| March 10, 2022 | | | |  | Jeff Bergstrom
Editor
John Lothian News | |
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| | | | Lead Stories | | | Goldman Sachs Explores Offering New Options for Cryptocurrencies; Discussions on the bilateral OTC options are at early stage; Goldman already offers Bitcoin, Ether options and futures
Yueqi Yang - Bloomberg
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is exploring offering over-the-counter bilateral crypto options, signaling the bank's deepening participation in helping institutions trade digital-currency derivatives. The powerhouse is among a few Wall Street banks at the early stage of exploring such offerings, according to people with knowledge of the matter, asking not to be identified discussing private information. The so-called bilateral options allow trades to be customized so that crypto holders such as hedge funds and Bitcoin miners can hedge risks or boost yields.
/jlne.ws/3J4LW2K
Oil Traders Bet Prices Will Pass $200 a Barrel This Month; Prices for Brent crude call options surge on rising futures; Traders assessing potential for Russian supply to be cut off
Serene Cheong - Bloomberg
Traders piled into options that oil could surge even further after rising to the highest since 2008, with some even placing low-cost bets that futures surpass $200 before the end of March.
/jlne.ws/3MHxsYP
Volatility Grips Chinese Tech Shares Again as Traders On Edge
Catherine Ngai and Chloe Lo - Bloomberg
Shares of some of the biggest China tech firms whipped around in a volatile trading session Thursday, underscoring high investor angst in a sector mired in regulatory crackdowns.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng Tech Index closed 1% higher, paring an advance of as much as 4.4% earlier in the day. The move came after wild swings hit Chinese stocks a day earlier, with key benchmarks tumbling more than 3% before paring at the close.
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ProShares Short Oil ETF Had Biggest Inflow Ever Before Price Crash
Alex Longley - Bloomberg
A small exchange-traded fund that makes leveraged bets against oil prices saw its biggest inflow on record the day before prices tanked.
ProShares UltraShort Bloomberg Crude Oil fund pulled in almost $84 million on Tuesday. A day later West Texas Intermediate futures sank $15, a drop only eclipsed in dollar terms by the plunge into negative territory in April 2020.
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Gold near record-high prices has become a costly haven for investors
Myra P. Saefong - MarketWatch
Gold has jumped past $2,000 an ounce as investors seek what they perceive as a safer place to park their money against a backdrop of war and rising inflation. Prices for the precious metal moved this week toward their highest levels on recordâraising red flags for extreme volatility ahead.
"Action across the global commodity markets in recent days is outside the range of anything that we have experienced in our decades as [money] managers," says Geetesh Bhardwaj, head of research at SummerHaven Investment Management.
/jlne.ws/3i0uHUh
Russia-Ukraine War Pushes Open Interest Across Oil Futures Contracts to 6-yr Low
Alex Longley and Devika Krishna Kumar - Bloomberg
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has catapulted the oil market into one of the most tumultuous periods it has ever seen -- and pushed some investors to the sidelines.
In two of the four trading sessions this week, Brent crude futures have swung by the most on record -- with intraday swings eclipsing $20 a barrel. In normal times, even a $5 move would see traders balk, and the current volatility is having precisely that effect.
/jlne.ws/3I2CviW
| | | | | | Exchanges | | | MIAX Wins Best Options Trading Platform Award at Fund Intelligence Operations and Services Awards 2022
Press Release
Miami International Holdings (MIH), the parent holding company of the MIAX Exchange Groupâ¢, including MIAX , MIAX Pearl and MIAX Emerald , announced today that MIAX has been named the "Best Options Trading Platform" at the Fund Intelligence Operations and Services Awards 2022.
MIAX has been named a winner every year at the Fund Intelligence Operations and Services Awards since 2016, and for the last three consecutive years won the "Most Innovative Technology" category. This is the first time MIAX has received an award for Best Options Trading Platform; other nominees were DASH Financial Technologies, Tethys Technology, Inc. and Vela.
