| October 31, 2024 | "Irreverent, but never irrelevant" | | |  | John Lothian
Publisher
John Lothian News | |
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Hits & Takes
John Lothian & JLN Staff
Yesterday JLN published a video interview we shot for The Path to Electronic Trading that got lost in the archives and was never published. It is an important piece that involves someone whose career has spanned from the 1960s computing to today, from paper ticket creation to blockchain. John Rapa, the managing director and CEO of Tellefsen & Company, LLC, filled in a lot of blanks for us, once we finally put all the pieces together in a cumulative video.
The video was actually shot in 2021 and we should have published it earlier. I apologize for not doing so, especially to John. But here is his story.
The Wall Street Journal has story this morning about something JLN has been reporting on, titled "Meet the Wall Street Bigwig Who Has Become Trump's Headhunter in Chief" with the subheadline "Howard Lutnick, the CEO who rebuilt Cantor Fitzgerald, is finding thousands of potential employees for a new Trump administration." The story tells how Lutnick, the CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, is leading efforts to recruit potential staff for a possible second Trump administration. Known for rebuilding his firm after the 9/11 tragedy that killed 658 of his employees, Lutnick has now aligned with Trump's inner circle, including figures like Elon Musk, to support the campaign and streamline government efficiency if Trump wins. Appointed as co-chair of Trump's transition team, Lutnick is assembling shortlists for key government roles, focusing on loyalty to Trump's policies. Having raised significant campaign funds for Trump, Lutnick's commitment is also personal, as he joins Musk in proposing a "Department of Government Efficiency" to cut waste from federal budgets.
Registration is open for FIA Boca. It is the 50th year of Boca, so it will be one you will not want to miss. Register HERE.
Anthony Crudele, the host of Futures Radio Show, has joined NinjaTrader to launch a Trader Development program and expand its Live Network, aiming to build a dedicated space for futures traders, he shared on various social media channels including LinkedIn. With the rise of new, often underprepared traders entering the market, the program will provide essential tools, knowledge, and real-time insights from top industry figures. Drawing from his own journey-from a pit runner to an independent trader-Crudele is focused on shortening the learning curve for new traders and making NinjaTrader the leading hub for futures trading education and live market insights.
Here are the headlines from in front of FOW's paywall from some recent stories: Trade body calls for risk-based approach to DORA subcontracting, OpenGamma urges focus on US treasury clearing margin regimes and ANALYSIS: CME plans for US Treasury clearing to complement FICC partnership.
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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Our most read stories from our previous edition of JLN Options were:
- Dollar Hedging Costs Highest Since 2022 on Election Risk from Bloomberg.
- Ermotti Says Brace For Volatility as Markets Expect Trump Win from Bloomberg.
- CME Wins Futures Commission Merchant Approval, Sparking Backlash Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance. ~JB
Subscribe to the JLN Options Newsletter HERE (it's free).
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From Punch Cards to Crypto: One Man's Journey Through Wall Street's Tech Revolution
JohnLothianNews.com
John Rapa never imagined his part-time college job would lead to a front-row seat for Wall Street's technological transformation. But over five decades, he's witnessed the industry's evolution from paper tickets to blockchain - and he's still grappling with how to explain Bitcoin to his grandparents.
Watch the video »
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Meet the Wall Street Bigwig Who Has Become Trump's Headhunter in Chief; Howard Lutnick, the CEO who rebuilt Cantor Fitzgerald, is finding thousands of potential employees for a new Trump administration
Rachel Louise Ensign - The Wall Street Journal
Cantor Fitzgerald Chief Executive Howard Lutnick hired thousands of employees after most of his company's New York staff was killed on Sept. 11, 2001. Now he is in charge of lining up candidates for a similar number of jobs in the event of a second Trump administration. Lutnick, 63 years old, is MAGA's top emissary on Wall Street, a place where some executives have embraced former President Donald Trump's tax policies but are leery of the tone of his rallies. Trump, a longtime friend, appointed Lutnick co-chair of his transition team in August. His mandate is to compile shortlists of candidates for jobs ranging from attorney general to the deputy solicitor for water resources.
