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John Lothian Newsletter
​ May 09, 2023 ​ "Irreverent, but never irrelevant"
 
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Hits & Takes
John Lothian & JLN Staff

The OCC announced the election of three new board members, Michael Blaugrund, Boudewijn Duinstra and Stephen Luparello, and the re-election of Craig S. Donohue as executive chairman.

Sam Bankman-Fried has asked a U.S. court to dismiss many of the charges against him, the Financial Times reports. If he wins dismissal of the charges, this is some very good legal weaseling.

We missed this story from The Wall Street Journal from May 3, the title of which is "Federal Agency Suspends Inspector General After Oversight Body Alleged 'Substantial Misconduct'"

The Wall Street Journal won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism for its series "Capital Assets." One of the stories is titled "Wall Street Traders or Washington Officials? Sometimes It's Hard to Tell." Additionally, The New York Times and the Washington Post won Pulitzer Prizes, as well as The Los Angeles Times and AL.com, a site that covers Alabama.

Is your dog a goldfish? Is your crypto an investment contract? Those are the questions SEC Chairman Gary Gensler answered in a video from several days ago in his "Office Hours with Gary Gensler" video program on YouTube, this one titled "Crypto Platforms & Securities Laws."

Citadel created a video of Ken Griffin on Campus of various visits he made to different Ivy League schools.

Sheila Bair, former Chair of the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and a Senior Fellow at the Center for Financial Stability, has written a commentary in the Financial Times titled "Congress must act to protect smaller banks from investor nerves" with the subheadline "Measures to shield operational business accounts, introduced during Covid, should be triggered urgently."

You might have to get used to drinking wine from a box, as a sand shortage has pushed up prices for the world's most used natural material, the Financial Times reports. Sand, which is used to make glass, as well as memory chips, is also used in fracking. The New York Times in a presciently timed piece has "10 Boxed Wines That Are Really Good, Seriously."

Have a great day and stay safe and treat people the same way you want to be treated: with respect, equality and justice.~JJL

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DTCC Celebrates 50th Anniversary As Critical Market Infrastructure Provider To The Global Financial Services Industry; From paper to automation, DTCC processed securities transactions valued at U.S. $2.5 quadrillion in 2022
DTCC
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the premier post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, today announced its 50th year in serving the financial markets, protecting and safeguarding the system, delivering value to the industry and clients and launching products and services that mitigate risk and increase efficiencies.
/jlne.ws/3VLXz5z

***** Fifty years ago was an amazing time in the financial services industry when the seeds of our success were planted, including the creation of the DTCC.~JJL

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Research unbundling in the Age Of Content; The Substack model of sellside research
Daniel Davies - Financial Times
Pretty much all media and information services are subject to an economic paradox - you only want to consume the good if it's high quality, but you can't tell what quality it is until you've consumed it. Or from the seller's point of view, the only way that the customer can be sure that they want to pay for it is to get into a position where they don't need to pay for it any more. This fundamental economic problem is at the root of the collapse of sellside research in Europe over the past five years.
/jlne.ws/3VNDMTs

****** A great look at media models and how they relate to the sellside research business and MiFid II. ~JJL

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Wall Street Journal Hits Republicans With The Harsh Truth About Donald Trump
Lee Moran - HuffPost
The editorial board of the Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal is urging readers to take heed of former Attorney General William Barr's warning about what would happen if former President Donald Trump wins a second term in the White House. Barr, who quit Trump's administration amid the then-president's repeated lies about the 2020 election, last week described Trump's first term as a "horror show." He predicted that if Trump wins the 2024 election, he'll fail to deliver on conservative policies.
/jlne.ws/3B72sN5

***** Here is the WSJ editorial for May 7. ~JJL

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US lenders warned that commercial property is 'next shoe to drop'; Executives and investors fret about impact of rising rates and empty buildings on $5.6tn market
Ortenca Aliaj, Antoine Gara, Harriet Agnew and Eric Platt - Financial Times
Fund managers are warning of growing problems in the $5.6tn US commercial real estate industry that could prove painful for lenders already shaken by turmoil in the banking sector. Rising interest rates, falling prices and waning demand for office space following the pandemic had strained the commercial property market. But these troubles intensified after this year's failures of Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank and First Republic raised worries about other regional banks that account for the bulk of commercial real estate loans.
/jlne.ws/3nG3aOr

****** This is not going to be a shoe that drops, but a big cement filled boot.~JJL

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JPMorgan ordered to pay Frank founder's legal fees in fraud case; Wall Street bank accused Charlie Javice of overstating how many people used her financial aid start-up
Joshua Franklin and Joe Miller - Financial Times
JPMorgan Chase must pay the legal fees for Frank founder Charlie Javice in her defence against a lawsuit from the US banking group, which has alleged she defrauded the company when it paid $175mn to acquire her financial aid start-up. A Delaware court on Monday ruled JPMorgan was obliged to cover Javice's legal fees as part of her agreement to sell her company, Frank, to the bank in 2021.
/jlne.ws/44J8aSX

****** Adding insult to injury, but JPM signed up for this.~JJL

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City Veteran Blames London's Decline on 'Narrow British Way of Life'; Interview: Jan du Plessis on CEO pay and accounting scandals; Former chairman is now charged with fixing UK audit regulator
Sabah Meddings - Bloomberg
Jan du Plessis is quick to offer a withering assessment of the City of London's place in the world. "It's clear that over the last five, 10 and 15 years, we have been declining as a financial capital in almost any metric," he says during an interview at the Financial Reporting Council, which he now chairs. "Certainly relative to the US." The City grandee blames various factors for the decline: a cultural objection to high executive pay, the unwanted influence of proxy agencies, and a reluctance to embrace change. As for Brexit, he declines to comment. "You're setting a trap," he smiles.
/jlne.ws/3LOHbg1

****** If it is not British, it is... ~JJL

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Monday's Top Three
Our most read story Monday was Why I Changed My Mind on the Debt Limit, a guest essay from former presidential advisor Lawrence H. Tribe in The New York Times. Second was Eventus cuts staff numbers amid 'challenging funding environment' from The Trade. Third was the SEC press release SEC Issues Largest-Ever Whistleblower Award.

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John Lothian News (JLN) is the news division of John J. Lothian & Company, Inc. (JJLCO). The online media and financial services firm is staffed by derivatives industry, journalism and technology professionals.
 
