Foreign exchange
Credit portfolio products proliferate
Large fixed-income investors want to take or shed sizeable diversified credit positions efficiently, without incurring lot cost or liquidity risk. Dealers are responding with a variety of new products. But which will succeed?
Awake at the wheel
While the markets worried that Dynegy could follow Enron into the abyss, Glenn Labhart’s risk management team helped to keep the trading firm out of trouble.
Icap launches reset risk competitor to Switchfix
Interest rate swap trading desks now have an alternative method of eliminating reset risk, courtesy of a new online matching system developed by Icap, the UK interdealer broker, called Fra-Cross.
SG equity derivatives team unaffected by Asia restructuring
SG Securities Asia’s (SGSA), the Asian equities arm of French bank Société Générale, said plans to realign its operations in Asia – ex-Japan and Australia – will not affect its equity derivatives team, according to a spokesperson in Hong Kong. The bank…
Japan resumes NPLs reduction drive
The Resolution and Collection Corporation (RCC), entrusted by the Japanese government to help reduce Japanese banks’ major non-performing loan (NPL) problems, has concluded its first securitisation deal this year. An RCC spokesperson said the transaction…
Turbo-charged models
Derivatives dealers get a substantial edge if they can model and price positions faster than their competitors. So system vendors are seeking to rev up the Monte Carlo simulation engines that power many of their analytics.
Collateralised loan obligations
Enron’s bankruptcy highlighted the problems that the lack of portfolio transparency and diversification in the collateralised loan obligation (CLO) market causes investors. Barrie Wilkinson and Andrew Kuritzkes of Oliver, Wyman & Co argue a ‘multi-bank…
The vanilla explosion
Business in three- to five-year vanilla default swaps now accounts for around a third of the market’s total notional outstandings. With many dealers reporting twofold or more growth in volumes, the credit derivatives market is now in full stride.
Job moves
QUOTE OF THE MONTH: - “I can’t get rid of the stupid thing” Lev Borodovsky, co-founder of Garp, describing difficulties negotiating a transfer of ownership Source: RiskNews, January 16