| November 11, 2024 | "Irreverent, but never irrelevant" | | |  | John Lothian
Publisher
John Lothian News | |
|
| | | | First Read | | |
| | 2024 Newsletter Subscriptions: | |
Hits & Takes
John Lothian & JLN Staff
DRW's Don Wilson is the latest to get the Financial Times "New titans of Wall Street" treatment in the series about "The secretive firms that have conquered trading." While Don is just a man, he is a trading god to many in the industry, thus deserving of the title "Titan." Don is more than just trading, or the "Smartest Man in Trading" as the FT article suggests. He is an industry leader. For some, he is THE industry leader. He is also a yachtsman. And if you have been paying attention, those two things are intricately linked to the history of trading in Chicago.
Bitcoin has soared above a new record price of $82,000 after breaching $80,000 over the weekend, buoyed by post-U.S. election enthusiasm for the incoming pro-crypto Trump administration. Even Dogecoin has joined the party. Bloomberg reported yesterday it had rallied 50% in the past five days.
Germany's benchmark Bund, once the gold standard for European sovereign debt, is losing its prime status amid rising yields and market shifts, Bloomberg reports. Traditionally the safest European investment, Bunds now reflect Germany's economic strains, such as soaring energy costs and diminished exports to China, which led to the recent government collapse. Notably, 10-year Bund yields have surpassed those of interest-rate swaps-a rare phenomenon indicating growing fiscal pressures. Factors like the European Central Bank's tapering of quantitative easing, increased Bund availability, and a narrowing yield gap with countries like Italy point to Germany's shifting debt profile. This "devaluation" suggests that future economic stability may hinge on constitutional changes to Germany's strict debt laws, potentially enabling greater borrowing to boost its economy.
On Veterans Day, observed annually on November 11, financial markets in the United States operate on varied schedules. The U.S. stock markets, including the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and Nasdaq Stock Market, remain open during their regular trading hours, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern Time. In contrast, the bond markets, including U.S. Treasury securities, are closed in observance of the holiday. This divergence allows equity trading to proceed uninterrupted, while fixed-income markets pause for the day. Additionally, most banks and federal offices are closed on Veterans Day, affecting certain financial services and government operations.
The Financial Times published a Special Report on Managing Climate Change today that examines key issues at the UN COP29 talks in Baku, where negotiators aim to set a new climate finance target. "Battle lines drawn on climate finance ahead of COP29" covers countries' efforts to agree on funding against global warming. "Should a petrostate be allowed to host a COP?" questions Azerbaijan's hosting suitability. "Women fight to have a voice in climate negotiations" highlights female leaders pushing for inclusion after an all-male organizing committee. "Bilateral trades hint at global carbon market agreement" discusses progress toward a global carbon framework. "Time is running out for the world to meet climate targets" warns of delays in climate action, and "EU braced for blows from all sides in march to meet net zero goals" examines challenges the EU faces as it pursues emissions cuts amid limited US support.
FOW changed the location of where it displays its news stories on its website. They are now on the insights page. Here are the headlines from in front of FOW's paywall on the insights page from some recent stories: LCH adds Commerzbank to ForexClear as clearing member, Eurex lists US tech and banking stock options after US election, ANALYSIS: Financial firms lacking AI governance, oversight - report, HKEX welcomes 'successful first period' for weekly options and ANALYSIS: Broad-based growth drives benchmark adoption in CME energy suite.
Registration is open for the 2025 Asset Derivatives Forum to be held February 12-14 in Orlando, FL., hosted by FIA and SIFMA's Asset Management Group.
FT Correspondent Harry Dempsey is starting a new position as Tokyo correspondent after five years of covering commodities in London. He will focus on covering corporate Japan.
Good guy Ray McKenzie announced his new role as senior business development executive at Quant16. Quant16 empowers Fortune 1000 companies and government entities to make faster, data-driven decisions through Model-Driven FP&A as a Service with Monetizable AI. Based in Chicago, Ray said in a LinkedIn post that he looks forward to connecting soon with industry colleagues to share more about Quant16's innovative approach.
Have a great day and stay safe and treat people the same way you want to be treated: with respect, equality and justice.~JJL
*****
Our most read stories from our previous edition of JLN Options were:
- Trading in Currency Options Surged to Record After Trump Victory from Bloomberg.
- Treasury volatility gauge slumps after markets navigate election and Fed from MarketWatch.
- Why it's way easier to call US elections than pick stocks from the Financial Times. ~JB
Subscribe to the JLN Options Newsletter HERE (it's free).
++++
| Sponsored Content |
"FIA Forum - Tokyo 2024" held at JPX
Together with FIA and FIA Japan, OSE successfully hosted the FIA Tokyo Forum on October 10, 2024, at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The event welcomed over 220 attendees representing more than 100 companies.
The program opened with remarks from Mr. Nakaso, Chairman of FinCity.Tokyo, and Mr. Yokoyama, President and CEO of OSE. These introductions were followed by two engaging panel discussions and an insightful address by Mr. Ito, Commissioner of the Financial Services Agency.
During the panel discussions, industry leaders from global exchanges and brokerages shared their perspectives on the Japanese market and their development plans. They also explored practical applications of OSE's recent innovations in the interest rates market, including the newly launched 3-Month TONA Futures.
Mr. Kazuhisa Kakizaki, Executive Officer of OSE/TOCOM, joined a panel to discuss JPX's product advancements. He highlighted developments such as the 3-Month TONA Futures, TOCOM Electricity Futures, and the revival of the Single Stock Options market.
For further details , please refer to the following link: https://www.fiajapan.org/post/fia-forum-tokyo-2024-co-organized-with-fia-japan.
|
++++
Chinese-owned vineyards in France for sale at knockdown prices
Vivian Song - The Telegraph
Just a few years ago, Chateau Latour-Laguens was the multi-million euro flagship in a brave-new era of Chinese-owned wine making. Now, the winery 30 miles south west of Bordeaux is abandoned, decaying, and back on the market for a fraction of its value. It is just one of dozens of Chinese-owned vineyards up for sale at knockdown rates as China loses its taste for imported wine - and the dream of cashing in big on has turns sour for scores of Beijing and Shanghai-based investors.
/jlne.ws/3YYzThv
***** For those future U.S. expats looking for something to do, here is an opportunity.~JJL
++++
Hedge-Funds Hit by 'Arbageddon' Sense Brighter Future After Trump Win; A string of busted deals has hit the venerable hedge-fund industry strategy of merger arbitrage
Ben Dummett and Caitlin McCabe - The Wall Street Journal
It has been a rough year for betting on big takeovers. Now, some in the hedge-fund industry hope President-elect Donald Trump could breathe new life into the business, by giving American corporations more freedom to pursue major deals. The optimism is already evident in surging stock prices for some companies, like Discover Financial Services , that are pursuing combinations. It is part of a broader optimism across Wall Street about potentially lucrative opportunities under a second Trump term.
/jlne.ws/3YYVarC
***** Your word of the day is "Arbageddon."~JJL
++++
Friday's Top Three
Our top story Friday was Jeffrey Carter's column in Points and Figures titled Should Exchanges Own Their Own Commission Merchants? about CME Group receiving permission from the CFTC to create its own futures commission merchant. Second was ANALYSIS: Marex expects no 'competitive threat' from CME broking approval, from FOW. Third was America needs to catch up on regulatory clarity for crypto assets, an interview with CFTC Commissioner Caroline Pham on CNBC.
++++
++++
|
|  | | | |
 | |
| Lead Stories | Is Chicago's Don Wilson the smartest man in trading? From cleaning up after Lehman Brothers to early bets on Bitcoin, DRW has become an industry colossus
Costas Mourselas - Financial Times
As Lehman Brothers hurtled towards bankruptcy in September 2008, the executives at the world's largest derivatives exchange found themselves in a race against time: find a new home for the failed bank's trading book or face more cascading chaos. In an early harbinger of a new era for markets, the winner of the bidding war for Lehman's bets on currencies, agricultural commodities and interest rates was not one of Wall Street's big banks, but a secretive Chicago trading firm called DRW whose founder exuded a quiet but unshakeable confidence. "Call me any time, any day or night, I will give you a price on whatever portfolio you want," Don Wilson told a senior CME executive multiple times ahead of the crisis.
