bonds. Jon Kinol, managing director of North American over-the-counter derivatives in New York, said creating the cross-rates desk is a response to burgeoning customer demand over the last six months to trade across these asset classes. "As flow fixed income products continue to converge, this desk will give us the ability to trade and risk manage the aggregate risk in one book, which will help liquidity and minimize trading costs to our clients," he said.

Spreads on Deutsche Telekom credit default swaps widened 10-15 basis points on the back of its poor stock performance last week. A New York-based trader reported that credit default swap spreads on Deutsche Telekom widened to about 95bps last Thursday from about 80bps the previous week, as investors looked to buy protection. Other telecoms also widened in Deutsche Telekom's wake. For example, Nortel Networks widened from 390bps to 510bps. In comparison with traditional August flow, traders said this week was relatively busy as a result of the market being volatile and spreads widening. The major players were hedge funds and top-tier investment banks, such as Morgan Stanley.

Société Générale plans to structure a privately-placed EUR500 million (USD459 million) synthetic collateralized debt obligation next month referenced to a static pool of approximately 70 credit default swaps. Wissem Bourbia, head of the European CDO group in Paris, said it is structuring the CDO because it has received requests from investors wanting to buy into the equity tranche. He added once the equity is in place it can structure the remainder of the deal around it even though it only makes up 3% of the structure. In return for investors signaling their interest early in the deal they can handpick the credits they want exposure to, which is the normal way of structuring privately-placed CDOs, according to Bourbia.

The aim of this Learning Curve is to explain the behaviour of a particularly interesting kind of barrier option, the Parisian, and to focus on its use in structuring exotic equity derivatives products.

Dealers in Singapore have started to quote 15-year Singapore dollar interest-rate and foreign exchange swaps for the first time ahead of this week's inaugural 15-year bond issue, a SGD2.2 billion (USD1.25 billion) deal by the Lion City. Swaps have traditionally gone out only as far as 12 years.

Swiss Re New Markets is considering reestablishing its over-the-counter equity derivatives desk in New York over the next several months, according to company officials. The capital markets arm of the reinsurance giant had an equity derivatives desk manned by one trader until about a year and half ago, but market officials believe it closed down due to slow business flow. "They just had no presence in the equities market," one player said. Nancy Jewell, firm spokeswoman in New York, said the desk was never formerly disbanded and has been handling business since 1996. She added, however, that the firm has recently decided to take on a more active role in equity derivatives.

TD Securities is working with sister firm TD Waterhouse to launch an equity derivatives sales effort in San Diego that will focus on high-net-worth clients. Robert Baizer, managing director in charge of the West Coast effort, said the desk, which will launch Sept. 4, will also draw on parts of TD Securities' 30-member derivatives team in New York. The sales force for the new desk will mainly be based in San Diego, and pricing will be done in New York. There will be a small sales support staff in Manhattan.

Bangkok-based Bangchak Petroleum is looking to enter interest-rate swaps to hedge exposure on new debt. Wanapa Imachai, treasurer, said it will look to pay fixed and receive floating to cover floating-rate bonds and loans. She declined comment on the size of the swap and the rates it will aim to pay and receive. But, she explained it plans to convert part of a THB5 billion (USD111 million) floating-rate bond and approximately USD30 million of its USD500 million liabilities portfolio--largely loans--to hedge against possible rate rises.