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Market participants have continued to trade options on the euro against the US dollar, as the currency pair continues to move lower.

Ned Stiker, head of global macro derivatives product marketing for the Americas, at Morgan Stanley in New York, is set to retire after 16 years at the firm.

Open interest in interest rate swap futures on the Chicago-based futures bourse Eris Exchange has increased 401% year over year, with the second quarter of this year setting a new record.

Investors have been trading puts and risk-reversals on the euro against the dollar on recent days following the recent spot decline in the currency pair.

Turnover in structured products at the SIX Structured Products Exchange in Switzerland declined in June to Sfr1.75bn, a decrease of 9.45% compared to May, according to a quarterly report from the Swiss Structured Products Association.

The International Swaps and Derivatives Association has published recommendations for an updated version of the Financial products Markup Language, also known as FpML version 5.7.

Banco Central Do Brasil is increasing its use of currency swaps to sell the US dollar in order to provide support to the Brazilian real. The central bank is using currency swaps as a tool to bring liquidity and stability to the country's currency.

Market participants have been active in trading options on the euro against the US dollar, playing the view that the currency pair will move lower. The highlight of the flow was one investor picking up a sizeable at-the-money straddle on the pair.

Trad-X, the interest rate swaps trading platform run by Tradition, has hit a record notional high for dollar IRS in June, with volumes exceeding USD 50 billion, and the number of trades executed surpassing 750 trades. The trades executed electronically accounted for 33% of all US dollar trades at Tradition.

Markit is developing a service that will manage the exercise processes and provide electronic legal trade confirmation for fx options. The post-trade service will also help participants reduce operational risk and become more efficient in their management of fx options trades.

Structures such as forward volatility agreements that capture lower volatility carry rolldown relative to outright short vol positions, but are protected from broad based moves in higher fx vols, are expected to gain traction in the continued low vol environment.

S&P Dow Jones Indices has launched a new commodities index-- the Dow Jones Commodity Index--to serve as an alternative to the DJ-UBS Commodity Index.