/jlne.ws/4hBlob3
Swiss Exchange Buys UK's Aquis in Biggest Acquisition Since 2020; Offer is at a 120% premium to Aquis' closing share price; SIX says deal will help expansion beyond home markets
Allegra Catelli - Bloomberg
Switzerland's exchange operator SIX Group AG agreed to buy Aquis Exchange Plc, a UK-based trading exchange and data provider, in a deal with an enterprise value of approximately £194 million ($250 million). The offer is for 727 pence in cash per Aquis share, representing a 120% premium to Friday's closing price. It has been unanimously recommend by Aquis directors, according to a statement on Monday. Aquis shares were trading at 705 pence as of 9:02 a.m. in London.
/jlne.ws/4fFJZcW
The Crypto World Is Preparing for a Renaissance Under Trump; Bitcoin prices surged to a record Sunday, hitting $80,000 for the first time
Vicky Ge Huang, Caitlin Ostroff and Dave Michaels - The Wall Street Journal
Bernie Moreno was celebrating Tuesday night at La Centre, a banquet center in the Cleveland suburbs, when he got a call from Brian Armstrong, Brad Garlinghouse and a handful of other crypto executives. The Republican had just defeated three-term Sen. Sherrod Brown, the head of the Senate Banking Committee and one of the largest crypto critics on Capitol Hill. The executives wanted to congratulate Moreno.
/jlne.ws/4fCqKRk
Wall Street Math Wizards Are Decoding Private-Market Returns
Justina Lee - Bloomberg
Times are tough in private markets. High borrowing costs are hurting returns, managers are struggling to exit investments, and regulators are circling. All that is bringing back an issue that has long haunted these opaque holdings: No one is quite sure how to actually measure their performance. Barry Griffiths is one of a small group of quantitative analysts giving it a try. He's the driving force behind an alternative method for gauging unlisted investments that he says has the potential to demystify the world of private markets, from buyout funds to venture capital. The claim is it will help investors compare returns with those of other asset classes, as well as reveal the true value provided by managers in the business along the way.
/jlne.ws/48MIPu0
Lucrative Bonuses for Wall Street CEOs Take Shape on Trump Win; Goldman, Carlyle, TPG surges set up multimillion-dollar awards; Investors are betting financial firms to face less regulation
Sridhar Natarajan - Bloomberg
Donald Trump's return to the White House is already starting to tee up a deluge of bonuses in Wall Street's corridors of power. At Goldman Sachs Group Inc., the prospect that investment banks and buyout shops will again be among the top beneficiaries of Trump's regulatory and tax agenda has sent its stock price soaring. If the gains hold over coming weeks, it will trigger a key threshold for David Solomon to eventually collect a special payout, which at current performance levels would be worth at least $50 million.
/jlne.ws/3UFZQjG
Ex-Deutsche Boerse Staffer Confesses to Insider Trading at Trial; Man accused of trading off market filings before disclosure; He placed trades during working hours at his computer
Karin Matussek - Bloomberg
A former Deutsche Boerse AG employee confessed he secretly traded for three and a half years on non-public information the Frankfurt stock exchange received from listed companies. The man, who can only be identified as G. P., is being tried in Germany over 14 counts of insider trading between January 2018 and July 2021. On the first day of trial he admitted to using information Deutsche Boerse received 30 minutes before the filings were made public. He traded stocks in companies including Deutsche Bank AG and Aurubis AG.
/jlne.ws/3O5buAE
Deutsche's private bank fires over 100 senior bankers in cost-cutting drive; Frankfurt-headquartered lender has imposed demanding targets on underperforming unit
Olaf Storbeck - Financial Times
Deutsche Bank has fired 111 senior managers in its retail and private wealth unit as the division implements deep cost cuts to meet stretching 2025 targets. The Frankfurt-based bank is seeking to reduce the unit's cost-to-income ratio from 80 per cent this time last year, to between 60 and 65 per cent next year. Over the first nine months of 2024, it stood at 77 per cent.
/jlne.ws/3Z1xwuH
CME Hits Record $13.15B in Bitcoin Futures Trading
The Currency Analytics
The Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), one of the world's largest and most influential financial exchanges, has reached a historic milestone with a record-breaking $13.15 billion in Bitcoin futures trading volume. This surge, marked by Bitcoin futures priced at $76,141, underscores the increasing institutional demand for Bitcoin exposure in the financial markets, particularly in the wake of Donald Trump's re-election. The CME's Bitcoin futures market has been a major player in driving institutional adoption of cryptocurrencies. In 2024, CME's average daily trading volume for Bitcoin futures has surged to an impressive $4.56 billion, reflecting growing investor confidence in digital assets. This growth marks a notable increase in interest from institutional investors, especially when compared to the aftermath of the FTX collapse in November 2022, which saw heightened attention on regulated Bitcoin products.
/jlne.ws/4fna5S0
Trump team weighs Wall Street lawyer Richard Farley as SEC chair candidate: sources
Josh Kosman - NY Post
A top lawyer on Wall Street known for his work on leveraged buyouts is being floated as a possible candidate to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission for the Trump administration, The Post has learned. Richard Farley - a partner at New York white-shoe law firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel who is chairman of its leveraged finance group - has joined the Trump transition team's list of possible replacements for current SEC Chair Gary Gensler, sources said.
/jlne.ws/40NPIJc
Special Report Managing Climate Change; At the UN COP29 climate talks in Baku negotiators gear up to agree a new finance target. Plus: prospects for a carbon market framework; what Trump win means for Biden's green bill; China's cleantech boom; EU faces backlash; loss and damage funding
Financial Times
/jlne.ws/3OnZ6fz
US economy could 'overheat' under Donald Trump, warns bond giant Pimco; CIO Dan Ivascyn says interest rate cuts could be paused and stocks look vulnerable after post-election rally
Harriet Clarfelt - Financial Times
Pimco, one of the world's biggest bond fund managers, has warned that US president-elect Donald Trump's economic plans could lead to the economy "overheating" and could halt interest rate cuts, posing a danger for stocks that shot up in the wake of his presidential election victory. Dan Ivascyn, chief investment officer at Pimco, said US equity markets could suffer a reversal after rising sharply on the Republican candidate's emphatic win. The S&P and Nasdaq Composite indices both surged to fresh record highs this week in anticipation of tax cuts, looser regulation and trade tariffs. But such "reflationary" policies, in a US economy that already has "a lot of momentum", have the potential to feed through into inflation, he warned.
/jlne.ws/3O2P7Ml
FTX sues Binance and former chief Zhao for $1.8bn; Estate of collapsed crypto exchange lawsuit alleging 2021 share deal was 'fraudulent'
Nikou Asgari - Financial Times
Collapsed crypto exchange FTX is suing Binance and its former chief executive Changpeng Zhao for $1.8bn, over an allegedly "fraudulent" share deal. The dispute relates to a July 2021 deal in which Binance, Zhao and other executives sold their roughly 20 per cent stake in FTX back to the company in exchange for crypto tokens valued at $1.76bn.
/jlne.ws/4eoR0h2
FTX Sues Scaramucci to Recoup Money for Creditors
Bill Allison and stacy-marie ishmael - Bloomberg
FTX filed a lawsuit against Anthony Scaramucci and his hedge fund SkyBridge Capital as part of a broader effort to claw back money for creditors of the bankrupt company. The lawsuit against the former White House communications director is one of 23 filed in the bankruptcy court of Delaware on Friday. Defendants also include digital-asset exchange Crypto.com and political groups such as the Mark Zuckerberg-founded FWD.US, according to court documents.
