​Daily Bulletin: Wednesday Jan. 21

Major U.S. buysiders want to see tradable variance products developed this year, according to EQDerivatives’ North American Equity Derivative Report 2014. The market mapping research also reveals Barclays is the top ranked counterparty for those buysiders when trading VIX options – Societe Generale, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs follow closely behind. The exclusive EQD research maps the views of buysiders deploying derivatives on $30 billion of assets and spending up to $26.5 million in annual commissions. Also in the North America, we talk to a major Canadian pension fund investment manager about the difficulties in investing in hybrid structures. It seems most hedge funds that do their own in-house accounting simply don’t have the accounting power to invest in the structures. Jared Woodard at BGC Partners also talks about precious metals today. They’re on pace to record one of their best months of performance since June, with spot silver rally more than 15% since the beginning of 2015, while gold is higher by nearly 10%.