Focus Day: Access to global markets using MSCI derivatives
Virtual Focus Day – Part of the Derivatives Forum Frankfurt 2025
7 November 2024, 15:00 CET
This Focus Day will provide insights into accessing global markets with MSCI derivatives in two parts.
In the first part of the Focus Day, we will delve into strategies centered on global indices, with a particular emphasis on the MSCI World and MSCI Aisa. We will also explore systematic options strategies and demonstrate their application through various use cases, considering their relevance in both current and future market conditions. In the second part of Focus Day, we will take an in-depth look at MSCI Total Return Futures (TRFs), featuring insights from industry experts on their functionality, key trading considerations, and the benefits they offer to various client groups. Our guests will share their views in insightful discussions in fireside chats and panel discussions.
MSCI will also be a key focus at the Derivatives Forum Frankfurt on 26 & 27 February 2025
Registration
Agenda
15:00 - 15:05 Opening & Welcome
Will Mitting, Founder and Managing Director, Acuiti
15:05 - 15:20 Fireside Chat: MSCI and MSCI World
Moderated by Will Mitting, Founder and Managing Director, Acuiti
Ralf Huesmann, Equity & Index Product Design, Eurex
The key drivers for the development of MSCI derivatives over the last decade will be discussed with a special focus on the MSCI World index futures, which turned over time from a cleared-only product into a highly liquid, order book-driven instrument
15:20 - 15:45 Fireside Chat: MSCI Asia and Middle East
Moderated by Will Mitting, Founder and Managing Director, Acuiti
Mezhgan Qabool, Head of Business Development & Sales APAC & Middle East, Eurex
Puneet Gupta, Goldman Sachs
15:45 - 16:15 Panel Discussion: How has option volume developed over time and what are systematic options strategies?
Moderated by Will Mitting, Founder and Managing Director, Acuiti
Rachna Mathur, Head of Equity & Index Sales Americas, Eurex
Nicolas Laloue, MSCI Options Trading, BNP Paribas
Over the past five years, the market for listed options has seen a remarkable increase in trading volumes, highlighting growing investor interest in these instruments. In this panel discussion, we will discuss the evolution of options trading volumes and the factors driving this trend. We will explore common systematic options strategies and their practical applications.
16:15 - 16:20 Introduction
Will Mitting, Founder and Managing Director, Acuiti
16:20 - 16:35 Fireside Chat: How do MSCI TRFs work and how to trade them?
Moderated by Will Mitting, Founder and Managing Director, Acuiti
Stuart Heath, Equity & Index Product Design, Eurex
In this keynote, we will explore Eurex as the pioneer in TRFs and as the largest derivatives exchange for MSCI derivatives as well as the fundamental concepts of MSCI TRF derivatives, which encompass key indices such as MSCI World, MSCI EAFE, and MSCI EM. We will discuss how these exchange-listed alternatives to OTC total return swaps compare with traditional futures, TRFs, and TRS, highlighting their unique features and benefits.
16:35 - 17:05 Panel Discussion: What are the considerations and benefits of trading MSCI TRFs?
Moderated by Will Mitting, Founder and Managing Director, Acuiti
Damien Zinck, Senior Vice President, Equity and Index Sales, Eurex
Nir Shah, Delta 1 Equity Sales, BNP Paribas
In this panel discussion, we will discuss the benefits that MSCI TRFs can offer to various client groups. Particularly, we will examine how MSCI TRFs serve as an attractive alternative to total return swaps, for example as capital efficient and fully fungible products.
Speakers
Ralf works in the Product Design Team of Eurex in Frankfurt. He has his focus on index products and is responsible for the development of new and existing index derivatives in various asset classes. In the last years, he has been building up the MSCI Derivatives segment and took over the VSTOXX products.
Before joining Eurex at the end of 2004, Ralf was working at Deutsche Boerse in the index development team. Ralf has been with Deutsche Börse since April 1996. He holds a degree in Mathematical Economics from the University of Bielefeld, Germany.
Rachna Mathur is the Head of Equities for the Americas at Eurex. She is also responsible for leading the exchange’s global efforts to grow the MSCI Derivatives market and for managing business development and sales operations in the Americas.
Rachna has worked in different roles at Eurex - including Global Sell Side and Institutional Sales, and as a Consultant on a partnership with Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).
In her spare time, she is actively involved with several non-profits and is on the Board of Management at her local YMCA.
Rachna holds an M.A. Economics and an M.B.A in Human Resource Management.
Will is the founder and managing director of Acuiti.io, the management intelligence platform for the derivatives market. Acuiti helps senior executives across the global derivatives market make decisions by providing proprietary insights and indepth analysis of market trends. Will founded Acuiti in February 2019 after 8 years at Euromoney Institutional Investor where he served as Editor and Publisher of FOW and oversaw the merger between FOW and Global Investor becoming managing director of the combined group in October 2016. Prior to joining FOW, he spent 18 months in Malawi where he founded the first magazine publishing company in the Northern Region of the African country to test a thesis that business provided a better route to long term development than aid.
Nir has almost 10 years of experience working in Delta 1 Equity Sales. After completing his degree in Economics from the University of Cambridge, he started his career at Deutsche Bank in 2014. In 2020 Nir joined BNP Paribas following the acquisition of Deutsche Bank’s Prime Services business where he is a specialist sales focusing on various Delta 1 products including MSCI, benchmark replication as well as Custom Baskets. He regularly interacts with global clients on efficient Delta 1 wrappers as well as Thematic investing.
Damien Zinck is Senior Vice President, Equity and Index at Eurex, one of the world's leading derivatives exchanges, and is currently based in Chicago. Damien started his career with Credit Agricole in Milan, Italy. He then joined Societe Generale where he held various positions in the bank's Capital Markets and Asset Management divisions in Paris, New York, Dallas and Chicago. Following that, he joined Lotsoff Capital Management, a Chicago-based investment firm, as partner and managing director. Damien graduated from ESSEC business school in Paris.