/jlne.ws/40FWGjG
FTX to Binance: Please Pay Us Back $1.8 billion
Angus Berwick - The Wall S
FTX's bankruptcy estate sued Binance to recover almost $1.8 billion that Sam Bankman-Fried spent buying back stakes that his one-time rival owned in his cryptocurrency exchange. FTX sold a 20% stake in the company to Binance in 2019, and Binance executives including founder Changpeng Zhao also bought shares in the holding company for FTX's U.S. exchange platform.
/jlne.ws/4frnOHO
Ackman Says Amsterdam Violence Tipping Point for Delisting; Pershing Square Holdings' trading concentrated in London; Ackman also pushing Universal Music Group to move to US
Sarah Jacob, Cagan Koc, and Pablo Mayo Cerqueiro - Bloomberg
Billionaire Bill Ackman said he's going to seek to remove Pershing Square Holdings Ltd.'s listing from Euronext's exchange in Amsterdam after violence against Israeli football fans in the Netherlands. The closed-end fund's board had already been considering the move because the majority of the trading volume for the firm now occurs on the London Stock Exchange, Ackman wrote in a post on X.
/jlne.ws/40zEjNe
SIX agrees to acquire Aquis Exchange; Landmark deal will elevate Swiss-owned exchange operator's exchange offering throughout Europe.
Jonathan Watkins - The Trade
SIX is set to acquire Aquis Exchange in a major deal which will undoubtedly shake up the European equities landscape. The Swiss exchange group has agreed to acquire the entire issued and to be issued ordinary share capital of Aquis at a price of 727 pence per share, valuing the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Aquis at approximately £207 million (based on treasury stock methodology). The deal implies an enterprise value of approximately £194 million.
/jlne.ws/4hAYmkm
|
| | | |
|
| |
| Ukraine Invasion | | News about the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and its military, economic, political and humanitarian impact | Large group of Russian and North Korean forces prepared to retake Russia's Kursk region from Ukraine
Alex Marquardt, Maria Kostenko and Mitchell McCluskey - CNN
Russia has amassed a large force of tens of thousands - including recently arrived North Korean troops - to carry out an assault on the Ukrainian positions in Russia's Kursk region expected in the coming days, a US official told CNN on Sunday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that about 11,000 North Korean soldiers are in the region, where Ukr
/jlne.ws/3Z16l2U
Ukraine attacks Moscow with 34 drones, biggest strike on the Russian capital
Guy Faulconbridge and Lidia Kelly - Reuters
Ukraine attacked Moscow on Sunday with at least 34 drones, the biggest drone strike on the Russian capital since the start of the war in 2022, forcing flights to be diverted from three of the city's major airports and injuring at least five people. Russian air defences destroyed another 50 drones over other regions of Western Russia on Sunday, the defence ministry said.
/jlne.ws/4hJr1ny
Butter thefts highlight cost of Russia's war economy; Rampant inflation of staple food prices is linked to skyrocketing defence spending
Anastasia Stognei and Max Seddon - Financial Times
Thefts of packs of butter have highlighted the impact of skyrocketing inflation on Russia's war economy. President Vladimir Putin's splurge on arms and ammunition has helped Moscow to maintain an advantage on the battlefield in Ukraine, but it is increasingly coming at the cost of soaring prices for everyday essentials.
/jlne.ws/4hHzvLI
Ukraine Is Scavenging for Power-Plant Parts as Mass Blackouts Loom; Ukraine scrambles to repair electricity production crippled by Russian bombing, seeking parts abroad and at front-line power plant
Isabel Coles and Jenny Strasburg - The Wall Street Journal
For months, workers battled to keep the decades-old power station in Ukraine's front-line city of Kurakhove functioning as advancing Russian forces hammered it with artillery. In the spring, the mission changed. Their new Herculean task: to dismantle the entire facility-with increasing urgency. Its generators, transformers and other vital parts were desperately needed to repair other Ukrainian power stations ravaged by Russian attacks.
/jlne.ws/3CkiyXN
Biden Will Make Case to Trump's Team for Ukraine Aid to Continue; White House national security adviser says US can't walk away; Trump's election victory throws Ukraine policy wide open
Tony Czuczka - Bloomberg
President Joe Biden will argue in favor of continued US aid to Ukraine during the transition to President-elect Donald Trump's administration, according to Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser at the White House.
/jlne.ws/3Z1Ipwk
|
| | | |
|
| |
| Israel/Hamas Conflict | | News about the recent (October, 2023) conflict between Israel and Hamas | How Syria Became the Middle East's Drug Dealer; Bashar al-Assad has propped up his regime by exploiting the Middle East's love of an amphetamine called captagon.
Ed Caesar - The New Yorker
Before Marai al-Ramthan started the job that made him rich and got him killed, he was a sheepherder. A handsome and resourceful man in his thirties, he lived in southern Syria, in the scrubby area near Jordan, and had family on both sides of the border. There is a long tradition of petty smuggling in the region. His surname is derived from Ar-Ramtha, a city on the northern edge of Jordan which grew prosperous through the illicit transit of goods in and out of the country.
/jlne.ws/4fkYB1A
|
| | | |
|
| |
| Exchanges, OTC & Clearing | | Top news from exchanges, clearing, settlement and trade execution facilities | SIX to Expand its European Exchange Capabilities Through Acquisition of Aquis
SIX
The boards of SIX Group AG ("SIX") and Aquis Exchange Plc ("Aquis") today announced that they have reached agreement on the terms of a recommended cash offer to be made by SIX, to acquire the entire issued and to be issued ordinary share capital of Aquis at a price of 727 pence per share.
/jlne.ws/4fJFUV9
SIX could withdraw from EuroCTP consortium following Aquis deal; EuroCTP was first announced in the third quarter of 2023 and is backed by 14 exchanges as its shareholders and would be competing with Aquis and Cboe's own consolidated tape initiative.
Claudia Preece - The Trade
Following the announcement today that SIX is set to acquire Aquis Exchange in a major deal, the exchange group has confirmed that following completion, its plans around the EU's consolidated tape would change. Last week Aquis and Cboe announced that they were teaming up to explore a bid to become the EU's equity consolidated tape. Named SimpliCT, the new venture will be based in the Netherlands and co-owned by Cboe and Aquis as equal shareholders.
/jlne.ws/4eoklbw
MARF registers Ferroglobe's first Commercial Paper Programme
BME-X
The BME's fixed income market, MARF, has admitted to trading Ferrogloble's Commercial Paper Programme for a maximum outstanding amount of 50 million euros. The commercial papers to be issued under the program will have unit denominations of 100,000 euros and maturities ranging of up to 2 years. Under this programme, Ferroglobe will be able to issue Commercial Paper flexibly over 12 months.
/jlne.ws/3ULvlJ2
Tradeweb and Tokyo Stock Exchange unveil plan to expand liquidity in Japanese ETFs; The first transaction on new connectivity has already taken place with Global X Japan having been the first to execute.
Claudia Preece - The Trade
Tradeweb Markets and the Tokyo Stock Exchange (TSE) are set to collaborate to expand liquidity in Japanese exchange traded funds (ETFs) through the launch of a new direct link. Enrico Bruni Specifically, the link will be between Tradeweb and TSE's RFQ platform CONNEQTOR. According to the businesses, this will "allow Tradeweb buy-side clients to include CONNEQTOR liquidity providers when launching a trade enquiry on the Tradeweb Japan-listed ETF marketplace".
