United States

The Chicago Board Options Exchange has made a push for equity and options trading power in the US and Europe, by agreeing terms this week to buy Kansas-based exchange Bats Global Markets for $3.2bn.

Chinese data analytics firm Gridsum Holdings has raised $82m after global investors piled in to its Nasdaq IPO.

Azure Power Global, the holding company of Azure Power India, opened books on Thursday for a listing on the New York Stock Exchange, and is targeting as much as $180.3m.

The appointment of a renminbi clearing bank in New York is a political win for the China-US relationship that adds to the currency’s global prestige, but it is unlikely to boost RMB trade or investment in the short term, according to experts.

A trio of banks tapped the dollar market either side of the Fed meeting to lock in cheap financing in anticipation of tighter issuance windows in the coming weeks.

UK-listed Shire Pharmaceuticals and France’s Air Liquide led the Yankee charge into the dollar market this week with long awaited M&A financing deals that investors welcomed with open arms.

The roll of iTraxx credit indices this week, coupled with a monthly credit options expiry, prompted a burst of trading activity and brought some surprises — with Crossover trading going against expectations and volatility traders entering into unusually long-dated expiries.

Blockchain came sharply into focus this week for the derivatives market, as industry bodies warned on both the need for such technology and to regulate its use. Meanwhile, firms rolled out a range of new initiatives to address the market’s mounting challenges around margin and settlements.

Intercontinental Exchange, the US based exchange and clearing business, has made main board appointments and named a new chairperson for the board of its ICE Clear Europe subsidiary.

Indexes that invest in options strategies have historically generated better returns and lower volatility than other key stock, bond and commodity benchmarks, according to a study backed by the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

US car rental provider Avis this week followed rival Hertz to the euro market and sold a €300m bond, increasing the deal from its initially marketed size.

Jean-Pierre Mustier, chief executive of UniCredit, told GlobalCapital that US regulators do not really want foreign banks to have big operations in their domestic market, and he pointed to the unequal treatment of European banks in the US compared with US banks in Europe.