/jlne.ws/4eaOE5x
***** My question here is "Wall Street Bigwig" a swipe at Lutnick's balding head?~JJL
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A Regulatory Tweak Fuels 70,000-Fold Jump in Indian Penny Stock; The surge makes Elcid India's priciest stock in absolute terms; Jump dwarfs some of the biggest single-day rallies globally
Chiranjivi Chakraborty - Bloomberg
Shares of a little-known investment and financial services firm in India soared 70,000-fold this week in one of the biggest moves globally, thanks to a rule tweak by the securities regulator. Elcid Investments Ltd.'s thinly-traded shares jumped to 161,023 rupees ($1,915) Monday from 3.53 rupees Friday, dwarfing rallies seen in several penny stocks during the meme stock craze in the US in 2021. The stock has climbed another 54% since then to 248,062.50 on the BSE Ltd.'s stock exchange.
/jlne.ws/3O7YZoh
***** This was not driven by Apple trying to earn enough to pay its Russia-related fines.~JJL
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Wednesday's Top Three
Our top story Wednesday was ANALYSIS: CME's clearing broker approval renews focus on US rules, from FOW. Second was Yellen Says Fraud is Huge, Growing Problem in Banking System, from Bloomberg. And third was CME Wins Futures Commission Merchant Approval, Sparking Backlash, from Bloomberg.
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| Lead Stories | Polymarket's Influence on Wall Street's Election 'Game Plan' Grows Despite Red Flags; Crypto exchange anchors election views, portfolio manager says; JPMorgan assesses betting site's odds for long-short strategy
Alexandra Semenova and Vildana Hajric - Bloomberg
Despite widespread skepticism about how much trust investors should place in the signals being sent by cryptocurrency-based predictions market Polymarket, Wall Street is paying close attention to betting on the platform that shows a high chance Donald Trump will win the US presidential election. While naysayers argue that outsized bets and pro-crypto bias can skew the probabilities being presented on the site, some smart-money traders and strategists are following Polymarket very closely. Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Trump are basically in a dead heat ahead of the Nov. 5 election based on recent polling, yet wagers on Polymarket indicate a 67% probability that Trump will win.
/jlne.ws/3UvglyQ
Former SBF Lieutenant Nishad Singh Avoids Jail in FTX Case
Ava Benny-Morrison and Chris Dolmetsch - Bloomberg
Former FTX chief engineer Nishad Singh avoided prison time over his role in the multibillion-dollar fraud at the cryptocurrency exchange. Singh was sentenced by Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in federal court in New York Wednesday after the 29-year-old's testimony helped secure a conviction of the ultimate architect of the fraud, FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. Bankman-Fried is serving a 25-year prison term after a jury found him guilty of fraud in late 2023.
/jlne.ws/3Al7Rn0
***** Here is the Financial Times' version of this story.~JJL
Flow Traders and Wormhole Foundation Form Strategic Partnership
Wormhole Foundation
Wormhole Foundation, the team supporting the development of Wormhole's decentralized platform, today announced a strategic partnership with Flow Traders Ltd. (Euronext: FLOW), a leading global technology-enabled liquidity provider and market maker. As a first step in this partnership, Flow Traders has made a strategic investment in Wormhole and will join its solver network, aiming to enhance the speed and efficiency of multichain swaps. Alongside Flow Traders, Google Cloud and AMD are other infrastructure providers contributing to Wormhole, with established security and hardware acceleration partnerships, respectively. Flow Traders will be the first trading firm to join Wormhole's solver network, supporting the newly launched Composable Intents product, providing enhanced liquidity, speed of execution and cost-effective multichain token swaps to Wormhole's users.
/jlne.ws/3YlaiOg
Quant Hedge Funds Are Losing Their Edge in China as Models Fail
Bloomberg
China's quantitative hedge funds risk ending years of outperforming the market, after a surge in local stocks spurred by the government's economic stimulus package last month beat their models and squeezed short positions. Quants' long-only strategies trailed mainland Chinese stocks' 22% jump by 2 percentage points in September, turning their year-to-date so-called excess return into a 0.1% loss. That compared with an outperformance of at least 16 percentage points in the past three years, according to data compiled by Shenzhen PaiPaiWang Investment & Management Co.
/jlne.ws/4fqqxAD
Fortune Claims Polymarket Is 'Rife' With Wash Trading; As much as a third of the prediction market's volume is inflated by traders acting as the buyer and seller - an illegal practice in TradFi - on the same trades, Fortune reported. Some could be doing it to farm a future token airdrop.
