Latest news with #Derivatives
Yahoo
21-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Embrace the chaos: A Morgan Stanley derivatives exec on life at the desk
Sales and trading desks have thrived amid market volatility this year, boosting bank revenues. To decode what industry upstarts need to succeed, BI spoke to a top exec at Morgan Stanley. Iliana Bouzali, a global derivatives head, shared her advice and experience on the trading floor. When you think about Wall Street, you usually think about M&A — but with dealmaking in the slumps, big banks' sales and trading desks have become the stars of the show. In the first half of the year, several major banks reported record-breaking revenues from helping institutional clients, such as hedge funds and pension funds, trade stocks, bonds, and derivatives. A volatile 2025 market has brought more price swings, more trading opportunities, and more client activity than ever before. With all eyes on this booming business, Business Insider set out to shine a spotlight on Wall Street's sales and trading business. What's life like at the desk? What does it take to thrive in this fast-paced job? And what should young people aspiring to work in sell-side sales and trading know? For answers, we turned to Iliana Bouzali, global head of derivatives distribution and structuring for Morgan Stanley. She started her career as an intern at Morgan Stanley in 2003. She was pursuing an economics degree at Yale when she fell in love with the trading floor and never looked back. "The energy of a trading floor is like nothing else. It's not for everyone, but if you like it, you love it," she told Business Insider. "It's a very flat architecture, there's no hierarchy. If you have something useful to say, you say it. If there's a problem to solve, it doesn't matter what your title is, you solve the problem. And it can be very infectious, so I was hooked." Whether you're pitching clients on the products they need to grow and protect their portfolios (sales) or executing on those orders (trading), Wall Street trading floors are known as fast-paced, high-intensity environments where people thrive on the adrenaline and competition of following the market. To succeed, she said, you must embrace the chaos. "Life, markets, clients — can be complicated. It will be chaotic at times," she said, adding, "The best young hires don't panic, they adjust under pressure." Here is Bouzali's advice for interns and industry upstarts after 21 years rising in the ranks on the trading floor of one of Wall Street's most competitive banks. Embrace insecurity rather than avoid it Bouzali said she often tells young hires to use their inevitable feelings of fear and insecurity as motivation to work hard instead of faking confidence or know-how. "I always like telling our incoming interns: You will be insecure, it's a fact of life," she said. "Embrace it and let those insecurities, your fears, become a driving force. Use them instead of pretending that they're not there." Bouzali, for example, admitted to feeling both excited and terrified during her first summer on the trading floor, and was worried she didn't know enough about finance. "It's important to not compare yourself to peers and start competing against a more honest metric — the version of yourself that plays it safe." Learn to deal with "opacity" One of Bouzali's earliest lessons was learning not to expect the structure and direction she was used to at university, where the path to success is clearly laid out in syllabi and measured via homework and tests. "A trading floor is particularly opaque, and that ambiguity is a feature, it's not a bug," she said. If that's confusing, it's meant to be, Bouzali said. "It's something that I try to convey to our interns early on," she said, adding, "You will not always be handed tasks or told exactly what to do and how to do it." Opacity is not a signal to wait, but to move, she explained. "You have to throw yourself into problems. You have to sniff out what matters and what doesn't matter. You have to pin point what people's bottlenecks and pain points are and just start being useful," she said. Make decisions with less information than you think you need Bouzali referenced what Jeff Bezos once coined as his "70% rule." It argues that you should make decisions with 70% of the information, and Bouzali says it's something she tries to live by. "In certain domains, if you wait for 80% or 90% of the information, the opportunity will be gone," she said. It's a mantra she thinks more industry upstarts should adopt. "I sense that young people — and generally all people — overthink, overplan, and wait too long to curate the perfect path forward," she said. "Many decisions can be reversed, few decisions are irreversible." Chase impact rather than promotions No one — not even the best investors in the world — can predict the future. Bouzali knows this and suggests young people learn to focus on what's in front of them. "Don't obsess over the next 10 years," she said. "Just focus on winning the next 6 to 12 months." Getting things done versus chasing titles will naturally lead you to the next big thing. "Promotions don't follow ambition. They follow impact," Bouzali said. "A better question than 'How do I get ahead?' is 'What are the hard things that need to get done that I could do?'" Learn to slow down Bouzali's job demands she stay up to speed on the news and market at all times, so she uses reading as a way to diversify her perspectives outside the here and now. From obscure medieval history to art criticism and strange fiction, she prefers to read things "off the beaten path." "I try to avoid the super contemporary and super trendy because I really want to develop completely different mental threads," said Bouzali of her book choices. "It's been very good for me to just step completely outside of what is trendy here and now and find older, slower modes of thought." Read the original article on Business Insider
Business Standard
08-07-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
SEBI sees dip in derivatives turnover, 91% of retail traders lose money in FY25
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has released a comparative analysis of trading activity in the Equity Derivatives Segment (EDS) versus the cash market, following a series of regulatory measures introduced last October to tighten the equity index derivatives framework. The study, covering the period from December 2024 to May 2025, was conducted in response to recent media reports questioning the impact of the new measures. According to SEBI, index options turnover has declined by 9% in premium terms and 29% in notional terms compared to the same period last year. However, when measured against data from two years ago, trading volumes still show significant growth, up 14% in premium and 42% in notional terms. For individual traders specifically, turnover in premium terms has fallen 11% year-on-year, but remains 36% higher compared to the same period two years ago. The number of unique retail participants in the derivatives segment has also seen a 20% drop from last year, although it is still 24% higher than two years ago. SEBI noted that despite the recent moderation, India continues to witness unusually high levels of trading activity in index options when compared to other global markets. The regulator also released a sobering statistic: nearly 91% of individual traders in the derivatives segment incurred net losses in FY25, a trend consistent with FY24. This revelation, SEBI said, underscores the importance of continued monitoring and regulatory oversight to safeguard investor interests and ensure market stability. To that end, SEBI introduced additional risk-monitoring measures through a circular issued on May 29, 2025. These steps are aimed at improving risk disclosures in derivatives trading, preventing artificial ban periods in single-stock derivatives, and strengthening oversight against concentration and manipulation in index options. SEBI confirmed that it will continue observing turnover trends in the derivatives segment and take further steps if necessary to balance market growth with investor protection.
