Articles by Ben St. Clair
Futures exchanges look to ride credit ETF wave
Proponents hope for increased buy-side trading, with three exchanges competing for market share
Repo and FX markets buck year-end crunch fears
Price spike concerns ease as September’s surprise SOFR jump led to early preparations for bank window dressing
Credit risk transfer, with a derivatives twist
Dealers angle to revive market that enables them to offload counterparty exposures, freeing up capital
FX options market eyes Trump inauguration trades
FX Markets Europe: Traders turn to short-dated plays on cabinet picks and early tariff actions
Credit traders await resolution on delayed swaps index
Market participants confident CDX Financials fix will overcome regulatory obstacles
Basis swaps surge amid US repo concerns
Fed funds-versus-SOFR swap volumes nearly triple as declining Fed reserves impact funding rates
Boeing’s descent to junk doesn’t scare investors
Analysts and managers say market can absorb any selling pressure from potential downgrade
CDS market revamp aims to fix the (de)faults
Proposed makeover for determinations committees tackles concerns over conflicts of interest
Avon CDS holders win payout despite narrow debt auction
With swap volumes outweighing eligible deliverable debt, holders feared contracts could be worthless
Barclays disputes CDS committee decision ahead of auction
Representing the bank, law firm Milbank argues the committee’s approach risks constraining the market and goes against expectations
Bitcoin ETFs drive demand for borrowing in crypto markets
Mismatch between cash and crypto settlement cycles creates pre-funding challenge
Treasury futures super-user switches to swaps
Capital Group’s Anbax fund slashes UST futures holdings in move to alternative rates derivatives
Derivatives trading halved amid CrowdStrike tech outage
With broker screens offline, G3 rates derivatives volumes plunged versus a normal Friday
Franklin Templeton steps back into FX options
Former biggest user of the instrument among US mutual funds returns with $7.6bn of USD/JPY strategies
Data reveals hidden clockwork of FX forwards market
More than 70% of Vanguard’s volumes and nearly half of Pimco’s regularly occur on just four calendar days
Banks look to offload ‘orphan’ hedge risk
Bespoke CDSs shift private credit borrowers’ derivatives default exposures back to the buy side
New CDS index delayed by regulatory capital concerns
Dealer worries about impact of self-referencing trades derail CDX Financials launch at last minute
New CDS index aims to broaden hedging of US bank exposure
CDX Financials will include inactive or untraded single names referencing smaller institutions
Cuts and points – how the Dealer Rankings work
Dealer Rankings 2024: We have a simple way to compare dealers. Sort of simple, anyway
Allianz Life drops single-name CDS positions in Q4
Counterparty Radar: US life insurance industry volumes sink to lowest level in two years
Sustainable bond markets miss an options trick
A derivatives mindset could boost lagging sustainability-linked market, argues climate think-tank
Market for ‘orphan’ hedges leaves some borrowers stranded
Companies with private credit loans face punitive costs from banks for often imperfect hedges
Green knights? Banks step into struggling carbon credit markets
Clearer global standards and a new exchange may attract dealer entry, but supply and demand challenges remain
How banks are adapting to all-powerful pod funds
Growth of multi-manager funds such as Citadel, Millennium and Balyasny has forced dealers to switch tactics in attempt to preserve profits