Marc Hochstein - CoinDesk
Prediction market Polymarket is "rife" with wash trading, a type of market manipulation that's illegal in traditional finance and involves the identical person acting as both buyer and seller on a given trade, Fortune reported Wednesday, citing analyses by blockchain sleuthing firms.
/jlne.ws/48KKGzv
Fixed income dominates LSEG and Deutsche Borse Q3 revenue
Lucy Carter - The Desk
Fixed income revenue led the banks' Q3 results, boosting overall growth. LSEG's capital markets revenue was up 24.8% year-on-year (YoY) in Q3 2024, reaching £468 million. The bulk of this came from Tradeweb (fixed income, derivatives and other) - up 31.7% to £341 million - while the London Stock Exchange's equities revenue contributed just £60 million to the total, an increase of 9.1% YoY. The London Stock Exchange launched a new main market this quarter, aligning with updated UK capital markets reforms. These reforms include providing companies with new ways to raise money, and introducing different ways of investing in UK capital markets and executing mergers and acquisitions. This launch helped to boost equities performance, the group said.
/jlne.ws/3YsNNaj
Hong Kong Dials Back Market Sounding Rules for Listed Shares
Kiuyan Wong - Bloomberg
Hong Kong's securities watchdog toned down its guidelines for so-called market sounding practices after incorporating feedback from the hedge fund and banking industry. The new rules, which will take effect on May 2, narrowed the scope of what constitutes as confidential information and the types of securities involved, according to a consultation conclusion released by the Securities and Futures Commission on Thursday.
/jlne.ws/3YKXJ0o
Coinbase Pledges Further $25 Million of Political Funding for Crypto; Largest US crypto exchange plans to donate again to Fairshake Digital-asset sector became an influential player in US vote
Olga Kharif - Bloomberg
Coinbase Global Inc. committed another $25 million of funding to Fairshake, a political action committee for the digital-asset industry that has become an influential player in the US election. Fairshake will use the money in the lead up to the 2026 midterm vote to support pro-crypto candidates, Coinbase's Chief Executive Officer Brian Armstrong said in a post on the X social media website on Wednesday.
/jlne.ws/3UyVU4a
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| Ukraine Invasion | | News about the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and its military, economic, political and humanitarian impact | Russia eats away at territory, and Ukrainian morale
Didier Lauras - AFP
Progress has been slow but it is relentless. Russia's army has been advancing at several points along the Ukrainian war front for weeks now, gobbling up territory one village at a time. It has cast doubt over Kyiv's ability to stem the tide, let alone push back the advancing troops. Russian President Vladimir Putin's army has taken 478 square kilometres of territory since the start of October -- its largest monthly territorial gain since the early weeks of its invasion in February 2022, according to AFP analysis of data from the US Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
/jlne.ws/3YJxBTm
Ukraine accuses Russia of sudden spike in POW killings; Russia has denied reports of a dramatic increase in the killings of those surrendering, but Russian officials have called for showing Ukrainian soldiers no mercy.
David L. Stern and Serhiy Morgunov - The Washington Post
Russian forces are summarily killing surrendering Ukrainian soldiers in increasing numbers on the battlefield, often shooting them point blank just after they have been taken prisoner, Ukrainian officials say. Since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, authorities have opened 43 criminal investigations into 113 possible arbitrary killings, with more than a third of those cases registered since the beginning of the year, according to Ukraine's prosecutor general office. But that does not take into account the more recent spike.
/jlne.ws/40pHk2q
Ukraine rolls out dozens of AI systems to help its drones hit targets
Max Hunder - Reuters
Ukraine is using dozens of domestically made AI-augmented systems for its drones to reach targets on the battlefield without being piloted, a senior official said, disclosing new details about the race against Russia to harness automation. Systems that use artificial intelligence allow cheap drones carrying explosives to spot or fly to their targets in areas protected by extensive signal jamming, which has reduced the effectiveness of manually piloted drones.