/jlne.ws/4eotZe3
Navigating the evolving regulatory landscape: Eurex's strategic vision for the Repo Market
Frank Gast - Eurex
We are facing an evolution in the regulatory landscape that has very clear implications on the repo market. Once the post Covid settling phase is over, what are Eurex's projects for the next 5 years? The repo market is integral to the smooth functioning of the financial system. For this reason, nearly every change to prudential or markets regulation has implications for repo market functioning, which are often adverse in the short-medium term. While the framework for Global Systemically Important Banks and the Leverage Ratio have historically been the most heavily constraining, there are other developments such as: regulatory reporting under SFTR; tightened frameworks for standardized risk-weighted assets and the net stable funding ratio; and the expected move to T+1, which also have profound implications for market structure and functioning.
/jlne.ws/4emQRe1
Euronext announces volumes for October 2024
Euronext
/jlne.ws/40FeHys
NYSE OPTIONS: VOLUME TIER REPORTS AVAILABLE VIA EMAIL
NYSE
Beginning Friday, November 8, 2024, Options Volume Tier reports ("Tier Reports") for NYSE American Options and NYSE Arca Options will be made available via email. To subscribe to receive the email version, please contact customeroutput@nyse.com and provide a firm group distribution email; individual emails cannot subscribe to the emailed tier report. Tier Reports provide month-to-date firm volumes, individual tier thresholds, as well as tiered and base rates, as per each market's fee schedule. Tier Reports will also continue to be available via Managed File Transfer ("MFT") in addition to email.
(NO LINK)
How Risk Assessment Frameworks Can Be Used to Prioritize and Manage Systemic Risks
Michael Leibrock - OCC
I've held a number of enterprise risk management positions at financial institutions during my 30-plus-year career, primarily in the areas of counterparty credit and systemic risk management. All roles required the risk teams under my responsibility to identify, assess, and mitigate credit and other forms of risks to my organizations, as well as to the broader financial system. One of the most important topics I've faced throughout my career is the real-world relevance of the risk assessment framework covered in the Traditional ERM Practices course I'm teaching this semester in the Enterprise Risk Management program at Columbia's School of Professional Studies (SPS).
/jlne.ws/4eDrhBT
|
| | | |
|
| |
| Fintech | | A roundup of today's market tech news and a look at tomorrow's disruptors | Tiger-backed French fintech Qonto seeks EUR5bn valuation in share sale
Ivan Levingston and Akila Quinio - Financial Times
French fintech Qonto is talking to investors about a sale of existing shares that could value it at EUR5bn, the latest of such deals as companies seek to reward employees and early backers in the face of a weak market for listings. The neobank has been exploring selling at least EUR200mn in stock held by employees and early investors and has held discussions with several funds, according to people familiar with the matter.
/jlne.ws/4fJnWlI
Andreessen Horowitz Leads $50 Million Funding for AI Startup 11x
Paayal Zaveri and Edward Ludlow - Bloomberg
Artificial intelligence-powered sales startup 11x has raised $50 million in a new funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, the company plans to announce Monday, the latest significant financing for a young AI company. The deal, which also included Hubspot Ventures, values the startup at $320 million. It closely follows another financing led by Benchmark, announced in September, that brought in $24 million for 11x. The company's total funding is now $76 million.
/jlne.ws/40EdWFN
AI groups rush to redesign model testing and create new benchmarks; Rapidly advancing technology is surpassing current methods of evaluating and comparing large language models
Cristina Criddle - Financial Times
Tech groups are rushing to redesign how they test and evaluate their artificial intelligence models, as the fast advancing technology surpasses current benchmarks. OpenAI, Microsoft, Meta and Anthropic have all recently announced plans to build AI agents that can execute tasks for humans autonomously on their behalf. To do this effectively, the systems must be able to perform increasingly complex actions, using reasoning and planning. Companies conduct "evaluations" of AI models by teams of staff and outside researchers. These are standardised tests, known as benchmarks, that assess models' abilities and the performance of different groups' systems or older versions.
/jlne.ws/4flE110
Icy attitudes on internal GenAI usage are thawing-and just in time; Waters Wrap: More and more banks and asset managers are publicly talking about how they are experimenting with ge
Anthony Malakian - Waters Technology
"The discussion in public has been pretty much AI being the job-killer number one-it's definitely not. It's rather leading to a new pattern, where you actually need more skilled people because they not only have to understand their current and existing models the classical way, but they also need to understand what the AI does with them. And only that combined knowledge actually allows them to judge whether the output is correct or not." These are the words of Wolfgang Koehler, chief risk and
/jlne.ws/4hCMbDL
OpenAI and rivals are looking to develop smarter AI that could change a market dominated by Nvidia
Reuters
Artificial intelligence companies like OpenAI are seeking to overcome unexpected delays and challenges in the pursuit of ever-bigger large language models by developing training techniques that use more human-like ways for algorithms to "think". A dozen AI scientists, researchers and investors told Reuters they believe that these techniques, which are behind OpenAI's recently released o1 model, could reshape the AI arms race, and have implications for the types of resources that AI companies have an insatiable demand for, from energy to types of chips - a field dominated by Nvidia.
/jlne.ws/40I4fGG
AI Takeoff Turns Data Centers Into America's New Building Boom
Ben Holland - Bloomberg
US companies are plowing money into building data centers as they race to get ahead in artificial intelligence. Private construction spending on data centers has surged close to $30 billion a year, according to the most recent numbers from the Census Bureau, more than double what it was in late 2022 when OpenAI's ChatGPT was released to the public.
/jlne.ws/3Z1AvTV
Trump presidency likely won't be a problem for Nvidia's stock
Brian Sozzi - Yahoo Finance
/jlne.ws/3O4f5zc
Inside the murky new AI chip economy; The growth of loans secured by Nvidia's GPUs is a note for caution
The Editorial Board - Financial Times
/jlne.ws/4emNFix
The US has ordered TSMC to halt shipments to advanced AI chips to China from Monday: Source
Karen Freifeld and Fanny Potkin - Reuters
/jlne.ws/48JCHlX
|
| | | |
|
| |
| Cybersecurity | | Top stories for cybersecurity | American Gas Association Commends TSA for Publication of Rule to Enhance Cyber Risk Management
American Gas Association
The American Gas Association (AGA) commends the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) for the publication of the new Enhancing Surface Cyber Risk Management Notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM), which proposes enhanced cyber risk management (CRM) requirements on certain pipeline and rail owner/operators. "Our industry has spent more than two decades collaborating closely with TSA on efforts to advance the security of natural gas utilities," said AGA VP, Security and Operations Kimberly Denbow. "We take all potential threats to the safe and reliable delivery of natural gas seriously and have made mitigating cyber risks a high priority for our industry."
|
| | | |
|
| |
| Cryptocurrencies | | Top stories for cryptocurrencies | Crypto Buying Spree Puts Bitcoin on Cusp of 100% Rally This Year
Lynn Thomasson - Bloomberg
Crypto fever: A crypto buying spree is underway as traders bet that Trump will usher in a new era of digital asset investing. Bitcoin jumped as much as 6.1% on Sunday and extended gains to hit an unprecedented $82,387.53 on Monday. Smaller tokens rallied even more. Shiba Inu-themed digital token Dogecoin, a meme-crowd darling promoted by Elon Musk, has soared 40% since Friday.
/jlne.ws/3YMixmG
Binance boss hails crypto 'golden age' as Trump win fires up industry; Executives expects radical shift in regulatory approach in Washington after Democrat defeat
Nikou Asgari in London, Owen Walker in Singapore and Will Schmitt in New York - Financial Times
Binance's chief executive has hailed Donald Trump's US presidential win as the start of a "golden era", as the crypto industry's confidence soars that the election result marks a turning point in its acceptance in America. Trump's success marked a "big win for crypto" that would result in an influx of new US regulators open to digital currencies, Richard Teng told the Financial Times.
