Derivs - Credit

Noble Group, the Hong Kong commodities trading firm, is in financial difficulties, but is still functioning — just.

The drama surrounding credit default swaps referencing Noble Group escalated this week as the Asia Ex-Japan International Swaps and Derivatives Association determinations committee on Thursday pushed back the deadline for ruling on whether Noble has defaulted.

Banks scrambled this week to trigger credit default swaps on the back of Noble Group’s loan restructuring in June, after the Asian International Swaps and Derivatives Association determinations committee decided to dismiss the issue, a lawyer has told GlobalCapital.

A Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) and Euroclear joint venture has this week signed an access agreement with CloudMargin.

IHS Markit on Tuesday released a service for investment houses working to comply with the RTS 28 requirement of the Market in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II).

Volatility took a familiar dip down this week as geopolitical uncertainty again failed to provoke lasting disruption in markets, but scepticism is growing about the lasting power of such conditions.

MUFG has strengthened its London-based credit team, moving one trader over from New York, and picking up another at Commerzbank.

The flashpoint for volatility has shifted to Asia this week but credit markets are still taking geopolitical risk in their stride, writes IHS Markit’s Gavan Nolan.

The Hong Kong Exchange (HKEX) will suspend its offering of China ministry of finance treasury bond futures after the end of the year, while no official trading data was disclosed for the Bond Connect scheme in the bourse’s 2017 interim results report.

The US Senate on Thursday unanimously voted to confirm Christopher Giancarlo as chairman of the US Commodity and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), a role he has held in an acting capacity since June.

A group of clearing houses this week announced the results of risk management process tests that simulated the default of a major derivatives clearing member.

The eurozone has many structural flaws, inherent design failings that have been painfully exposed over the past decade. Some of these have been rectified and good progress has been made on a banking union, in particular. But the work is not complete and if there was an Achilles heel that threatened to scupper efforts to strengthen the currency bloc, it was the Italian banking system, writes Gavan Nolan.