Economics & Strategy - Equity Derivatives: First

Pamela Finelli, Nicolas Mougeot & team Deutsche Bank

The buy side says: “The Deutsche team provides excellent customized research.”

Newcomers Pamela Finelli and Nicolas Mougeot shepherd Deutsche Bank’s six-­member team to No. 1 in this sector, which hasn’t been published since 2006. (Deutsche claimed the top spot that year too.) Last March the analysts informed long equity investors that, with volatility at an 18-month low, it was an opportune time to buy equity-­volatility swaps, as a hedge. The following month, as Greece’s debt crisis heated up and concern over other European sovereign issues grew, volatility spiked. “They were especially helpful in their approach to gauging the appropriate notional value of volatility swaps for every type of equity portfolio,” recalls one grateful client. Finelli, 38, joined Deutsche in 1999 from Bankers Trust, armed with a bachelor’s in business administration from Pennsylvania State University’s Smeal College of Business, which she earned in 1994. Mougeot, 36, arrived from BNP Paribas in 2006, after having graduated from Switzerland’s Université de Lausanne with a master’s in banking and finance in 1997 and a Ph.D. in finance in 2001.