/jlne.ws/40Cvjab
Dogecoin Outperforms Bitcoin as Trump Spurs Crypto Speculation; Crypto trading surges on optimism for a golden era under Trump; Shiba Inu-themed meme-coins are among those posting big gains
Ryan Weeks and Suvashree Ghosh - Bloomberg
A bevy of smaller cryptocurrencies outperformed market-leader Bitcoin in recent days as enthusiasm about the sector's prospects under President-elect Donald Trump encouraged a wave of speculative bets. Among the leaders are Shiba Inu-themed digital token Dogecoin, a meme-crowd darling promoted by Trump supporter Elon Musk. Also known as Doge, the coin is up about 50% in the past five days, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
/jlne.ws/3O37AID
Crypto 'Mixer' Gets 12 1/2 Years for Money Laundering
Sabrina Willmer - Bloomberg
The founder of a cryptocurrency mixing service known as Bitcoin Fog was ordered to serve 12 1/2 years in prison for laundering tens of millions of dollars from darknet markets that sold illegal drugs. Roman Sterlingov, 36, was sentenced to 150 months Friday in Washington federal court by US District Judge Randolph Moss, who also ordered him to forfeit $395 million and his interest in a Bitcoin Fog wallet with Bitcoin valued at more than $103 million. Sterlingov, a Russian-Swedish national, was convicted by a jury in March on charges tied to operating what prosecutors said was one of the "largest and longest-running money laundering services."
/jlne.ws/4fHE7zW
MicroStrategy buys $2.03 billion of bitcoin in latest purchase
Dave Liedtka - Bloomberg
MicroStrategy Inc. (MSTR) purchased about 27,200 Bitcoin (BTC-USD) for around $2.03 billion, in one of the largest acquisitions of the digital asset by the crypto hedge-fund proxy. The enterprise software maker, whose corporate strategy includes buying the cryptocurrency, bought the tokens between Oct. 31 and Nov. 10, according to a statement on Monday. The purchases were made using proceeds from the issuance and sale of stock.
/jlne.ws/3Cgb1ZN
|
| | | |
|
| |
| Politics | | An overview of politics as it relates to the financial markets | A Wall Street giddy over Trump should remember history; Bankers are cheering the prospects for a lighter regulatory touch, but guardrails do benefit their industry
Brooke Masters - Financial Times (opinion)
It's been a giddy week on Wall Street. Donald Trump's thumping victory in the US presidential race has bankers and private equity titans dreaming that he will loosen the regulatory reins while driving up demand for dealmaking and financing of many sorts. More immediately, the results have all but doomed the Biden administration's efforts to impose higher bank capital requirements as well as looming new rules on everything from climate disclosure to outsourcing. You can almost hear "ding-dong the witch is dead" playing in the background as executives enthuse about saying goodbye to Gary Gensler as chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Michael Barr as head of supervision at the Federal Reserve.
/jlne.ws/4fEerUI
Putin signs into law mutual defence treaty with North Korea
Reuters
Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a treaty on the country's strategic partnership with North Korea which includes a mutual defence provision, according to a decree published on Saturday. The accord, signed by Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in June after a summit in Pyongyang, calls on each side to come to the other's aid in case of an armed attack.
/jlne.ws/3Z3KBm3
Trump Expected to Narrow Treasury Chief Options by Week's End; President-elect is eyeing a Wall Street veteran for Treasury; Trump to meet with Biden at the White House on Wednesday
Nancy Cook, Jenny Leonard, and Saleha Mohsin - Bloomberg
Donald Trump intends to narrow the shortlist of candidates for treasury secretary this week and is leaning toward someone with a Wall Street pedigree for the job, according to people familiar with his plans. Names that have been floated for the Treasury role include Howard Lutnick, chief executive officer of Cantor Fitzgerald LP, hedge-fund billionaire John Paulson, former George Soros money manager Scott Bessent and Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, a former Carlyle Group Inc. executive.
/jlne.ws/40MDsch
Mistrust between Russia and the west will outlast the Trump era
Alexander Gabuev - Financial Times (opinion)
The writer is director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin.
"What was said about the desire to restore relations with Russia, to bring about the end of the Ukrainian crisis, in my opinion this deserves attention at least," Russian President Vladimir Putin stated after Donald Trump won the US election. The Kremlin expects that Trump's presidency will be a gift that keeps on giving - both in Ukraine and beyond.
/jlne.ws/48OBKsD
Australia Faces Economic Pain From Trump Win, Treasurer Warns
Ben Westcott - Bloomberg
Australia faces the threat of short-term economic pain in the form of reduced output and further inflation pressures as a result of incoming US President Donald Trump's policy agenda, according to Treasurer Jim Chalmers. Revealing the findings of Treasury modeling undertaken in anticipation of a Trump win, Chalmers said while there would be a "small reduction in our output and additional price pressures," the features of Australia's economy would leave it better off compared to other nations.
/jlne.ws/3UO7CI3
|
| | | |
|
| |
| Regulation & Enforcement | | Stories about regulation and the law. | Invesco Advisers' ESG Claims Draw $17.5 Million SEC Fine; SEC alleges firm misled clients on assets integrating ESG; Firm settles case and says it cooperated with agency's probe
Nicola M. White - Bloomberg
Invesco Advisers Inc. will pay a $17.5 million fine to settle US Securities and Exchange Commission allegations that it misled clients about the share of company-wide assets under management that integrated environmental, social and governance factors into investment decisions. From 2020 to 2022, the firm told clients that between 70% and 94% of parent company Invesco Ltd.'s AUM were "ESG integrated," the agency said in a news release Friday. In a 2020 presentation to a large wealth management firm, Invesco Advisers touted "Our Commitment to ESG" and called itself a "Trusted Partner in Responsible Investment," according to the SEC's order.
/jlne.ws/3CuWBVI
Farley, Champ Among Candidates to Succeed Gensler as SEC Chair; Dan Gallagher, Mark Uyeda, Heath Tarbert also among contenders; Trump advisers began talks with candidates after election win
Lydia Beyoud, Gillian Tan, and Todd Gillespie - Bloomberg
Richard Farley, a partner at Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, and Kirkland & Ellis partner Norm Champ are among contenders to replace Gary Gensler as chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Robinhood Markets Inc. legal chief Dan Gallagher, current SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda and Heath Tarbert, a former chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, are also among those being considered for the job, said other people with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information isn't public.
/jlne.ws/3YGjqx9
SEC Charges Invesco Advisers for Making Misleading Statements About Supposed Investment Considerations
SEC
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Invesco Advisers, Inc. for making misleading statements about the percentage of company-wide assets under management that integrated environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors in investment decisions. The Atlanta-based registered investment adviser agreed to pay a $17.5 million civil penalty to settle the SEC's charges. According to the SEC's order, from 2020 to 2022, Invesco told clients and stated in marketing materials that between 70 and 94 percent of its parent company's assets under management were "ESG integrated." However, in reality, these percentages included a substantial amount of assets that were held in passive ETFs that did not consider ESG factors in investment decisions. Furthermore, the SEC's order found that Invesco lacked any written policy defining ESG integration.
/jlne.ws/3YYrcEa
Former investment manager Brett Trevillian sentenced to 3 years imprisonment for forging reports for investors
ASIC
Metal Alpha Pty Ltd director Brett Paul Trevillian has been sentenced to three years imprisonment for forging reports about the performance of his trading strategy 'The Gold Method', when he was the investment manager of AlphaThorn Pty Ltd. Mr Trevillian was sentenced in the Sydney District Court on 8 November 2024, after pleading guilty to two counts of making a false document to obtain a financial advantage under s253 of the Crimes Act (NSW).
/jlne.ws/3ChqiJS
Director fined £1.1m and banned for misusing funds due to insurers
FCA
The FCA has banned Leigh Mackey from working in financial services and fined him £1,102,879 for misleading the FCA and misusing funds due to insurers. Between 12 September 2011 and 8 December 2019, Mr Mackey had sole management control of Inspire Insurance Services Ltd (Inspire), an insurance broker for the construction sector. Mr Mackey used funds due to insurers to support Inspire's operating costs and to pay for personal living expenses instead of paying insurers.