/jlne.ws/4f7SaPe
Kremlin says Ukraine must be nervous if it's asking for US Tomahawk missiles
Reuters
The Kremlin said on Thursday that Ukraine's leadership was clearly nervous about Russian advances along the front line if Kyiv was asking the United States to supply it with long-range Tomahawk missiles. The New York Times reported that President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had asked the United States for Tomahawk missiles, which have a range of 2,500 km (1,550 miles), far greater than any missile Ukraine currently has in its arsenal.
/jlne.ws/3NJ8UAm
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| Israel/Hamas Conflict | | News about the recent (October, 2023) conflict between Israel and Hamas | US draws up draft Israel-Lebanon ceasefire plan; Proposal leaked as senior Washington officials head to Middle East in effort to end year-long conflict
Neri Zilber in Tel Aviv, Felicia Schwartz in Washington, Raya Jalabi in Beirut, and Andrew England in London - Financial Times
The US has drawn up a draft plan to end the war between Israel and Hizbollah, calling for an initial 60-day ceasefire and the withdrawal of the Lebanese militant group and Israeli troops from southern Lebanon. But the proposal would also give Israeli forces the right to target Hizbollah "in self-defence against imminent threats to Israel" and allow its war planes to continue flying over Lebanon for "intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance", according to a draft leaked to Kan, Israel's state broadcaster, on Wednesday evening.
/jlne.ws/3NMLMRr
Hezbollah chief says group will hold out in its war with Israel for 'suitable' cease-fire terms
Sally Abou Aljoud - Associated Press
Hezbollah's newly named leader Naim Kassem said in his first public comments aired Wednesday that the militant group will keep fighting in its ongoing war with Israel until it is offered cease-fire terms it deems acceptable. "If the Israelis decide to stop the aggression, we say that we accept, but according to the conditions that we see as suitable," Kassem said, speaking from an undisclosed location in a pre-recorded televised address. "We will not beg for a cease-fire as we will continue (fighting)... no matter how long it takes."
/jlne.ws/3Cauhbm
U.S. inundated with claims that American arms killed Gaza civilians; The State Department has received hundreds of reports that Israel's use of U.S. weapons is responsible for excessive casualties. It has yet to take action.
Abigail Hauslohner and Michael Birnbaum - The Washington Post
The Biden administration has received nearly 500 reports alleging that Israel used U.S.-supplied weapons for attacks that caused unnecessary harm to civilians in the Gaza Strip, but it has failed to comply with its own policies requiring swift investigations of such claims, according to people familiar with the matter. Sign up for Fact Checker, our weekly review of what's true, false or in-between in politics. At least some of these cases presented to the State Department over the past year probably amount to violations of U.S. and international law, these people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to discuss internal deliberations.
/jlne.ws/4fpHprj
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| Exchanges, OTC & Clearing | | Top news from exchanges, clearing, settlement and trade execution facilities | Intercontinental Exchange Reports Strong Third Quarter 2024; Record 3Q24 net revenues of $2.3 billion, +17% y/y; 3Q24 GAAP diluted earnings per share (EPS) of $1.14, +19% y/y; 3Q24 adj. diluted EPS of $1.55, +6% y/y; Record 3Q24 operating income of $1.1 billion, +31% y/y; record adj. operating income of $1.4 billion, +17% y/y; 3Q24 operating margin of 47%; adj. operating margin of 59%
Intercontinental Exchange
Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE), a leading global provider of technology and data, today reported financial results for the third quarter of 2024. For the quarter ended September 30, 2024, consolidated net income attributable to ICE was $657 million on $2.3 billion of consolidated revenues, less transaction-based expenses. Third quarter GAAP diluted EPS were $1.14. Adjusted net income attributable to ICE was $894 million in the third quarter and adjusted diluted EPS were $1.55. Please refer to the reconciliation of non-GAAP financial measures included in this press release for more information on our adjusted operating expenses, adjusted operating income, adjusted operating margin, adjusted net income, adjusted diluted EPS and adjusted free cash flow.
/jlne.ws/4frf9Vm
Intercontinental Exchange Approves Fourth Quarter Dividend of $0.45 per Share
Intercontinental Exchange
Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE), a leading global provider of technology and data, announced today a $0.45 per share dividend for the fourth quarter of 2024, which is up 7% from the $0.42 per share dividend paid in the fourth quarter of 2023. The cash dividend is payable on December 31, 2024 to stockholders of record as of December 16, 2024. The ex-dividend date is December 16, 2024.