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John Lothian News Editorial Staff:
 
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Sarah Rudolph
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Lead Stories
ChatGPT Is Causing a Stock-Market Ruckus; Investors race to assess the rise of artificial intelligence as a possible 'iPhone moment'
Charley Grant - The Wall Street Journal
The rise of artificial intelligence is taking the tech world by storm. The technology is also making waves on Wall Street. It is early days for so-called generative AI, a form of artificial intelligence that can conjure original ideas in the form of text, video or other media. But the tool has caused a stir in companies, schools, governments and the general public for its ability to process massive amounts of information and generate sophisticated content in response to prompts from users.
/jlne.ws/3LOPBEa

US firm aims to cut investors in on $1.2tn diamond market; Diamond Standard creates bars and coins of measured values of gems but faces hurdles to launch futures contract and ETF
Harry Dempsey - Financial Times
A New York-based technology company is attempting to succeed where several firms have failed and make the $1.2tn global market for diamonds more accessible to financial investors, through the creation of a futures contract and a fund tracking the price of the gems.
/jlne.ws/3pqOUJG

Goldman, Microsoft, Cboe and Others Team Up to Launch Blockchain Network
Anna Irrera - Bloomberg
A group of firms including Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Microsoft Corp, Deloitte and Cboe Global Markets Inc are joining a new blockchain system aimed at linking disparate institutional applications, potentially encouraging broader adoption of distributed ledger technology in financial markets.
/jlne.ws/44KEJA4

**** Here is The Trade's version of this story.~JJL

High-Tech Banks Grapple With a Rise in Old-Fashioned Crime: Check Fraud; Banks are working to reimburse victims more quickly, but recouping funds is complicated
Ginger Adams Otis - The Wall Street Journal
It took California businesswoman Jennifer Krempp one day to realize someone had stolen and fraudulently cashed several checks she mailed on behalf of her family plumbing company. Three months later, she is still waiting to get all her money back. "I'm out almost $5,000 on one check," said Mrs. Krempp, 47 years old, who along with her husband runs Mann Plumbing out of El Cajon, a city about 17 miles northeast of San Diego.
/jlne.ws/3B9Cn04

Cboe Sees Fundamental Change in Options Trading
Shanny Basar - MarketsMedia
Edward Tilly, chairman and chief executive of Cboe Global Markets said there has been a fundamental evolution in options trading as many market participants now open and trade positions on the same day that options expire. Tilly said on the first quarter results call on 5 May that Cboe continued to make progress delivering on its top strategic growth priorities - derivatives, data and access solutions, and Cboe Digital.
/jlne.ws/3NO5zBe

The Supreme Court Case That Could Threaten the SEC's Climate-Disclosure Rule; A legal challenge to fishing-industry regulation was taken up by the high court last week, in a review that legal experts say could have far-reaching implications for how regulatory agencies operate
Dylan Tokar - The Wall Street Journal
A Supreme Court review of a decades-old regulatory precedent is threatening to complicate the Biden administration's push to enact tough new rules on climate, gun ownership and financial markets. The high court last week said it would reconsider Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, a 1984 Supreme Court opinion that gives regulators legal cover to interpret ambiguous-and sometimes outdated-statutes.
/jlne.ws/42gWKV5

This Is What Would Happen if Biden Ignores the Debt Ceiling and Calls McCarthy's Bluff
Robert Hockett - The New York Times
The deadline for a debt ceiling hike is only weeks away, with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen saying the U.S. could run out of money to pay its debts by June 1. Some Republicans, whether serious or bluffing, seem ready to go to the brink of default - if not actually default on the U.S. national debt. Debate has intensified over whether President Biden might sidestep the debt ceiling in order to keep paying what the nation owes. There are powerful legal reasons and arguments for him to do so. These include the 14th Amendment, which prohibits questioning what we already owe, and the so-called later-in-time rule of statutory construction, which basically means that Congress's most recent budget legislation trumps any earlier legislated ceiling.
/jlne.ws/3M9Vayr

Federal Reserve warns of credit crunch risk after US bank turmoil; Lenders signal plans to tighten loan standards as depositors withdraw cash
James Politi and Joshua Franklin and Brooke Masters - Financial Times
The Federal Reserve has warned that the recent banking turmoil could fuel a broad credit crunch that risks slowing the US economy, while lenders told the central bank they plan to tighten lending standards due to worries about loan losses and deposit flight. Two separate publications by the Fed on Monday highlighted mounting concerns that the March collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank and last week's failure of First Republic will lead to pullbacks in lending and drive down asset prices.
/jlne.ws/3HV98lr

Financial Stability Experts at the Fed Turn a Wary Eye on Commercial Real Estate; A financial stability report from the Federal Reserve flagged concerns tied to rising interest rates, including in commercial real estate.
Jeanna Smialek - The New York Times
Federal Reserve financial stability experts are on the lookout for weaknesses after a year of rising interest rates - and as they survey the potential risks confronting the system, they are increasingly watching office loans and other commercial real estate borrowing.
/jlne.ws/44LTz9x

Digital Asset Will Start Global Blockchain Network With Deloitte, Goldman Sachs and Others
Helene Braun - CoinDesk
Financial technology company Digital Asset will start a privacy-enabled interoperable blockchain network designed to provide a decentralized infrastructure for institutional clients, the firm announced on Tuesday.
/jlne.ws/3HReY76

Bittrex Files for Bankruptcy After SEC Sues the Crypto Platform; Seattle-based crypto company has shut down its U.S. operations
Mengqi Sun and Becky Yerak - The Wall Street Journal
Bittrex Inc., once among the country's biggest crypto trading platforms, filed for bankruptcy Monday after being sued by federal securities regulators and winding down its U.S. operations. The Securities and Exchange Commission sued Bittrex last month as the Seattle-based crypto exchange was preparing to exit the American market, citing what it called the difficulty of working with U.S. regulators, The Wall Street Journal reported.
/jlne.ws/3pluBNX

Indicted FTX founder Bankman-Fried urges court to toss charges
Luc Cohen - Reuters
Sam Bankman-Fried, who has long denied stealing from customers of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange, on Monday said prosecutors charged him with "troubling" haste and asked a U.S. judge to throw out 10 of the 13 criminal counts against him.
/jlne.ws/3LOtHkq