/jlne.ws/4fmxFOL
The second meeting of the Expert Panel on the Stewardship Code (2024)
FSA
/jlne.ws/4hJVstO
Stewardship Code : 330 institutional investors have signed up to the Principles for Responsible Institutional Investors as of September 30, 2024
FSA
The Council of Experts Concerning the Japanese Version of the Stewardship Code published the Principles for Institutional Investors (Japan's Stewardship Code, hereinafter referred to as "the Code") on February 26, 2014. The Council of Experts on the Stewardship Code revised the Code on May 29, 2017(Finalization of the Japan's Stewardship Code (Revised version)(May 29, 2017)). Also, the Council of Experts on the Stewardship Code (FY2019) revised the Code on March 24, 2020 (Finalization of the Japan's Stewardship Code (Second revised version) (March 24, 2020)).
/jlne.ws/3rGARNw
MAS Announces Green Finance and Capital Markets Initiatives to Strengthen Financial Cooperation with China
MAS
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) today announced new green finance and capital markets initiatives to strengthen financial cooperation with China. The initiatives were announced at the 20th Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC) meeting in Singapore, which was co-chaired by Singapore Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Gan Kim Yong, and People's Republic of China Vice Premier of the State Council, Mr Ding Xuexiang.
/jlne.ws/3YHNlVU
|
| | | |
|
| |
| Investing & Trading | | Today's top stories from equities, indices and FICC (fixed income, currencies and commodities) | Trump's presidency carries plenty of market risk, experts warn
Seana Smith - Yahoo Finance
Stocks notched their best week of the year as investors cheered President-elect Donald Trump's economic agenda. "Tax cuts are behind the rally ... and in general, there is the perception that markets like Republican administrations, although certainly the performance for the past few years of the Democratic administration has not exactly been shabby," Interactive Brokers' Steve Sosnick explained to me on Yahoo Finance's special election coverage.
/jlne.ws/3CvZghW
Ivy League endowments struggle with private market downturn; Some universities have issued bonds to meet funding needs as a dealmaking dearth weighs on investment returns
Sun Yu - Financial Times
The drawn-out downturn in private market returns is hitting one group of investors especially hard: Ivy League university endowments. Leading US university endowments, many of which allocate outsized portions of their portfolios to private equity and venture capital, have underperformed the university average for the second year in a row, with prominent ones like Yale and Princeton lagging far behind their smaller peers, as the once lucrative asset class suffers from a plunge in dealmaking and stock listings.
/jlne.ws/3Cw2xxI
Barrick Falls Behind Rivals as No. 2 Miner Misses Boost From Bullion Boom
Jacob Lorinc - Bloomberg
Most of the world's top gold miners have seen their shares surge this year as bullion prices hit repeated record highs. Not Barrick Gold Corp. Missed production targets, higher operational costs and political turbulence at mines in Africa and Asia have investors turning increasingly sour on the world's second-biggest gold producer. On Thursday, Barrick posted gold output that missed analysts' estimates for the 11th straight quarter.
/jlne.ws/4hKkHfi
Wall Street Bets on New Riches Ahead in Markets All-In on Trump; Small caps, crypto and risky credit win amid buying spree; Prospects for tax cuts and deregulation lift sentiment
Denitsa Tsekova and Isabelle Lee - Bloomberg
All year, a slew of Wall Street pros have questioned the durability of an indiscriminate risk rally that has fattened stock prices by trillions of dollars, sent Bitcoin soaring, fueled a credit bonanza, and more. All year, besides a short-lived market wobble in the summer, they've been dead wrong. Now with Donald Trump storming back to the presidency and assets surging in his wake, an altogether different anxiety has set in: That investors aren't bullish enough.
/jlne.ws/3ChGc70
Post-Election Volatility Crush Has Options Traders Chasing Rally; 'Volatility of volatility' had third-fastest drop since 2006; Markers of volatility across assets decline after vote
Jan-Patrick Barnert - Bloomberg
The forecasts for a drop in stock-market volatility after the US presidential vote have come about even faster than expected, with options traders now positioning for an extended rally. The post-election outcome is crystal clear and in strong favor of risk taking, with the only real surprise being the speed of the resolution, which spared days and possibly weeks of uncertainty. With hedging demand shrinking at nearly the fastest pace since the financial crisis and rally-chasing in full swing, volatility has nowhere to go but down.
/jlne.ws/3Z4jGqf
High AT1 Bond Demand Allows Banks to Push for More Favorable Clauses
Tasos Vossos - Bloomberg
High demand for Additional Tier 1 bonds is allowing banks to add in clauses that give them more flexibility over when and how they redeem the risky debt. So-called clean-up call options have been included on more than 40% of European AT1 bonds this year, based on data compiled by Bloomberg. The clause means lenders can sweep up bonds still outstanding after a buyback, whether holders want to redeem or not. That was practically non-existent two years ago. Banks had already been favoring longer six-month call windows to have a better chance of issuing new debt at a good time.
/jlne.ws/40GQ7xl
|
| | | |
|
| |
| Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance | | Stories about environmental, social and governance investing | Transition to clean energy falters as green tech funding falls short; Businesses that develop technology to lower emissions are grappling with higher borrowing costs that have stifled growth
Simon Mundy - Financial Times
At first sight, the outcome of last December's COP28 summit promised to give a major boost to the world's clean energy companies and their investors. Negotiators from nearly 200 countries agreed to pursue a tripling of global renewable power capacity by 2030 and to double the rate of efficiency improvement. Meeting these targets would mean a surge in growth for the companies developing, and deploying, technology to lower global energy emissions.
/jlne.ws/4eojrMi
Battle lines drawn on climate finance ahead of COP29; Countries meeting in Baku are due to agree a new funding target to tackle the effects of global warming
Attracta Mooney - Financial Times
Ministers and negotiators are gearing up for the toughest climate talks in almost a decade as representatives from nearly 200 countries meet in Baku this week, charged with agreeing a new finance target for tackling climate change. Countries at the UN COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan are due to replace a goal initially agreed in 2009. Back then, developed nations pledged to provide $100bn annually in climate financing for developing countries by 2020, a target they met two years late, according to the OECD.
/jlne.ws/3UMBxAF
Trump's Return Hangs Over U.N. Climate Negotiations; The election of Donald J. Trump is sapping momentum from global climate talks as diplomats brace for his pro-fossil-fuel agenda.
Lisa Friedman - The New York Times
Want to stay updated on what's happening in Azerbaijan? Sign up for Your Places: Global Update, and we'll send our latest coverage to your inbox. World leaders gathering in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, on Monday for a global climate summit face a bleak reality: The United States, the country responsible for pumping the most greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, is expected to soon drop out of the fight against climate change. The climate talks are the first significant United Nations gathering since Donald J. Trump won last week's American presidential election, and foreign diplomats are looking for any signals about how Mr. Trump might approach multilateral negotiations. After his victory, American priorities are expected to quickly shift.
/jlne.ws/3CwGh6R
Trump Will Bury ESG, But It Was Already Dead
John Authers - Bloomberg Opinion
Ever So Gone: As was obvious even before voters went to the polls, ESG was already a decisive loser in the US. The concept of Environmental, Social and Governance investing became hopelessly entangled with the culture war agenda, failed to deliver on its promises, and went into retreat. Rather than attempt a technocratic, clean, green way of changing capitalism, America has opted for something more nationalist, even mercantilist.
/jlne.ws/4fjPzlf
Why Is a Petrostate Holding This Year's Climate Talks?; The economy of Azerbaijan, host of COP29, relies almost entirely on the fossil fuels that are the main driver of global warming.
Max Bearak - The New York Times
Heading into this month's United Nations-sponsored climate negotiations, the world is contending with rising climate chaos and declining democracy. It won't be lost on any of the attendees in Baku, the Azerbaijani capital, that the talks are being hosted by an autocratic government whose economy relies almost entirely on the fossil fuels that are the primary driver of climate change. How could such a country become the hosts?
