Search results for

Drew Gross has left Wachovia after a restructuring at the Charlotte-based bank. Gross, who was global head of FX sales and trading, had been at the bank for around three years.

Julian Gay has left FXCM to join Integral. He started at the vendor yesterday and is believed to have accepted a role for sales to Italian and Spanish clients.

NAB has apparently hired Nick McHale from SEB Stockholm after seven years as a director in FX. It is believed that he is taking up a prop-trading role.

Firms are launching commodities funds as the sector experiences its first boom period in decades.

Recent losses follow an earlier cull in March when Lehman announced its plans to dismiss 5 per cent of its global workforce. At current counts it has shed around 7.5%.

In the debate dual-mandate versus inflation-focus for central banks, the ECB approach of “control inflation and the rest will follow” seems ahead with even the Fed coming round.

Options traders are flocking to the recently-approved options on the GLD Gold Trust, an exchange traded fund backed by gold, and causing options exchanges to expand the maximum number of traders permitted to make markets in the options. The Philadelphia Stock Exchange, which would typically cap the maximum number of quoters in a new options class to 12, is expanding that number to 22, which is usually allowed for top 5% of the top traded options. The Chicago Board Options Exchange is going even further, expanding its cap on the maximum number of market makers to 75 from 50. "CBOE anticipates that there will be substantial trading volume in this class. In addition, increasing the class quoting limits to 75 will accommodate market makers that are currently on the wait list to be appointed to the option class," CBOE officials wrote in a related rule filing. The more market makers there are in an options class, the deeper the markets, but the caps prevent market makers from having too little business. Several traders attributed the interest to long-term interest in commodities and the gold market undergoing a correction.

Interdealer broker ICAP has announced that it has expanded the range of securities available on its electronic securities lending platform i-Sec to include exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and exchange-traded commodities (ETCs).

Invesco PowerShares is positioning its new exchange-traded funds of exchange-traded funds as core offerings.

Dave Hitchins has apparently left his position as head of option trading at Calyon London. There's no confirmation from the bank and at the time of writing, the reason for his departure is not known.

Poor old Peter Snasdell has had a bit of a bad run of luck since it was announced that RBS was buying ABN Amro. In the past year, he has had a very brief stint at BNP Paribas – he disliked the commute apparently – followed by a spell at RBC. He has now joined Newedge.

Andy Goldberg, who left his role as head of FX trading, Americas at BNP Paribas in late March, has resurfaced at hedge fund Ellington Capital Management.