UBS revamps leadership as it prepares to complete Credit Suisse deal; Credit Suisse chief Ulrich Korner to join UBS's executive board as part of shake-up
Owen Walker and William Langley - Financial Times
UBS has said Credit Suisse chief executive Ulrich Korner will join its executive board to help steer the integration of the bank, as rivals attempt to capitalise on what is expected to be a fraught process. Korner, who was drafted in as CEO last year to help revive the lender's fortunes, will help the execution of the most significant banking takeover since the financial crisis.
/jlne.ws/41mstml

***** Here is The Trade's version of this story.~JJL

Cryptoverse-Tether gets a lift from stability doubts
Tom Wilson and Vidya Ranganathan - Reuters
Digital stablecoin tether is winning the race for the title of the crypto world's "least risky" asset. As a regional U.S. banking crisis widens and a regulatory crackdown on crypto firms deepens, investments within the cryptosphere are moving into tokens and coins perceived as relatively safe.
/jlne.ws/3BfyDdb

Illegal for 79 Years, This Loophole Lets Regular Americans Invest Alongside Silicon Valley Insiders
Caleb Naysmith - Benzinga
For 79 years, if you wanted the right to invest in early-stage companies like Apple Inc. in the 1970s, Meta Platforms Inc. in 2004, or Airbnb Inc. in 2009, you had to be an "accredited investor." The concept came from a 1933 law that created the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) to guard against some of the excesses on Wall Street that had led to the 1929 crash and the ensuing Great Depression.
/jlne.ws/42EtcQM

From $2.5 million yachts to $400,000 in DoorDash bills, here are Sam Bankman-Fried and other execs' wildest purchases with FTX and Alameda funds
Pete Syme - Insider
Bankruptcy lawyers said Alameda "bought planes, houses, threw parties, made political donations" with a $65 billion line of credit at FTX. The vast sums are hard to visualize, but it was partly thanks to this spending that customers have been left out of pocket. From DoorDash and Margaritaville to lavish penthouses and commercials, here are the wildest expenses to be revealed in FTX's bankruptcy case.
/jlne.ws/42kYIn8

Warren Buffett Has a History With Banks-as a Critic and Investor; The CEOs and directors of failed banks should suffer, says the billionaire investor and longtime bank shareholder
Ben Eisen - The Wall Street Journal
When there is turmoil in the banking industry, there is an urge to point fingers. Warren Buffett weighed in Saturday: Blame the chief executives of recently failed banks. Blame the board of directors, too, for failing to hold the executives accountable. And blame the regulation that created bad incentives. The longtime bank shareholder didn't, however, point fingers at the investors who poured money into lenders like First Republic Bank and Silicon Valley Bank and profited from their growth.
/jlne.ws/3NX3uDf

Goldman to Pay $215 Million to End Case on Underpaying Women; A class of about 2,800 women agreed to settle the lawsuit; The case was slated to go to trial in New York next month
Max Abelson and Sridhar Natarajan - Bloomberg
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has agreed to pay $215 million to put an end to a long-running class-action lawsuit that accused the Wall Street giant of systemically underpaying women. The New York-based bank struck the deal with lawyers representing about 2,800 female associates and vice-presidents, according to a joint statement from the bank and the plaintiffs' lawyers.
/jlne.ws/3M9d0lm

Occidental Begins Buying Back Warren Buffett's $10 Billion in Preferred Stock; Oil producer is redeeming the shares after record earnings; Berkshire Hathaway's investment in Occidental began in 2019
Kevin Crowley - Bloomberg
Occidental Petroleum Corp. began buying back Berkshire Hathaway Inc.'s $10 billion of preferred stock, four years after Warren Buffett's firm made the investment during the oil producer's takeover of Anadarko Petroleum Corp. Occidental issued "mandatory redemption notifications" for $474 million of preferred stock at a price of 110% of liquidation value plus dividends in March, Berkshire said in its quarterly report.
/jlne.ws/3HUbkJY

Vanguard's Trillion-Dollar Man Leads a Fixed-Income Revolution; Active bond funds bleed record cash as passive lures billions; Josh Barrickman leads rise of new fixed-income market giants
Ye Xie and Liz McCormick - Bloomberg
When March's bank failures ignited a historic bond rally, few, if any, made more money than Josh Barrickman. His army of funds gained roughly $26 billion, the equivalent of more than $1 billion in paper profits every single trading session. Yet Barrickman didn't predict Silicon Valley Bank's collapse, or Credit Suisse's tortured final days.
/jlne.ws/41gYn3B

Memecoins Lead Crypto Declines After Weighing on Bitcoin Fees; Bitcoin drops most in almost two weeks as volatility rises; Speculative tokens such as Pepe slump after recent rally
Vildana Hajric and David Pan - Bloomberg
Memecoins such as Pepe and the recently minted token Ordinals led cryptocurrency prices lower after a weekend surge among the Bitcoin-blockchain-based tokens. Pepe, a frog-themed coin had jumped more than 3,000% since it was launched in April, fell about 30% on Monday, according to data compiled by CoinGecko. It trades at a fraction of one cent.
/jlne.ws/3LNJnnZ

Barclays' cull of 21 ETNs puts structure on shaky ground in US; But there are indications exchange traded notes are holding their own in Europe
Steve Johnson - Financial Times
Barclays' decision to axe almost half of its exchange traded note range appears to be eroding support for the structure in the US, but analysis reveals ETNs are showing resilience in Europe. ETNs - born and bred in the US - are unsecured debt obligations issued by a sponsor, typically a bank, which promise to deliver the returns of an underlying investment exposure in return for a fee.
/jlne.ws/41mDVyl

Why BNP, UniCredit and Other European Banks Aren't Stressed Out; Financial institutions in Paris, Frankfurt, London and Milan aren't seeing contagion from the US banking turmoil.
Paul J. Davies - Bloomberg
The banking turmoil that has sunk four US regional lenders and threatens to claim more victims in California has mostly left Europe untouched - at least so far. Apart from the failure of Credit Suisse Group AG, an already troubled Swiss bank with shrinking returns, there have been no signs of the bank runs that killed off Silicon Valley Bank, First Republic Bank and others.
/jlne.ws/3nLqbiW

Joe Collery: A TCA wish list for the buy-side; Head of trading at Comgest, Joe Collery, sits down with The TRADE to unpack how buy-side expectations around TCA have evolved and how they can be improved to enhance the multi-asset trading experience.
Editors - The Trade
How have buy-side TCA priorities evolved?
Traditionally deemed a compliance requirement for best execution monitoring, TCA has now become an integral part of every desk. TCA is an increasingly important tool for trading desks globally with further regulatory requirements and reporting capabilities deemed fundamental to its application.
/jlne.ws/3LM7h3p