/jlne.ws/3CmvOuV
Why Energy Efficiency Might Not Reduce Carbon Emissions as Much as People Think; Too many climate strategies fail to take into account that industry often reacts to energy efficiency by increasing consumption, this expert says
Carey King - The Wall Street Journal
Many governments see energy efficiency as a key decarbonization strategy. In fact, some scenarios assume efficiency can drive approximately 40% of emissions reductions under the Paris climate accord. For policymakers, the assumption is straightforward: Improving efficiency will lower energy consumption, which in turn reduces greenhouse-gas emissions. And many prominent organizations support this assumption.
/jlne.ws/3AKbHWT
EPA staff fear Trump will destroy how it protects Americans from pollution; Workers face being targets in what could be Environmental Protection Agency's biggest upheaval since its founding
Oliver Milman and Tom Perkins - The Guardian
After several years of recovery after the tumult of Donald Trump's last administration, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is now bracing itself for even deeper cuts to staff numbers and to work protecting Americans from pollution and the climate crisis as Trump prepares to return to the White House. When he was last president, Trump gutted more than 100 environmental rules and vowed to only leave a "little bit of the EPA" left "because you can't destroy business", prompting hundreds of agency staff to leave amid a firestorm of political interference and retaliation against civil servants. An even greater exodus is expected this time, with staff fearing they are frontline targets in what could be the biggest upheaval in the agency's 50-year history.
/jlne.ws/3O2SLG1
Trump Win Upends the Fight for Climate Cash at COP29; Nearly 200 nations meeting at an annual United Nations summit this week must now consider how to avoid catastrophic climate change without help from the world's biggest economy.
John Ainger - Bloomberg
This year's United Nations' climate talks were never going to be easy. The world is in the midst of two major wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. COP29, as the summit is known, is being held in Azerbaijan, a petrostate with little to show in the way of climate negotiations over the last 30 years of talks. The overriding objective is an issue that no one enjoys talking about - money - at a time when the rich world is grappling with inflation, constrained budgets and rising populism.
/jlne.ws/3O0QY4r
Hedge funds pile into banks, dump green energy post US election, Goldman Sachs says
Nell Mackenzie - Reuters
/jlne.ws/3YHPaCe
Trump worries and leader absences cloud COP29 climate summit in Baku
Valerie Volcovici and Nailia Bagirova - Reuters
/jlne.ws/3UORjuO
Trump's Plan to Unleash Oil Will Hit a Cash Problem; Fossil-fuel executives backed the Republican's campaign but don't necessarily share his views on production growth.
Kevin Crowley - Bloomberg
/jlne.ws/4fxYkYO
Britain's wind power falls to virtually zero as Miliband prepares to cut reliance on gas
Jonathan Leake - The Telegraph
/jlne.ws/3CxLjjx
Trump Is Likely to Exempt Canadian Energy From Tariffs, Wilbur Ross Says
Curtis Heinzl - Bloomberg
/jlne.ws/40C3HC0
|
| | | |
|
| |
| Banks, Brokers & Managed Funds | | The latest from banks, brokers, hedge funds and managed futures | Citadel Securities India Full-Year Profit Jumps as Market Booms; Firm posted trading revenue of $344 million in fiscal 2024; High-speed trading firm's India operations began June 2022
Chiranjivi Chakraborty - Bloomberg
Citadel Securities' India unit saw a jump in trading revenue and profit in its first full year of operations, highlighting the strong growth that has lured global trading firms to the country's $4.6 trillion stock market. Citadel Securities India Markets Pvt. reported total revenue of 29 billion rupees ($344 million) for the 12-month period ended March, according to a filing last month with the ministry of corporate affairs. Net income stood at 14.68 billion rupees.
/jlne.ws/40GPxQ1
JPMorgan Braces for 'Impactful' First Two Years of Trump
Fiona MacDonald - Bloomberg
The first two years under Donald Trump's second term could be "quite impactful" if policy changes are made on tax, deregulation and crypto, according to Stefan Gratzer, managing director at J.P. Morgan Private Bank. "One really differentiating thing Trump had in his policy was about crypto, so let's see how this plays out," Gratzer, who is head of institutional wealth management for Switzerland at J. P. Morgan, told a conference in Kuwait on Sunday. "This could be completely new, and nobody knows what this is going to mean. There's a lot of talk about deregulation that is obviously beneficial for banks like us at the moment but again, we need to see."
/jlne.ws/3YYVUNf
Spanish central banker set to inherit big challenges as next BIS head; Pablo Hernandez de Cos to take over amid fears Donald Trump will derail progress on setting capital standards for world's biggest lenders
Martin Arnold - Financial Times
The world's top central bankers are this weekend expected to approve the appointment of Pablo Hernandez de Cos, the former head of the Bank of Spain, as the next general manager of the Bank for International Settlements. The move comes at a delicate time for the BIS, which is a forum for the world's central banks and helps to manage their foreign exchange reserves, after Donald Trump's election as US president threatened to shatter the already fraying global consensus on financial rulemaking.
/jlne.ws/4enZXY8
ABN Amro Puts EUR3 Billion of Infrastructure Loans Up for Sale; Morgan Stanley is said to be arranging the sale process; Sale comes at same time as Dutch state is reducing ABN stake
Esteban Duarte and Cagan Koc - Bloomberg
ABN Amro Bank NV is offloading a portfolio of about EUR3 billion ($3.2 billion) of infrastructure loans, according to people familiar with the matter. The Dutch lender is targeting potential buyers including private credit funds, said the people, asking not to be identified because the transaction is private. Morgan Stanley is arranging the sale process for ABN, some of the people said.
/jlne.ws/40BuqP7
Can You Ever Actually De-Risk The Banking System? Does shadow bank risk always make its way back?
Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal - Bloomberg (podcast)
Over the last roughly 15 years, we've seen a migration of certain types of risks outside of regulated deposit-taking banks. Private credit has boomed, shifting lending activity away from the banks. Multi-strategy hedge funds have scooped up a lot of the proprietary trading activity that was banned under the Volcker Rule. On paper, this looks good. It seems like various risks have been removed to less systemic institutions. But does the risk find its way back in? What happens when these outside entities still rely on banks for leverage? On this episode of the podcast, we speak with Steven Kelly, the Associate Director of Research at the Yale Program on Financial Stability. We talk about where risks might lie and how regulators can stay atop of them.
/jlne.ws/3O1zF2T
Asset managers face growing scrutiny over sustainability claims; Many funds have changed their labelling as rules are tightened to prevent greenwashing
Chris Newlands - Financial Times
Asset managers have not always crowned themselves in glory when it comes to sustainable investing. At best, they have been accused by environmental campaigners of an indifference towards using their influence as investors to save the planet. And, at worst, they have been called out for falsely marketing their funds as 'green' to tap into the burgeoning demand for sustainable investing when, in truth, many of those products were stuffed full of companies that pollute.
/jlne.ws/3YHrNso
Bain Is Said to Near Deal to Acquire Blackstone's Avery Lodge; Investment funds finalizing details of potential transaction; Deal could value the Singapore company at up to S$780 million
Elffie Chew, Low De Wei, and Manuel Baigorri - Bloomberg
/jlne.ws/40zs4jM
BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF Surpasses Gold Fund After Record Inflow
Sidhartha Shukla - Bloomberg
/jlne.ws/4hzmjbM
Japanese Funds Embrace German Bonds While Shunning French Debt
Masaki Kondo - Bloomberg
/jlne.ws/3UNQoKV
Point72 Japan Head Bartlett to Step Down, Firm Seeks Successor
Lisa Du - Bloomberg
/jlne.ws/4fia95y
'Deadbeat' Hedge fund boss Jason Ader, who's being sued by his own mom, has been living it up in Miami - while clients demand cash back
James Franey - NY Post
/jlne.ws/3YFinxH
|
| | | |
|
| |
| Work & Management | | Stories impacting work and more about management ideas, practices and trends. | BofA Compels US Staff to Take Workplace Disputes to Arbitration; The No. 2 US bank follows the lead of its Wall Street peers; Tactic has been criticized for keeping misconduct under wraps
Katherine Doherty - Bloomberg
Bank of America Corp. will require its US employees to take nearly all their legal disputes to private arbitration, joining its Wall Street peers that have sought to resolve workplace conflicts outside the public eye. The second-largest US bank started informing workers of the change on Friday, according to a person familiar with the matter. The new policy goes into full effect within a month, the person said, asking not to be identified discussing a private matter.
