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European Union representatives will propose to G20 states in June to agree to ban naked credit default swaps trading on government-backed bonds, according to Nikolaos Chountis, a member of the European Parliament for Greece.
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Structured products boutique Luxembourg Financial Group and Swedbank recently launched a fund that uses short- and long-term options to capture growth from a range of underlyings while employing a mechanism to help mitigate losses in case the fund performs badly.
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Andrew Kleeger, managing director and head of credit sales in Hong Kong at Goldman Sachs, has reportedly left the firm and is expected to be taking a role at UBS.
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The Reserve Bank of India is planning to require that all credit default swaps have rated underlyings because it believes CDS spreads alone should not be relied upon by investors. But some traders are unsure the ratings will be heeded.
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Mizuho Securities USA is bolstering its fixed income division, and is seeking traders and sales personnel for a new high-yield team.
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Markit is preparing a tradable cash bond index that would track the most liquid investment grade corporate bonds in North America. The firm is working with multiple market makers on the project but a timeframe for launch could not be determined.
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The sovereign CDS market has captured the headlines in recent times by highlighting fiscal deterioration in several European countries. But the past week has seen an emphatic rally, driven by a combination of technical and fundamental factors. The Markit SovX Western Europe index, a key barometer of European sovereign risk, tightened to 76basis points today.
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Patrick Pearson, head of financial markets infrastructure within the European Commission's internal market division in Brussels, told Derivatives Week in an exclusive interview with London reporter Rob McGlinchey that the Commission is collecting data from dealers and end-users with a view to drawing up a benchmark of bid/ask spreads. The aim is to help shave users' hedging costs and determine how expensive it would be on top for users to clear their trades.
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The industry is considering a late roll of single-name loan protection contracts.
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Standard & Poor’s is considering downgrading a series of synthetic collateralized debt obligations on which Lehman Brothers Special Financing Inc. served as swap counterparty.