/jlne.ws/40npPQx
TMX Group Limited Reports Results for Third Quarter of 2024
TMX Group Limited
TMX Group Limited (TSX: X) ("TMX Group") announced results for the quarter ended September 30, 2024. Commenting on the company's performance during the first nine months of 2024, John McKenzie, Chief Executive Officer of TMX Group, said: "TMX continued to build on an impressive track record of growth through the first nine months of the year, delivering three consecutive quarters of year-over-year increased organic revenue and adjusted earnings per share, while advancing the evolution of our enterprise to better serve the needs of stakeholders around the world.
/jlne.ws/3NRowl6
Ms. Praveena Rai takes charge as MD & CEO of MCX
MCX
Ms. Praveena Rai has assumed charge as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (MD & CEO) of Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd. (MCX). Her appointment was approved by Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in August 2024. Prior to joining MCX, Ms. Rai was with NPCI (National Payment Corporation of India) as the Chief Operating Officer where she has been instrumental in creating and executing the strategy for business, products, marketing, technology and operational delivery, towards the growth of digital payments.
/jlne.ws/3UuNPNM
CMC Markets announces intention to become NZX market participant
NZX
Financial services company CMC Markets today announced its intention to apply for accreditation as an NZX Trading and Clearing Participant in 2025. CMC Markets intends to lodge an application for accreditation as an NZX Trading and Clearing Participant with NZ RegCo, the independently governed entity responsible for monitoring and enforcing compliance by listed issuers and accredited market participants with NZX's market rules.
/jlne.ws/40o7naf
Hearing Before the Disciplinary Committee Of Bourse De Montreal Inc. - Marex Capital Markets Inc.
TMX
There will be a Disciplinary Committee hearing on November 25, 2024, at 9:30 a.m. by videoconference, in order to decide on the acceptance of a settlement agreement negotiated between the staff of the Regulatory Division of Bourse de Montreal Inc. (the "Bourse") and Marex Capital Markets Inc. (the "Respondent"), in connection with a disciplinary complaint filed against the Respondent.
/jlne.ws/3YrY32D
CME Globex Notices: October 28, 2024
CME Group
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EBS Market on CME Globex Notice: October 31, 2024
CME Group
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CME STP Notices: October 31, 2024
CME Group
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| Fintech | | A roundup of today's market tech news and a look at tomorrow's disruptors | Google CEO says more than 25 percent of company's new code written by AI
Miranda Nazzaro - The Hill
More than a quarter of Google's new code is being generated by artificial intelligence (AI), CEO Sundar Pichai revealed during Tuesday's third-quarter earnings call for the leading tech company. "We're also using AI internally to improve our coding processes, which is boosting productivity and efficiency," Pichai said during the call.
/jlne.ws/40qqT6c
Nvidia needs EU approval to buy AI startup Run:ai, regulators say
Foo Yun Chee - Reuters
US chipmaker Nvidia (NVDA) will have to seek EU antitrust clearance for its proposed acquisition of AI startup Run:ai because it threatens competition in the markets where the companies operate, the European Commission said on Thursday. The move by the EU antitrust enforcer may require Nvidia to offer concessions to secure its approval for the deal. Regulators on both sides of the Atlantic have recently increased their scrutiny of tech deals, especially by tech giants.
/jlne.ws/4f6gbGf
Alexa's New AI Brain Is Stuck in the Lab; Amazon is eager to take on ChatGPT, but technical challenges have forced the company to repeatedly postpone the updated voice assistant's debut.
Austin Carr and Matt Day - Bloomberg
Andy Jassy kept prodding Alexa with sports questions. It was summer 2023, and Amazon.com Inc.'s chief executive officer wanted to see if a prototype of the voice assistant, upgraded with artificial intelligence, was good enough to compete with ChatGPT, the AI chatbot from OpenAI that had wowed the world around eight months earlier with its conversational wizardry. So Jassy, a devoted New York Giants football fan and investor in the Seattle Kraken hockey team, interrogated Alexa like an ESPN reporter at a playoff press conference-asking the assistant to drill down into individual player performance, league standings, team history and so on. Alexa survived the interview, though its answers were nowhere near perfect: When Jassy asked for a recent game outcome, Alexa simply made up the score.