/jlne.ws/3YEHBMG
Surviving a shake-up: is restructuring ever good for staff? As companies from Amazon to Citi overhaul management, experts warn of consequences beyond job cuts
Andrew Hill - Financial Times
In a September memo to staff, Amazon's chief executive Andy Jassy laid out a list of symptoms of an over-bureaucratic company that will feel familiar to anyone working for a big business. He described hindrances such as "pre-meetings for the pre-meetings for the decision meetings" and "a longer line of managers" needing to review decisions. He also suggested some familiar solutions: restructuring, delayering of management and flattening of hierarchy.
/jlne.ws/40KD7qj
|
| | | |
|
| |
| Wellness Exchange | | An Exchange of Health and Wellness Information | 'Walking Pneumonia' Is Surging Ahead of Cold and Flu Season; Children are experiencing the largest rise in mild respiratory infection characterized by a lingering cough
Sumathi Reddy - The Wall Street Journal
If you've had a lingering cough recently, there is a chance the culprit wasn't Covid-19, flu or RSV, but mycoplasma pneumoniae. Levels of this milder lung infection-which can lead to "walking pneumonia"-are 10 times greater than last year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Though the CDC doesn't officially track the disease, it issued an alert last month noting the rise in cases. Levels of walking pneumonia, so named because patients often feel well enough to go about their normal daily activities, typically peak every three to seven years.
/jlne.ws/4hLzQxd
How a Winning Bet on Crypto Could Transform Brain and Longevity Science; James Fickel has dedicated $200 million he made betting on Ether to becoming one of the world's biggest investors in those fields.
Ashlee Vance - Bloomberg
In early April, James Fickel boarded a train from Boston to New Haven, Connecticut, to check on some brains. The brains in question had once been inside pig skulls but now were located in a series of vats inside a building at the edge of Yale University's campus, connected to an intertwining mass of tubes and a handful of machines feeding them a nutrient-rich fluid. Researchers have long dreamed of studying brains that remain largely functional outside their bodies, and this setup made those visions real.
/jlne.ws/4fiFCVt
How Tech Created a 'Recipe for Loneliness'; Technology and loneliness are interlinked, researchers have found, stoked by the ways we interact with social media, text messaging and binge-watching.
Brian X. Chen - The New York Times
Over the summer, Laura Marciano, a researcher at Harvard, interviewed 500 teenagers for a continuing study investigating the link between technology and loneliness. The results were striking. For several weeks, the teenagers, who were recruited with the help of Instagram influencers, answered a questionnaire three times a day about their social interactions. Each time, more than 50 percent said they had not spoken to anyone in the last hour, either in person or online. To put it another way, even though the teenagers were on break from school and spending plenty of time on social media apps, most of them were not socializing at all.
/jlne.ws/4hK7T92
|
| | | |
|
| |
| Regions | | Stories of local interest from the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions | China Price Growth Stays Near Zero as Deflation Persists
Bloomberg
China's consumer inflation was anemic in October while factory-gate prices continued falling, suggesting the government's latest round of stimulus is far from sufficient to free the economy from the grip of deflation. The consumer price index rose 0.3% from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said Saturday, compared with a 0.4% gain in the previous month. The median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg was for the reading to stay unchanged from September.
/jlne.ws/3YLiaZX
Foreign Firms Pull More Money From China's Slowing Economy
Bloomberg
Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China's direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped $8.1 billion in the third quarter, according to data from the State Administration of Foreign Exchange released late Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment in China, was down almost $13 billion for the first nine months of the year.
/jlne.ws/4fm2Mu3
Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund buys stake in US software group Qlik; Deal with Thoma Bravo shows growing role of Middle Eastern investors
Antoine Gara - Financial Times
Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund is buying a large stake in data analytics software company Qlik at a valuation of about $10bn, as appetite grows among Middle Eastern investors for businesses owned by the world's biggest buyout groups. The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (Adia) will invest about $1bn into Qlik as part of a deal that will see its private equity owner Thoma Bravo sell on the US-based software group among its other funds, according to three people briefed on the matter. Adia's investment will be announced later on Monday.
/jlne.ws/4hJrR3x
Australian gold miner's shares plunge after chief executive detained in Mali; Resolute Mining says Terence Holohan and other executives were in Bamako to discuss claims made against company
William Sandlund, Leslie Hook and Aanu Adeoye - Financial Times
Shares of gold producer Resolute Mining plunged more than 30 per cent on Monday after the company said its chief executive Terence Holohan and two other employees had been detained in Mali. The executives were in the capital Bamako to discuss with officials "open claims made against Resolute" that the group "maintains are unsubstantiated", said Resolute, which is listed in Sydney and London.
/jlne.ws/3YG9lQZ
Bolivia Eases Rules on Gold Holdings as Liquidity Crunch Bites; Change potentially allows short-term gold sale to import fuel; Next calculation date for gold reserves is in May 2025
Sergio Mendoza - Bloomberg
Bolivia's central bank is easing its rules on national gold reserves, potentially allowing it to access more liquidity to pay for imports and address a crippling fuel shortage. The resolution, issued by the board this week, allows the bank to report its gold holdings twice a year: on Nov. 5 and May 5. By law, the institution must keep at least 22 tons of the metal, but the change could potentially allow it to drop below this level between the reporting dates.
/jlne.ws/48Pd2bO
Brazil Retail Investors Pay the Price of a Farm Credit Slump
Dayanne Sousa, Clarice Couto, and Isis Almeida - Bloomberg
A boom in Brazil's agriculture sector sparked a rush of investments, with the $7 billion market for agribusiness funds luring people from all walks of life in the past three years. But with bumper crops across the globe sending prices plunging and Brazilian farmers filing for bankruptcy at alarming rates, the retail investor is paying the price.
/jlne.ws/3Chylq4
|
| | | |
|
| |
| Miscellaneous | | Stories that don't quite fit under the other sections | Why American Cars Are So Expensive
CNBC (Video via YouTube)
Cars once promised independence and transportation for all Americans. Now, they are a luxury product that cost about $50,000, nearly 30% higher than just a few years ago. Affordable vehicles, especially those below the price of $20,000, have nearly disappeared. And while Automakers pulled in record profits in 2023, slim margins combined with deep investments into EV batteries, software and other technology is making it hard to produce cars much cheaper. Chinese automakers can, but they're impeded by tariffs and rules. Insiders say that is just a bandage - automakers need to compete.
/jlne.ws/3YM8BJU
|
| | | |
|
| |
Disclaimer: All John Lothian Newsletters, JohnLothianNews.com, MarketsWiki.com and MarketsReformWiki.com are products of John Lothian News, a division of John J. Lothian & Company, Inc. The opinions expressed in all John J. Lothian & Company, Inc. publications are strictly those of their respective editors. They are intended solely for informative purposes and are not to be construed, under any circumstances, by implication or otherwise, as an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy or trade in any commodities or securities herein named. Information is obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but is in no way guaranteed. No guarantee of any kind is implied or possible where projections of future conditions are attempted. Security futures are not suitable for all customers. Futures and options trading involve risk. Past results are no indication of future performance. Nothing on any John J. Lothian & Company site should be considered an endorsement by any sponsor of any website or newsletter content.
© 2024 John J. Lothian & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
|
|
