News
UK property derivatives under spotlight
Though the UK commercial property derivatives market appears to be finally taking off, barriers to liquidity and efficiency remain, said derivatives professionals at a seminar held by law firm Field Fisher Waterhouse earlier this week.
Specialist inflation funds proliferate in Europe
European funds specialising in inflation-linked products accounted for around 30% of all inflation-linked product end-users during 2004, according to ABN Amro.
CDS notional reached $6.3 trillion at end of 2004, BIS says
The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) included figures on credit default swaps (CDS) trading for the first time in its semi-annual over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives market report. According to the recently released report, the notional amounts…
iTraxx credit-linked notes launched
International Index Company, the Frankfurt-based firm that administers the European and Asian iTraxx credit derivative indexes, has launched three five-year iTraxx credit-linked notes.
Mexican structured bond issuance in 2005 hits $2 billion
Standard and Poor’s said that $2.03 billion worth of Mexican structured bonds have been issued so far this year. And with US dollar-denominated paper becoming more popular, use of derivatives in transactions is increasing.
Deutsche hires Grenier from Fidelity
Deutsche Asset Management (DeAM) has hired Bart Grenier as head of its speciality fixed income business – a newly created position. Grenier joins Deutsche Bank’s asset management arm from Fidelity Asset Management and Research, where he was a senior vice…
CME to launch more weather contracts
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) is set to list weather derivatives contracts for more cities in the US and Europe and to introduce two new types of weather contracts - probably by early July. Demand for CME weather contracts is fast increasing: as…
S&P makes push in Asia
Standard and Poor’s (S&P), the ratings agency and index provider, has hired Toshiki Ando as a business development director for Asia - a new role within its securities data unit.
Barclays hires head of equity exotics trading
Barclays Capital has hired Nick Nassuphis as head of equity exotic and structured product derivative trading.
Execution across Nomura's new platform reaches $500 million
Nomura International says it has executed more than $500 million worth of structured transactions across Altrus, its new equity derivatives trading platform.
Markit hires credit derivative valuations specialist
Markit has hired Vaughan Harding as a director in its valuations group in London.
ABN Amro expands commodity-trading team, opens Singapore office
Dutch bank ABN Amro has made several commodity trading and marketing hires in London and New York, and opened an office in Singapore.
GFI launches forex option pricing tool
New York-based inter-dealer broker GFI has launched a foreign exchange options trading technology that will help its sell-side clients provide pricing and trading tools to the buy side.
Patsystems and TT settle out of court
A patent infringement lawsuit between two vendors, UK-based Patsystems and Chicago-based Trading Technologies (TT), has been settled out of court. As part of the settlement, TT has licensed some of its technology to Patsystems.
GlobalView technology to support ConfirmHub
US-based GlobalView Software has been chosen as the exclusive technology provider to ConfirmHub, a joint venture by brokers Icap, Amerex Energy and Prebon Energy. ConfirmHub is a post-execution, straight-through processing (STP) trade-confirmation…
TradeWeb to launch electronic trading platform for US rate swaps
Thomson TradeWeb, a US-based fixed-income electronic market specialist, is planning to launch a multi-dealer US dollar interest rate swaps trading platform in the third quarter of 2005.
QIS 4 results are worrisome, say banking agencies
American federal banking agencies have told Congress of their deep concerns about the results of the fourth Basel II Quantitative Impact Study (QIS4).
Deutsche Bank launches new index warrants in Singapore
Deutsche Bank has issued new warrants in Singapore on four global stock indexes - the Nikkei 225 Index, the Nasdaq 100 Index, the S&P ASX 200 Index and the S&P 500 Index.
Market Axess and DTCC team up to offer CDS index trading system
Electronic bond trading platform company MarketAxess has teamed up with the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation's (DTCC) and 11 global dealers to create an electronic client-to-dealer trading platform for credit default swap (CDS) indexes. The CDS…
Barclays Capital in first Leba carbon index trade
Barclays Capital has completed the first financial carbon trade using the new Leba Carbon Index for "a significant volume" of EU emissions allowances.
Deutsche hires El Khoury
Jean El Khoury has joined Deutsche Bank as a director, US index trading, in the securities arm’s global markets division.
NewSmith hires two for Italy
NewSmith Financial Solutions has hired two bankers to grow its advisory team. Ercole Manzi and Maurizio Tassi have joined the firm as partners to focus on Italian clients.
Deutsche appoints new loan management head
Deutsche Bank has appointed Stuart Lewis as global head of the bank's loan exposure management group (LEMG) as of July 1, 2005. He will succeed Betsy Gile, the group's current head, who has announced her retirement.
CDOs unlikely to be affected by GM and Ford, says Fitch
Synthetic collateralised debt obligations (CDO) are unlikely to experience downgrades on the back of weakening credit ratings in the US automotive sector, says Fitch Ratings