/jlne.ws/3ChR3hd
Bank of America in talks with regulator to resolve Zelle probe, evaluates litigation
Reuters
Bank of America said on Tuesday it is evaluating potential litigation over a U.S. consumer watchdog inquiry into the bank's processing of funds through the Zelle payment app. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) staff has initiated discussions with the bank to pursue a resolution of the inquiry or to file an enforcement action, BofA said in a regulatory filing.
/jlne.ws/3C3X3ub
AI's $1.3 Trillion Future Increasingly Hinges on Taiwan; Stock market is hottest major Asian exchange thanks to AI
Jane Lanhee Lee and Vlad Savov - Bloomberg
When Jung Yoonseok was looking for an assembly partner for his AI chip startup, he had his pick of almost any country in Asia, including his native South Korea. Instead, the Rebellions strategy chief opted for Taiwan because of what he sees as an unparalleled combination of talent, cost and speed. "Taiwan is small, and Taipei is small, and in that small area everything moves super fast," the 35-year-old Harvard graduate said after one of his trips to secure production.
/jlne.ws/3NP6QXm
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| Cybersecurity | | Top stories for cybersecurity | Why a Cybersecurity Prodigy Carried Out a Hacking Spree - "My Habit Was Collecting"; A cyber prodigy defended companies against intrusion while continuing to amass data through a series of his own hacks.
Ryan Gallagher - Bloomberg
Pepijn Van der Stap stayed up through the night of Jan. 22, 2023, repairing one of his computers in silence save for the whirring of its fan. About an hour before sunrise, he logged in to his account on a cybercrime website. When he did so, a dozen police officers burst into his apartment-a beachfront spot in the Dutch coastal town of Zandvoort-their faces hidden behind black balaclavas. Within minutes, they'd surrounded Van der Stap, blindfolded him and commandeered his keyboard. It was a surprising show of force to capture the slim, 5-foot-8 man with dark blond hair and a baby face. Just 20 years old at the time of his arrest, he was well-known among cybersecurity experts in the Netherlands. But not as a criminal-as one of their own. Van der Stap's work identifying security vulnerabilities in commonly used software had helped protect government agencies and thousands of companies internationally from potential data breaches. He'd presented his work at cybersecurity conferences, and his colleagues lauded him for his brilliance.
/jlne.ws/48wjl3y
Cyber security companies are thriving - even when they fail; This may be the ultimate industry for providing very lucrative but ineffective solutions
John Thornhill - Financial Times
It is a sad but undeniable truth that some of the world's most profitable products are terrible. That lightbulb realisation dawned on me when I worked on the FT's Lex column and learnt that the most successful pharmaceutical drugs - for manufacturers if not patients - were those that alleviated symptoms but did not cure the complaint. Eliminate the problem and you kill demand. Where is the financial incentive in that? Lightbulbs, curiously enough, are another example of the same phenomenon. Why develop everlasting lightbulbs (the Centennial Bulb has been in continuous operation in a Californian firehouse since 1901) when you can sell ones that blow periodically? Economic theory suggests that these inefficiencies should be competed away. Real life does not always work that way.
/jlne.ws/40uFLAn
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| Cryptocurrencies | | Top stories for cryptocurrencies | Kraken Lays Off 15% of Workers and Names New Co-Chief Executive
Mike Isaac, David Yaffe-Bellany and Ryan Mac - The New York Times
Kraken, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, on Wednesday announced the layoff of 15 percent of its workers, a corporate restructuring and the appointment of a new co-chief executive. The cuts amounted to about 400 of the company's roughly 2,600 employees, two people with knowledge of the company said. They included two members of the leadership team: the chief operating officer, Gilles BianRosa, and the chief technology officer, Vishnu Patankar, two people said.
/jlne.ws/3NOnzdo
FTX's Nishad Singh Gets No Prison Time for Role in Crypto Exchange Collapse; Singh, who was sentenced to time served, is the fourth FTX executive to be sentenced for his role in the fraud.
Cheyenne Ligon - CoinDesk
Nishad Singh, former director of engineering at FTX and a one-time member of Sam Bankman-Fried's inner circle, was sentenced to time served by a federal judge on Wednesday, meaning he's not going to prison like his former colleagues. He was also ordered to pay $11 billion in restitution. Singh, 29, who pleaded guilty to six criminal counts including wire fraud and conspiracy in February, is the fourth FTX executive to be sentenced for his role in the fraud. Bankman-Fried was sentenced to 25 years in prison in March for his role as ringleader.
