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The total options contracts traded in May dropped by 18.32% compared to last May, according to the Options Industry Council.

Tim Reilly, head of North American electronic execution sales at Citigroup in New York, has left the firm.

The fx carry trade is providing significant returns for market participants year-to-date due to risk assets being broadly supported by the global macro environment and fx volatilities continuing to remain at extreme lows.

Bloomberg has launched its own swap data repository, serving as a centralized record keeping facility for interest rate, credit, fx, commodity and equity swaps transaction data.

Market participants have been active in options on the US dollar against the yen following comments from Governor Haruhiko Kuroda setting out an unchanged monetary policy. The highlight of the flow was one investor picking up a sizeable at-the-money straddle on the pair.

Complex package transactions may be difficult to price electronically now that the package transaction requirement to trade such products on swap execution facilities is live, according to Nathan Jenner, coo of fixed income, currency and commodity trading at Bloomberg.

Nomura has hired Ronan Connolly, the ex-head of equities trading for EMEA at Citigroup in London, to the same role, also in London. Connolly is the latest senior hire by Nomura amid increased revenues in its equities business.

It is almost impossible to understate the symbolism of Greece’s return to the capital markets this week in terms of the eurozone debt crisis as a whole.

Several banks impressed in 2013, during a year of renewed capital markets activity. ASIAMONEY reveals which banks stood tallest. By Peter McGill.