LSEG selects OpenFin for delivery of LSEGWorkspace to customer desktops
OpenFin
London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) has selected OpenFin's technology for its flagship LSEG Workspace platform. The partnership will leverage OpenFin's secure zero-install delivery model and container technology to simplify distribution of LSEG's next-generation data and analytics to customer desktops.
/jlne.ws/42BVLhY



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Ukraine Invasion
News about the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and its military, economic, political and humanitarian impact
Russian forces lash out indiscriminately as Ukraine increases military pressure on frontline towns
Nick Paton Walsh, Natalie Gallon, Kosta Gak, and Peter Rudden - CNN
In this vacant and damaged village, news of Russia's evacuation of occupied towns along the southern front cannot come soon enough. Ukrainian-held Mala Tokmachka, just over a mile (2 kilometers) from Russian-held territory in the Zaporizhzhia region, has been left ghostly and battered by shelling, leaving the central square pockmarked, and the school's facade torn off. Shrapnel is mixed in with fallen pine cones.
/jlne.ws/3B8qOq0

Ukraine War Coverage Earns Pulitzers for The A.P. and The Times
Katie Robertson - The New York Times
Coverage of the war in Ukraine dominated the Pulitzer Prizes on Monday, with The Associated Press winning two awards for its reporting and photography, including the prestigious public service prize, and The New York Times winning for a mix of news and investigative articles about the conflict. The Times also won for illustrated reporting and commentary, for a piece by Mona Chalabi in The Times Magazine examining the wealth of Amazon's founder, Jeff Bezos.
/jlne.ws/3poJ9wk

Vladimir Putin defiant over Ukraine war as Russia celebrates Victory Day; President claims war has been 'unleashed against our motherland' as annual festivities are scaled back
Polina Ivanova and Roman Olearchyk - Financial Times
President Vladimir Putin vowed to pursue his war in Ukraine, accusing western nations of seeking to dismember Russia as his forces launched more missile attacks on Kyiv.
/jlne.ws/3M91AOp

Putin Condemns Western Support for Ukraine as Russia's Battlefield Losses Mount; Victory Day celebrations are more muted this year after Kremlin drone attack, strikes on Russian soil expose vulnerabilities
Ann M. Simmons - The Wall Street Journal
Russian President Vladimir Putin fired a rhetorical broadside at Washington and the West on Tuesday, condemning allied military support for Ukraine as Moscow faces mounting battlefield losses more than a year after invading its smaller neighbor.
/jlne.ws/42EKDAY

Winter gas prices 'to almost treble' as Putin's energy war intensifies - latest updates
Chris Price - The Telegraph
European gas prices could nearly treble this winter and remain higher into summer next year, according to Goldman Sachs, delivering a shock to households and a boost to Vladimir Putin's efforts to fund his war in Ukraine.
/jlne.ws/3Ma0lOY

Putin's Victory Day Brings Evidence of Defeat; One year after launching a criminal, fratricidal, ill-conceived and poorly-run military campaign, he has single-handedly set Russia back in every respect.
eonid Bershidsky - Bloomberg
Victory Day on May 9, commemorating the Soviet Union's triumph over Nazi Germany in 1945, is still the biggest official holiday in Putin's Russia and the cornerstone of its ideology. This year, Moscow will again celebrate it with a full-scale military parade in Red Square and a Putin speech in front of the troops - still on, despite what the Russian authorities called a narrowly thwarted Ukrainian drone attack on Putin's Kremlin residence last week (Ukraine denies involvement).
/jlne.ws/41snhgY








Exchanges, OTC & Clearing
Top news from exchanges, clearing, settlement and trade execution facilities
OCC Announces Three New Board Members, Member Elections at Annual Stockholder Meeting; Michael Blaugrund, Boudewijn Duinstra and Stephen Luparello join Board; Craig Donohue re-elected as Executive Chairman, and additional members elected and appointed OCC
OCC, the world's largest equity derivatives clearing organization, today announced three new members of its Board of Directors: Michael Blaugrund, Chief Operating Officer at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE); Boudewijn Duinstra, Chief Executive Officer at ABN AMRO Clearing USA; and Stephen Luparello, Former Financial Executive. Additionally, OCC announced the re-election of Craig S. Donohue as Executive Chairman, the re-election of three Member Directors and appointment of four additional Exchange Directors.
/jlne.ws/3NQMKgC

Circular of Shanghai International Energy Exchange on Market Maker Applications for Futures and Options Products
Shanghai Futures Exchange
Shanghai International Energy Exchange has released its Circular on Market Maker Applications for Futures and Options Products as follows: To enhance the role of market makers, improve the functioning of the futures and options markets, and better serve the real economy, the Shanghai International Energy Exchange ("INE") now accepts applications for new market makers for relevant INE futures and options products in accordance with the Market-Making Management Rules of the Shanghai International Energy Exchange.
/jlne.ws/3LQZ6mm

Changes to the Board of Directors of SIX
SIX Group
Three long-standing members of the Board of Directors of SIX Group have given their ordinary resignation due to the expiry of their term of office as well as their retirement. Herbert Scheidt has been a member of the Board of Directors of SIX since January 2008. Lorenz von Habsburg Lothringen has been a member of the Board since May 2014. Dr. Jürg Gutzwiller has been a member of the Board since May 2019.
/jlne.ws/44JHXDK

2023 JUNETEENTH HOLIDAY TRADING SCHEDULE
ICE Futures U.S.
ICE Futures U.S. will observe the trading schedule below for the 2023 Juneteenth holiday. Changes from regular trading hours and daily settlement window times are shown in bold, all times shown in NY time.
/jlne.ws/42I73RT




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Fintech
A roundup of today's market tech news and a look at tomorrow's disruptors
LSEG partners with OpenFin to bolster distribution of LSEG Workspace; OpenFin's zero-install delivery model and container technology will be leveraged by LSEG to improve the delivery of data and analytics to clients.
Wesley Bray - The Trade
London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) has selected OpenFin's technology to deliver its flagship LSEG Workspace platform to customer desktops. The partnership will see LSEG leverage OpenFin's zero-install delivery model and container technology to improve and simplify the distribution of LSEG's data and analytics to clients.
/jlne.ws/42AQbMG