/jlne.ws/3NKGIx5
BlackRock's Entry Into Crypto Matters More Than U.S. Election, QCP Capital's Darius Sit Says
Sam Reynolds - CoinDesk
The winner of next week's U.S. presidential election doesn't really matter to Darius Sit, the chief investment officer of QCP Capital, a Singapore-based crypto trading firm. While there may be some short-term volatility in crypto markets depending on whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris becomes the leader of the world's largest economy, what's more important is the broader integration of crypto, especially bitcoin (BTC), into American finance. For example, the widespread adoption of bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs), with BlackRock (BLK), the world's largest asset-management firm, running the biggest.
/jlne.ws/3YJmI3X
Making Crypto Tokens Useful and Fair; Instead of parsing the Howey Test, founders should prioritize making tokens useful and fair, say Jake Chervinsky and Rebecca Rettig.
Rebecca Rettig, Jake Chervinsky - CoinDesk
Let's be honest: when it comes to launching new tokens, the landscape is pretty rough. We've seen the same sad storyline play out repeatedly this year. Projects hype a token with limited or no fundamental utility, distribute a small number to the public at a high valuation, and then watch as the market price crashes toward zero. Many blame "regulatory uncertainty" for this problematic pattern, arguing that only memecoins can survive the hostility of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and that there's no way for crypto founders to launch exciting projects - and tokens that may be necessary or supportive of that project - without violating the federal securities laws.
/jlne.ws/3Aor72Z
Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy Plans to Raise $42B to Buy More Bitcoin Over Next 3 Years; The company reported its third quarter earnings results after the close of trading on Wednesday afternoon.
Stephen Alpher - CoinDesk
Self-described Bitcoin development company MicroStrategy (MSTR) didn't add to its bitcoin (BTC) holdings since mid-September, but the firm announced an audacious plan to raise $42 billion of capital over the next three years in order to purchase more of the world's largest crypto. Led by Executive Chairman Michael Saylor, the company's so-called "21/21 Plan" calls for $21 billion of equity raises and $21 billion of debt offerings over the next three years.
/jlne.ws/4eWDbYl
Inspired by Trump, Florida Official Eyes State Bitcoin Stockpile for Retirees; Citing presidential candidate Donald Trump's remarks on a U.S. strategic crypto reserve, Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis is pushing the idea for state pension funds.
Jesse Hamilton - CoinDesk
The top financial official for Florida was so impressed by Trump's rhetoric on the U.S. building a bitcoin stockpile that he wants to shift some state pension money into crypto. Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis said in a letter to the state's investment managers that they should check out that option. Florida's chief financial officer proposed that the funds that support retired state workers should dabble in crypto, inspired by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's support for the U.S. government stockpiling bitcoin (BTC).
/jlne.ws/4fsfZRs
BlackRock's Bitcoin ETF Gets Record Inflow Ahead of US Election; Net $872 million poured into the world's biggest Bitcoin fund; Largest digital asset is on the verge of setting a record high
Sidhartha Shukla - Bloomberg
BlackRock Inc.'s Bitcoin fund posted an unprecedented net inflow as speculation over how the US election may play out stirs demand for the largest digital asset. Some $872 million poured into the iShares Bitcoin Trust exchange-traded fund on Wednesday, a daily record, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Subscriptions for the nine-month-old product in 2024 are among the highest for ETFs globally.
/jlne.ws/3NOf16A
MicroStrategy's Saylor on the strategy to load up on bitcoin and how investors should value it
Steve Goldstein - MarketWatch
/jlne.ws/40sWHra
Coinbase Drops After Quarterly Results Fall Short of Estimates
Olga Kharif - Bloomberg
/jlne.ws/48ujch8
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| Politics | | An overview of politics as it relates to the financial markets | US Election Chaos Would Endanger the Whole World; Like nature, world politics abhors a vacuum, and the American election may be about to deliver one.
