Derivs - Equity

As hardline Brexiteer Boris Johnson takes power in the UK, the European Commission is set to claim that the equivalence test for financial firms is tougher when the country in question is heavily connected to the EU.

The number of futures and options traded globally over the first half of 2019 has hit 16.6bn, an 11% rise on the same period of 2018, with the Asia and Latin America regions pushing volumes upwards.

BGC Partners has launched a new electronic trading platform for exchange futures and options.

Leaders of the big US investment banks were cautiously optimistic about upcoming investment banking activity, despite a poor second quarter across their capital markets divisions.

Futures brokerage R.J. O’Brien has appointed Simon Prangnell to head up its new affiliate company in France.

Eurex is delaying the introduction of some equity total return futures and basket trades of equity total return futures.

Trading software provider Trading Technologies International has partnered with Intercontinental Exchange’s data and analytics unit to offer execution and client connectivity services.

Heath Tarbert this week took over the reins as chairman of the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission, becoming the 14th chairman of the CFTC as he succeeded Christopher Giancarlo.

The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has fined trade repository Regis–TR €56,000 for failing to provide direct and immediate access to details of derivative contracts to regulators.

Everyone had been expecting another strategy overhaul from Deutsche Bank, but no-one expected the depth of the cuts to be so brutal. The bank is to end much of its equities business and refocus on corporate banking, and shed nearly 20,000 jobs. But observers are wary about the bank’s ability to restructure without inflicting more pain than it has forecast.

Deutsche Bank has made deep cuts to its equity sales and trading business, as part of an aggressive restructuring plan. The bank has said it intends to retain a “focused equity capital markets business”, but in practice this means a significant retrenchment, with a strict focus on supporting Deutsche’s core clients in Europe and the US.

Deutsche Bank's far-reaching restructuring plan to pull out of equity sales and trading and streamline the investment bank elsewhere involves a tie-up with BNP Paribas for parts of its business. The troubled German lender also signalled the advantage of a recent rule change to additional tier one coupon payments in allowing it to proceed with the changes.