/jlne.ws/35NQc8i
Investors Shift to Cleared Derivatives
MarketsMedia
The impact of trends such as Uncleared Margin Rules (UMR) and the retirement of LIBOR are increasingly evident in global markets as investors replace uncleared derivatives with cleared swaps, futures and options.
The continued phase-in of UMR and the buy side's desire to reduce counterparty risk have kept the use of uncleared derivatives on a path of continual decline. Over the past 12 months, for instance, 35% of the buy-side firms participating in a new Coalition Greenwich study conducted with the Futures Industry Association (FIA) reduced their use of uncleared interest-rate swaps. Furthermore, 43% of respondents expect liquidity in uncleared swaps across all asset classes to decrease.
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| | | | | | Regulation & Enforcement | | | Third BitMEX Founder Pleads Guilty to Anti-Money-Laundering Violation; Samuel Reed is the third company founder to enter a plea bargain with U.S. prosecutors over the cryptocurrency derivatives exchange's anti-money-laundering failures
Richard Vanderford - WSJ
BitMEX co-founder Samuel Reed pleaded guilty and agreed to a $10 million fine over the cryptocurrency derivatives exchange's anti-money-laundering failures, becoming the third founder of the business to reach a plea deal with U.S. prosecutors. Mr. Reed, the longtime chief technology officer for BitMEX, entered a plea Wednesday in Manhattan federal court to a charge of violating the Bank Secrecy Act, which requires financial institutions to try to curb illicit uses of their services.
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| | | | | | Strategy | | | Oil Prices Are Rising Again. Expect Volatility in Crude to Continue.
Jack Denton - Barron's
Oil prices popped higher on Thursday after one crude benchmark fell by the most in two years in Wednesday trading. Volatility is expected to remain as the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues to roil commodity markets.
Futures for U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude rose 4% to above $113 a barrel, with international oil benchmark Brent up more than 5% to near $117. WTI slipped 12% on Wednesday with Brent down 13%âthe biggest one-day percentage drop since April 2020.
/jlne.ws/3KyYYFX
Opinion: Don't trust the next ferocious rally in the S&P 500
Lawrence G. McMillan - MarketWatch
The stock market remains in a bearish mode. The S&P 500 SPX, -1.15% chart is in a well-defined downtrend, highlighted by lower highs and lower lows. That alone is justification for maintaining a "core" bearish position, which we recommend.
SPX made a new closing low this week. There is still support in the 4100-4200 area, because the market seems to be oversold enough to bounce every time it gets down there.
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| | | | | | Miscellaneous | | | That Time the Meme Crowd Came for the Wheat ETF
Jared Dillian - Bloomberg
Commodity prices have soared the last two weeks as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, drawing novice investors looking to make a quick buck. Many are already getting burned by their lack of knowledge.
Investing in commodities is more complicated than investing in stocks. In commodities, all the action occurs in the futures market because there aren't any liquid markets for things like spot oil, gas or corn. Then there's the margin system â to trade commodities futures you must deposit some initial margin into an account and then you are subject to the ongoing vagaries of adhering to margin requirements. But most of the investing public doesn't want to deal with all that, so they just gravitate to the growing number of exchange-traded funds tracking single commodities or baskets of commodities. Here, too, the risks are different than with an ETF that owns stocks.
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The Wonderful Thing About Markets? They Bounce; Whether dead cats or Tiggers, great rebounds are inevitable during high uncertainty and volatility. It's better for longer-term investors to resist timing and instead see the bigger picture.
John Authers - Bloomberg
The Tigger Market
Feline market analogies are in order after a day like Wednesday. The huge resurgence for risk assets could be called a "dead-cat bounce" (a charming Wall Street expression derived from the fact that even a dead cat will bounce if you drop it far enough.) It could also be called a Tigger market because, as the Winnie the Pooh character assures us, "Bouncing's what Tiggers do best." Just try substituting the word "markets" for "Tiggers" in this poem: The wonderful thing about Tiggers, Is Tiggers are wonderful things, Their tops are made out of rubber, Their bottoms are made out of springs, They're bouncy, trouncy, ouncy, pouncy, Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun
/jlne.ws/3Kwo0Fv
*****All I have to say is TTFN~JJL
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