Derivs - Credit

For its work with ISDA on major projects including Libor replacement and margin requirements, which have given the firm a leading edge in advising clients, and for its global presence bolstered by US expansion, Linklaters is GlobalCapital’s Global Law Firm of the Year.

Financial services veteran Marshall Bailey has been appointed chair of LCH Group, the clearing firm majority owned by London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG).

Derivatives clearing specialists were left scrambling for information this week as lone Norwegian trader Einar Aas defaulted on his Nordic and German power portfolio, creating a €107m hole in Nasdaq Clearing's €166m Commodity Member Default Fund.

It is the 10th anniversary of Lehman’s collapse and we are being inundated with retrospectives and predictions of what will cause the next crisis. Many are pointing towards emerging markets as a likely catalyst, a logical conjecture given the tightening in monetary policy that is underway in the US.

French asset manager Axiom Alternative Investments has hired Laurent Henrio, the former global head of credit trading activities at Société Générale, to run a new fund buying illiquid credit exposures in banks’ trading books.

The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) on Wednesday called for "esoteric" exchange traded funds (ETFs) to be “closely monitored” and for a further expansion of clearing of derivatives and cash markets.

Exchange group Chicago Board Options Exchange Global Markets on Monday launched high yield corporate bond index futures, in collaboration with data firm IHS Markit and Blackrock.

The World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) on Friday said that the leverage ratio should recognise the exposure-reducing nature of initial margin, becoming the latest body to call for change on the issue.

As central banks steadily ratchet up interest rates, credit investors are looking to hedge their exposures. At the forefront of the trend in the credit markets are exchange traded funds, which have rapidly moved beyond their traditional use as an index tracking tool and become established as a credible hedging instrument alongside credit default swaps.

Andrew Bailey, CEO of the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), on Thursday backed calls for deference espoused by US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chair Christopher Giancarlo, in a speech at the Eurofi Financial forum in Vienna.

Larger investment funds are more likely to be active in credit default swap markets, according to new research from pan-European securities regulator ESMA.

The United States’ top derivatives regulator, Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) chair Christopher Giancarlo, this week apologised for his organisation’s past regulatory overreach in policing foreign derivatives markets and called for a “reset” in relations with the European Union. The Europeans would be wise to take him up on his offer.