Mint
08-07-2025
- Business
- Mint
91% of individual traders saw losses in equity derivatives segment, up 41% YoY, finds SEBI study
Nearly 91 per cent of individual traders incurred losses in the equity derivatives segment in fiscal year 2025, according to a study released by markets regulator Sebi on Monday. Moreover, a similar trend was observed in FY2024. The study indicated that the net losses of individual traders widened by 41 per cent to ₹ 1,05,603 crore in FY25 from ₹ 74,812 crore in FY24. Alongside this, the number of unique individual investors trading in the futures and options segment declined by 20 per cent compared to the previous year, though it was up by 24 per cent from two years ago. Sebi conducted this analysis to evaluate trading activity in the Equity Derivatives Segment (EDS), especially after introducing measures on October 1, 2024, to strengthen the equity index derivatives framework. The analysis covered all investors and focused on individual traders from December 2024 to May 2025. "Analysis of profit and loss of individual traders in EDS suggests that at the aggregate level, nearly 91 per cent of individual traders incurred net loss in EDS in FY 2025 (a similar trend was observed in FY 2024)," the study noted. During this period, index options turnover saw a year-on-year decline of 9 per cent in premium terms and 29 per cent in notional terms. However, when compared to two years ago, index options volume increased by 14 per cent in premium terms and 42 per cent in notional terms. The study further found that the turnover of individuals in premium terms in EDS decreased by 11 per cent year-on-year, but rose by 36 per cent over a similar period two years ago. Despite these fluctuations, India continues to witness relatively high levels of trading in the EDS, particularly in index options. "Trends in turnover of index options will continue to be observed from the perspective of ensuring investor protection and market stability," Sebi said. In order to ensure that the rapid growth in the derivatives market matches with commensurate risk monitoring metrics, Sebi on May 29, 2025, introduced a set of measures aimed at enhancing risk monitoring and disclosure in the derivatives market. These measures also aimed to reduce instances of spurious ban periods for derivatives on single stocks and ensure better oversight to prevent concentration or manipulation risks in index options.
Yahoo
30-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
CME Group to Launch FX Tape+ to Provide Centralized Reference Prices for the FX Market
CHICAGO and LONDON, June 30, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, today announced that it will launch CME FX Tape+ to provide centralized reference prices and a comprehensive view of FX market liquidity from its transparent central limit order book (CLOB) marketplaces, including FX futures, EBS Market, FX Spot+ and FX Link. FX Tape+ is set to launch later this year. "By bringing together price information from our network of 1,400 institutions and over 100,000 active FX market participants, CME Group is uniquely positioned to enhance transparency in the fragmented FX market," said Paul Houston, Global Head of FX Products, CME Group. "CME FX Tape+ will give users a unique view of centralized spot and forward liquidity, enabling them to better manage their trading costs and benchmark their strategies." Unlike other industry reference pricing sources, which leverage indicative or curated pricing from less transparent sources, CME FX Tape+ will provide an accessible, unbiased and transparent view of the FX market, based solely on actionable, firm liquidity from CME Group's FX spot and futures markets. The offering will initially cover 10 major currencies and will include a composite 'true' spot mid-price, combining liquidity, trades and mid-rates from across these venues. CME FX Tape+ will disseminate reference data at 250 millisecond intervals via websocket API and historic market data files, improving the ability of market participants to confidently analyze the total cost and execution of their trades. As the world's leading derivatives marketplace, CME Group ( enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural products and metals. The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform. In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing. CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc. NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc. COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec is a trademark of BrokerTec Americas LLC and EBS is a trademark of EBS Group LTD. The S&P 500 Index is a product of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC ("S&P DJI"). "S&P®", "S&P 500®", "SPY®", "SPX®", US 500 and The 500 are trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC; Dow Jones®, DJIA® and Dow Jones Industrial Average are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. These trademarks have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. Futures contracts based on the S&P 500 Index are not sponsored, endorsed, marketed, or promoted by S&P DJI, and S&P DJI makes no representation regarding the advisability of investing in such products. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. CME-G View original content: SOURCE CME Group Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Bloomberg
18-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
India's Small-Cap Stocks Set to Beat Larger Peers on Improved Earnings
Before the trading day starts we bring you a digest of the key news and events that are likely to move markets. Today we look at: Good morning, this is Chiranjivi Chakraborty, an equities reporter in Mumbai. Another volatile day awaits Indian stocks, with Israel-Iran tensions showing no signs of a let up. Nothing suggests either a breakdown or a breakout with the main gauges in a tighter coil than the broader market. The spotlight will be on BSE's shares after the exchange switched its derivatives expiry to Thursdays, which could impact its newfound heft in the futures and options market.