ChatGPT Fever Has Investors Pouring Billions Into AI Startups, No Business Plan Required; Amid broader venture-capital doldrums, it is boom times for startups touting generative artificial intelligence tech
Deepa Seetharaman and Berber Jin - The Wall Street Journal
Before their startup had customers, a business plan or even a formal name, former Google AI researchers Niki Parmar and Ashish Vaswani were fielding interest from investors eager to back the next big thing in artificial intelligence.At Google, Ms. Parmar and Mr. Vaswani were among the co-authors of a seminal 2017 paper that helped pave the way for the boom in so-called generative AI. Earlier this year, only weeks after striking out on their own, they raised funds that valued their fledgling company-now called Essential AI-at around $50 million, people familiar with the company said.
/jlne.ws/3BaZJCi

Bitcoin Based-Memecoin Surge Seen Driving Binance Anxiety; Binance resumed Bitcoin withdrawals after 2 pauses Sunday; Transaction fees are being driven higher by memecoin issuance
David Pan and Suvashree Ghosh - Bloomberg
The oldest cryptocurrency blockchain is being clogged up by a recent spate of Bitcoin-based memecoins such as Pepe, driving up transaction fees and renewing concern about the largest digital-asset trading platform. Binance halted withdrawals of Bitcoin twice in less than 12 hours on Sunday, citing congestion on the network.
/jlne.ws/3pqXloj

Swissquote Chooses AI Fintech Netguardians to Fight Financial Crime
Fintech Finance News
Swissquote, Switzerland's leading online bank, has chosen NetGuardians to enhance fraud mitigation and comply with the AML requirements. The NetGuardians AI-based financial crime solutions will monitor all transactions at the bank and on the digital finance app 'Yuh', a joint venture between Swissquote and PostFinance, another of Switzerland's leading banks.
/jlne.ws/3NRmjaI

Why Consumer Fintech Is Alive And Well
Nicole Casperson - Forbes
Consumer fintech is not dead. It just still needs to solve the fundamental financial demands of most Americans. The fintech industry faces its fair share of challenges this year. Turmoil in the banking sector continues as interest rates rise and investor preferences are skewing towards business-to-business fintech companies. Yet, despite these obstacles, millions still have a massive opportunity to improve financial outcomes.
/jlne.ws/3NSXV8M

German Fintech Unstoppable Finance to Launch Europe's First 'DeFi-Native Bank'
Tim Hakki - Decrypt
The ink still hasn't dried on the passing of the EU's new Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) bill, a landmark in comprehensive crypto legislation for the bloc's 27 states, and already the furnaces of invention are fired up for at least one European crypto company. Berlin-based fintech startup Unstoppable Finance, currently most well known for its self-custodial crypto wallet called Ultimate, announced today it will be rolling out Europe's first compliant "DeFi-native bank" alongside a fiat-backed Euro-pegged stablecoin following MiCA's guidance.
/jlne.ws/3VKszD4

Liechtenstein Plans to Accept Bitcoin for Payments to State, Prime Minister Says: Report
Sandali Handagama - CoinDesk
Liechtenstein is planning to add bitcoin (BTC) as a payment option for government services, German news outlet Handelsblatt reported on Sunday. Any crypto received as payment will likely be immediately exchanged for Swiss francs, Liechtenstein's national currency, Prime Minister Daniel Risch told the newspaper. The European Union is now finalizing its landmark licensing regime known as the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) regulation - something that could draw to the region crypto firms seeking regulatory clarity.
/jlne.ws/3VHQcMB



Vermiculus



Cybersecurity
Top stories for cybersecurity
Risk managers warn cyber insurance could become 'unviable product'; Concerns grow over insurers failing to cover big state-backed attacks
Ian Smith - Financial times
A body representing risk managers across Europe has warned cyber insurance could become an "unviable product" for companies as concerns grow over insurers failing to cover big state-backed attacks. The Federation of European Risk Management Associations, an umbrella body representing 22 trade associations, said the cyber insurance market is "evolving in isolation from the industries it serves".
/jlne.ws/41dLiIk

Spotify ejects thousands of AI-made songs in purge of fake streams; Platform cracks down on bots posing as listeners as flood of content rattles music industry
Anna Nicolaou - Financial Times
Spotify has removed tens of thousands of songs from artificial intelligence music start-up Boomy, ramping up policing of its platform amid complaints of fraud and clutter across streaming services. In recent months the music industry has been confronting the rise of AI-generated songs and, more broadly, the growing number of tracks inundating streaming platforms daily.
/jlne.ws/41g3vF7

European committee investigating spyware abuses advances long-awaited report
Tim Starks - The Washington Post
A European Parliament committee on Monday finalized its report on the use of spyware on the continent, condemning multiple member countries' handling of the technology and making recommendations for regulating it.
/jlne.ws/3NSMiOZ

Small- and medium-sized businesses: don't give up on cybersecurity
Christopher Burgess - CSO Online
In today's increasingly hostile environment, every enterprise, be they big or small, should be concerned about cybersecurity and have access to protection from hackers, scammers, phishers, and all the rest of the host of bad actors who seem to be sprouting up around the world.
/jlne.ws/3M9aQ57

20 Biggest Cybersecurity Companies In the World
Ramish Cheema - Yahoo Finance
In this piece, we will take a look at the 20 biggest cybersecurity companies in the world. For more companies, head on over to 5 Biggest Cybersecurity Companies In the World. In just a short time period, two technologies have revolutionized the corporate sector. These are the semiconductor and the Internet, both of which work together to generate vast amounts of computing power and connectivity to enable companies to streamline their operations and overcome geographic limitations.
/jlne.ws/44J05xt





Cryptocurrencies
Top stories for cryptocurrencies
Bitcoin's 'BRC-20' Explosion Sends Users Scrambling for Options, Including Lightning
Frederick Munawa - CoinDesk
A lucky miner raked in 6.701 bitcoin (BTC) or almost $200,000 in transaction fees on Sunday night, exceeding Bitcoin's current block subsidy of 6.25 BTC - an extremely rare occurrence that illustrates how a recent burst of activity on the blockchain related to the Ordinals protocol has led to soaring costs for users.
/jlne.ws/42FpLcS

Bitcoin Trades at Nearly $650 Premium on Binance.US
Omkar Godbole - CoinDesk
The gap between bitcoin's price in U.S. dollars (BTC/USD) on prominent digital assets exchanges like Binance and Coinbase and the price on Binance's U.S. arm has widened sharply this month, causing unease among crypto commentators on Twitter.
/jlne.ws/3LMvEhs

Crypto Options Liquidity Provider OrBit Markets Offers Bitcoin and Gold-Hybrid Derivative
Jocelyn Yang - CoinDesk
Orbit Markets, an institutional liquidity provider of crypto options, is rolling out the first bitcoin and gold hybrid-focused derivative product with execution broker PI Digital. The initiative is among the latest developments among crypto industry firms to provide steady returns during periods of macroeconomic uncertainty. It aims to give investors exposure to gold and digital assets, two assets that hold their value.
/jlne.ws/3HPeFdd

The Era Of Crypto: Bitcoin Sets New Record Of Daily Transactions Amid Banking Turmoil
Aditi Ganguly - Benzinga
It's been a tumultuous year for the financial sector, as macroeconomic headwinds caused the 16th-largest bank in the U.S. to shut its doors in March. An unforeseen upside is happening as decentralized cryptocurrencies make a stellar comeback after a brutal crypto winter last year. Despite recessionary risks, people have been investing in riskier alternative assets such as cryptocurrencies as the global banking system appears to be on the brink of collapse.
/jlne.ws/44T4MFk

American Crypto Exchange Bittrex Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
Mathew Di Salvo - Decrypt
Bittrex has gone bust. In a Monday Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, the American cryptocurrency exchange said it had more than 100,000 creditors with estimated liabilities and assets both within the $500 million to $1 billion range. The filing comes just weeks after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filed charges against Bittrex, alleging it had failed to comply with securities law by not registering with the financial watchdog.
/jlne.ws/44zeTyK

Crypto exchange Bittrex files for bankruptcy after SEC complaint
Dietrich Knauth - Reuters
Cryptocurrency exchange Bittrex Inc filed for bankruptcy protection on Monday, three weeks after the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) accused it of operating an unregistered securities exchange. Seattle-based Bittrex ceased operations in the United States on April 30, and it said the bankruptcy filing would not impact Bittrex Global, which serves customers outside the United States. The company's non-U.S. operations are based in Liechtenstein.
/jlne.ws/3pjqXnI

P2P Bitcoin Exchange Paxful Back Online After Temporary Suspension
Helene Braun - CoinDesk
Peer-to-peer (P2P) bitcoin exchange Paxful has resumed operations after being shut down for over a month, the company said in a blog post. "After a month away, we're happy to announce that the Paxful marketplace is back online," the company wrote. "In early April, we faced a difficult decision to temporarily suspend the marketplace to protect all of our customers and Paxful's future."
/jlne.ws/42zaKZU

Memecoins Lead Crypto Declines After Weighing on Bitcoin Fees; Bitcoin drops most in almost two weeks as volatility rises; Speculative tokens such as Pepe slump after recent rally
Vildana Hajric and David Pan - Bloomberg
Memecoins such as Pepe and the recently minted token Ordinals led cryptocurrency prices lower after a weekend surge among the Bitcoin-blockchain-based tokens. Pepe, a frog-themed coin had jumped more than 3,000% since it was launched in April, fell about 30% on Monday, according to data compiled by CoinGecko. It trades at a fraction of one cent.
/jlne.ws/3LNJnnZ

RIP Metaverse; An obituary for the latest fad to join the tech graveyard
Ed Zitron - Insider
The Metaverse, the once-buzzy technology that promised to allow users to hang out awkwardly in a disorientating video-game-like world, has died after being abandoned by the business world. It was three years old. The capital-M Metaverse, a descendant of the 1982 movie "Tron" and the 2003 video game "Second Life," was born in 2021 when Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg changed the name of his trillion-dollar company to Meta.
/jlne.ws/41kndQe




FTSE



Politics
An overview of politics as it relates to the financial markets
Biden beware: Manchin and Sinema align with Republicans in debt negotiations
Burgess Everett - Politico
Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema saved the filibuster and cut down President Joe Biden's agenda, delighting Republicans. Now they're breaking with Democrats on the debt limit, and Republicans hope they keep it coming.
/jlne.ws/42DJ1rb

Trump could be president again: Eurasia Group Founder Ian Bremmer
Yahoo! Finance
Two weeks after officially announcing his reelection campaign, President Biden is getting bad news about his popularity with Americans. Biden's approval rating slid from 42% in April of 2022 to 36% in May of 2023, according to a new Washington-Post-ABC News poll. The President's first term has been economically challenging as the U.S. fights soaring prices and a difficult fight over the debt ceiling.
/jlne.ws/3plJbFc

Mitch McConnell Warns He Has No 'Secret Plan' to Solve US Debt Impasse; GOP leader predicts Biden, McCarthy will eventually cut deal; Leaders meet tomorrow at White House as debt cliff nears
Steven T. Dennis - Bloomberg
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell warned he won't come to President Joe Biden's rescue on the debt limit by breaking a partisan deadlock as a catastrophic US default looms. A day before a crucial meeting between Biden and congressional leaders, McConnell said in an interview Monday he told the president privately it was up to him and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to find a solution, even as he projected confidence the nation would avert a default.
/jlne.ws/3LKfm8D

Bill Gross Advises Buying T-Bills to Bet Debt-Ceiling Issues Will Be Resolved; Debt ceiling standoffs like this are 'always resolved': Gross; Gross said 30% of personal portfolio in pipeline partnerships
Katherine Greifeld and Ye Xie - Bloomberg
Bill Gross, the former chief investment officer of Pacific Investment Management Co., recommended buying short-term Treasury bills, expecting the debt-ceiling issue eventually gets resolved. "It's ridiculous. It is always resolved, not that it is a 100% chance, but I think it gets resolved," Gross said on Bloomberg Television's ETF IQ Monday.



Regulation & Enforcement
Stories about regulation and the law.
SEC Staff Throw Cold Water on Calls for Ban on Short Selling of Bank Stocks
Eleanor Terrett, Charlie Gasparino - Fox Business
If Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler wants to ban short selling of regional bank stocks, he will have to do it over the objections of the agency's career staffers, FOX Business has learned. The recent tumult in the regional banking business, where stocks of mid-sized banks sold off sharply after the failures of First Republic, Silicon Valley, and Signature banks, has sparked calls for a ban on short selling these shares to stem the crisis and prevent additional collapses.
/jlne.ws/3poYixH

Ripple's Tussle With SEC to Cost the Firm $200M, CEO Garlinghouse Says: Report
Sandali Handagama - CoinDesk
Blockchain company Ripple's legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is set to cost the firm around $200 million, Cointelegraph reported Monday, citing the Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse. Garlinghouse reportedly told onlookers at the Dubai Fintech Summit that he would not advise crypto entrepreneurs to set up in the U.S., adding that the country puts politics ahead of policy.
/jlne.ws/44BMiZT

SEC Halts $155 Million Fraudulent Oil and Gas Offering Scheme
SEC
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced that on May 3, 2023, it filed an emergency action in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas (Waco Division), alleging that Roy W. Hill and Eric N. Shelly, through two entities they control, Clean Energy Technology Association, Inc. (CETA) and Freedom Impact Consulting, LLC (FIC), were actively engaged in a fraudulent offering that has raised over $155 million from over 500 investors. On May 3, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas issued orders temporarily restraining the defendants' ongoing offerings, temporarily freezing the defendants' assets, appointing a receiver, and granting other emergency relief.
/jlne.ws/44AzF0W








Investing & Trading
Today's top stories from equities, indices and FICC (fixed income, currencies and commodities)
World's Biggest Pulp Producer Considers Trading With China in Yuan
Dayanne Sousa - Bloomberg
Suzano SA, the biggest producer of hardwood pulp, is considering selling its products to China priced in yuan, adding to signs that the dollar is losing its dominance in commodity markets. China's currency is growing in importance and smaller customers there are requiring deals linked to the renminbi, Suzano Chief Executive Office Walter Schalka said in an interview from Bloomberg's New York headquarters. China is the largest commodity buyer and accounts for 43% of Suzano's pulp.
/jlne.ws/3nC9qqv

Retail Traders Are Making Risky Bets on Regional Bank Stocks; Turmoil in the financial sector is luring in small-time investors looking to make a quick profit.
Claire Ballentine and Paulina Cachero - Bloomberg
The volatility in regional banks stocks is proving irresistible for risk-loving retail investors on both sides of the trade. Last week's meltdown in small lenders including PacWest Bancorp and Western Alliance sharply reversed Friday with huge gains for the stocks. The see-sawing continued on Monday, with the KBW Regional Banking Index opening with a gain of 1.8%, then closing down 2.8%.
/jlne.ws/3HRpiwb

Aussie Bank Investors Say Best Days Are Over as Margins Squeezed; Economic anxiety, mortgage competition dampen lenders' outlook; Sector woes in US, Europe add to investor angst: BetaShares
Georgina McKay and Nabila Ahmed - Bloomberg
The best is over: that's the message from Australian banks worried they can't repeat their blockbuster performance over the next year. As investors mull the probabilities of a recession and rate cuts from the Reserve Bank of Australia, lenders are warning that credit growth is slowing. And while results released in the last week have shown climbing profits, bank chiefs are cautious on future earnings.
/jlne.ws/3LM9oEj

This Strategy Beat the World's Top Hedge Funds-Don't Try It; Malkiel's monkeys can probably outperform Sohn's gurus
Spencer Jakab - The Wall Street Journal
Please don't feed or throw objects at the fund managers. David Einhorn and Stanley Druckenmiller, both scheduled speakers at Tuesday's Sohn Investment Conference, each have earned billions of dollars through investing. Heard on the Street's columnists are paid peanuts by comparison, but that didn't stop us from making monkeys out of the conference's hedge-fund luminaries five years ago. Inspired by Prof. Burton Malkiel's book "A Random Walk Down Wall Street" in which he quipped that "a blindfolded monkey throwing darts at a newspaper's financial pages could select a portfolio that would do just as well as one carefully selected by the experts," our dart-picked stocks beat the Sohn Conference's picks by a bruising 22 percentage points.
/jlne.ws/3nKciS4




Qontigo




Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance
Stories about environmental, social and governance investing
Oil Companies Give Back the Cash; Also Teck's ESG M&A defense, the deposit franchise, nonbank lending and bank preferred stock.
Matt Levine - Bloomberg
You don't have to believe this theory, but something like it seems to be pretty popular. In particular, environmental, social and governance investors often express some version of this; they talk about the need to transition to green energy and question the long-term viability of fossil fuels. I suspect that many oil-and-gas executives and investors don't believe this theory, but what if they do?
/jlne.ws/3HREARt

The Most Valuable U.S. Power Company Is Making a Huge Bet on Hydrogen; NextEra is talking about investing $20 billion in green hydrogen, banking on lucrative tax credits
Katherine Blunt - The Wall Street Journal
NextEra Energy grew into a clean-energy powerhouse by investing early in wind and solar farms. Now, it is staking its growth on hydrogen, a much-hyped energy source whose economics are unproven. The new strategy is a huge bet for the Florida-based business, which has become the most valuable power company in the U.S., in part because it outperformed its financial targets: Its 2022 profit was up roughly 70% from a decade ago. Over the past two decades, NextEra's market capitalization has soared to more than $150 billion from roughly $11 billion.
/jlne.ws/3VKKsBA








Banks, Brokers & Managed Funds
The latest from banks, brokers, hedge funds and managed futures
Banks Are Sound, Survey Shows. Where the Pressure Points Are.
Janet H. Cho - Barron's
Experts say the banking sector remains stable after multiple regional banks collapsed, prompting government officials to intervene to reassure depositors, a new report from the Federal Reserve shows. But concerns linger. The Federal Reserve's latest Financial Stability Report, released Monday, offers the latest assessment of the stability of the U.S. financial system and biggest fears about current conditions, based on a survey of market experts, economists, academics, and others.
/jlne.ws/3LLCfJ5

Banking Is Stable? It's an Illusion; Facing up to risk would allow early intervention to control it. Apparently that's asking too much.
Clive Crook - Bloomberg
On taking over the distressed First Republic Bank last week, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, said: "No crystal ball is perfect, but yes, I think the banking system is very stable." Well, what else was the boss of America's biggest bank going to say?
/jlne.ws/41eO549

Concern Over TD Anti-Money-Laundering Practices Helped Scuttle First Horizon Deal
Justin Baer and Vipal Monga - The Wall Street Journal
Toronto-Dominion Bank's handling of suspicious customer transactions was behind regulators' refusal to bless the Canadian lender's $13.4 billion bid to buy First Horizon, people familiar with the matter said. The banks called off the proposed union Thursday, citing uncertainty over whether and when they could receive regulatory approvals, without being more specific.
/jlne.ws/3nAvmlT

Schwab Began Hedging Interest-Rate Risk With About $3.9 Billion in Derivatives
Annie Massa - Bloomberg
Charles Schwab Corp. started hedging interest rate-related risk this year, according to a regulatory filing on Monday. The company began hedging using derivatives, valued at $3.9 billion by the end of March, the filing said. After the Federal Reserve embarked on its most aggressive interest rate tightening cycle in decades last year, Westlake, Texas-based Schwab has been caught in the ensuing tumult.
/jlne.ws/3nB4vGh

UBS to take in Credit Suisse CEO as merger closes in 2 weeks
AP Finance
UBS said Tuesday it's bringing the CEO of Credit Suisse on to its executive board and will keep the two banks operating separately "for the foreseeable future" as it moves forward with a high-profile merger expected to close within two weeks.
/jlne.ws/44K775m

JPMorgan claims Jes Staley thwarted efforts to sever ties with Jeffrey Epstein; Bank opposes former executive's motion to dismiss its countersuit in lawsuits over disgraced financier
Joshua Franklin and Joe Miller - Financial Times
JPMorgan Chase claimed former executive Jes Staley repeatedly thwarted its efforts to sever ties with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein while the former Barclays chief executive was employed by the US banking giant.
/jlne.ws/3NSUI8X




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Work & Management
Stories impacting work and more about management ideas, practices and trends.
'Too greedy': mass walkout at global science journal over 'unethical' fees
Anna Fazackerley - The Guardian
More than 40 leading scientists have resigned en masse from the editorial board of a top science journal in protest at what they describe as the "greed" of publishing giant Elsevier. The entire academic board of the journal Neuroimage, including professors from Oxford University, King's College London and Cardiff University resigned after Elsevier refused to reduce publication charges.
/jlne.ws/41k8hBJ

The ability to work from home does not just benefit the elite; More flexibility has improved work-life balance for many since the pandemic began
Sarah O'Connor - Financial Times
Work has been getting a bad press lately. We've had the "great resignation" trend, the "anti-work" movement, "quiet quitting" and a wave of strikes. It all seems to add up to a sense that work is getting worse and people are fed up with it. I was even asked to join a podcast discussion last year called "Is this the end of work as we know it?"
/jlne.ws/42xSEY4








Wellness Exchange
An Exchange of Health and Wellness Information
The west's handling of the pandemic beat its own expectations; A demonised elite produced vaccines and furloughs while a supposedly rebellious public mostly followed the rules
Janan Ganesh - Financial Times (opinion)
No less a figure than Bill Gates expected the Covid-19 pandemic to resemble a world war. Armistice came last week, on the fifth day of the fifth month, when the World Health Organization declared the official end of the emergency.
/jlne.ws/42knaVV

If the Pandemic Is No Longer a Public Health Emergency, Then What Is It?
David Quammen - The New York Times (opinion)
This is part of a series on preparing for future outbreaks. Sign up for the Next Pandemic newsletter. The all-clear siren has sounded for now, though the war isn't over. On May 5, the director-general of the World Health Organization, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announced that Covid-19 is no longer a "public health emergency of international concern" - in the formalized shorthand, a PHEIC.
/jlne.ws/42W84G7








Regions
Stories of local interest from the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions
China's supercharged new-energy sector is propping up exports, but will it last?
Ji Siqi, Kandy Wong and Ralph Jennings - South China Morning Post
For tens of millions of workers in China's massive export sector, the surprising 14.8 per cent year-on-year growth in shipments in March is nothing but a figure when - as they see it - empty containers have been piling up at ports for months, and small manufacturers have struggled to stay afloat. But the new-energy industry seems to be an exception.
/jlne.ws/42EsanN

China's Cotton Crop Seen Shrinking on Freeze and Smaller Area; Local cotton futures have risen to the highest since last July; Cold damage comes as some farmers switch to sowing grain
Hallie Gu - Bloomberg
Cotton production in top grower China could decline this year after frigid weather delayed sowing and hurt plants in some areas, and acreage dropped as some farmers followed government advice and switched to grain. The harvest may fall by as much as 1 million tons from last year, according to Guo Chao, the general manager of Hebei Xingyu Textile Material Co., a major cotton trader and processor.
/jlne.ws/3nLa2tW

China's Speculative Stock Frenzy Spreads to Brokers and Media; Weak trade data and geopolitical tensions cited as reasons; Concerns linger over rally given lack of strong fundamentals
John Cheng - Bloomberg
Frenzied trading in stocks of China's state-owned enterprises fizzled Tuesday afternoon as sentiment soured on the nation's weak import data. An index tracking some of China's largest state-owned enterprises erased a gain of as much as 1.5% to finish the day 0.9% lower. The broader CSI 300 Index dropped by a similar amount. Brokerage stocks pared earlier surges.
/jlne.ws/41kpISC

Hong Kong and mainland Chinese authorities plan GBA Wealth Management Connect scheme overhaul, allowing Chinese investors access to global equities
South China Morning Post
Plans are being finalised for upgrading the Wealth Management Connect scheme to include benefits like allowing residents of the Greater Bay Area (GBA) to buy global equity products, said Eddie Yue, chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) on Tuesday. Authorities in the bay area are discussing these changes to widen the product suite, increase quotas for individual investors and simplify the selling process, he said at the Bloomberg Wealth Asia Summit in Hong Kong. Investors in the bay area are currently allowed to buy only bond funds.
/jlne.ws/3HPdN8r

Ireland to propose creation of sovereign wealth fund; Government forecasts surplus will reach EUR10bn this year and more than EUR16bn in 2024
Jude Webber - Financial Times
Ireland's finance minister Michael McGrath will submit proposals to set up a sovereign wealth fund as the government seeks to channel bumper surpluses into infrastructure and debt-reduction programmes.
/jlne.ws/3VLnw5g

Saudi Aramco's Profit Slides as Oil Boom Cools; Majority state-owned oil giant announces an additional dividend payout that would help boost the kingdom's finances
Summer Said and Benoit Faucon - The Wall Street Journal
Saudi Arabia's national oil company posted a 19% drop in quarterly profit due to lower energy prices, but announced an additional dividend payout that underscores the kingdom's dependence on oil revenues to run its economy.
/jlne.ws/3HVrP8t







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