Andreas Kluth - Bloomberg
The world is feeling the angst of liminality, as America's friends and foes await the outcome of the presidential election next week. Will the superpower have Donald Trump or Kamala Harris as commander-in-chief? Until that question is answered, nothing much can move, nothing of note can be resolved. But what if no answer is forthcoming, at least not for a while? Picture decision makers around the world holding their collective breath right now. In the Middle East, which teeters on the edge of major regional war, envoys from Israel, Egypt, the United States and Qatar are once again meeting in Doha about a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. But nobody will commit to anything until American voters decide who will sit at the Resolute Desk come January.
/jlne.ws/48rOBAM
Election-Violence Risk Threatens US Dollar Dominance; US currency's global role has been underpinned by rule of law; Some investors warn of erosion of longer-term US confidence
Saleha Mohsin and Carter Johnson - Bloomberg
The scenario of another contested presidential race riven by violence looms as an unpriced risk for investors who have long counted on US institutional integrity as a foundation for the nation's economic strength. Owning the world's dominant currency has helped hold down US borrowing costs and the prices of commodities from oil to iron, along with conferring the geopolitical power of cutting American rivals out of the global financial system. Underpinning the dollar's dominance, according to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and their predecessors: the rule of law and institutions that transcend individual politicians.
/jlne.ws/48sh8GA
Donald Trump's tariff talk is leverage, suggests billionaire; John Paulson, who is tipped to be the former president's Treasury secretary, says widespread import taxes may not be enacted Robert Mendick, Chief Reporter - The Telegraph
Donald Trump's threat to impose import tariffs is simply a tactic to persuade companies to keep production in the US, according to the billionaire tipped as his Treasury secretary. John Paulson, a close aide of the former president, suggested in an interview that Trump may not enact widespread import taxes which have been a cornerstone of his economic policy. The protectionist policy is playing well in the election, especially in the key battleground Rust Belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
/jlne.ws/3NL48lE
Trump Treasury Contender Pledges to Work With Musk to Slash Spending; Investor John Paulson, a Trump ally, says he would also work on trade and energy if he became Treasury secretary
Brian Schwartz - The Wall Street Journal
Billionaire investor John Paulson says he would work with Tesla Chief Executive Elon Musk to enact massive federal spending cuts if Paulson were to become Treasury secretary in a second Trump administration. Paulson, an ally of the former president, said in an interview that his priority would be extending Donald Trump's expiring 2017 tax cuts, followed by "working with Musk to reduce federal spending," particularly by getting rid of the subsidies for green energy in the Inflation Reduction Act, which he referred to as the Green New Deal.
/jlne.ws/4fJyfpV
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Big money is complicit in the unravelling of American democracy; America's plutocrats are quietly normalising the resurgence of a figure they once disavowed
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard - The Telegraph
America's plutocrats are systemically complicit in the Trump restoration. Whether from ideological affinity, fear of retribution, or cynicism, big money is either passively or actively contributing to his attempts to subvert the anchor institutions of American democracy. The US corporate world has either fallen silent or quietly "normalised" Donald Trump, as if the storming of Congress and the attempted coup d'état of Jan 6 had never happened. The warnings of America's top military officers can hardly be clearer. "A fascist to the core" and "the most dangerous person to this country", says General Mark Milley, ex-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff.
/jlne.ws/4flF4NS
Canada Predicts Hacking From India as Diplomatic Feud Escalates
Thomas Seal - Bloomberg
Canada is bracing for Indian government-backed hacking as the two nations' diplomatic relationship nosedives to its lowest ebb in a generation. "We judge that official bilateral relations between Canada and India will very likely drive Indian state-sponsored cyber threat activity against Canada," the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security said in its annual threat report published Wednesday, adding that such hackers are probably already conducting cyber-espionage.
/jlne.ws/3Yr0q5U
Chinese sanctions hit US drone maker supplying Ukraine; Move by Beijing leaves California company rushing to find new battery providers
Demetri Sevastopulo, Kathrin Hille and Ryan McMorrow - Financial Times
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| Regulation & Enforcement | | Stories about regulation and the law. | Trafigura Faces $1.1 Billion Hit After Mongolia Fraud Probe; Trader says it uncovered 'serious misconduct' by staff;' Trafigura to record provision, may restate prior accounts
Jack Farchy, Archie Hunter, Alfred Cang, and Priscila Azevedo Rocha - Bloomberg
Trafigura Group is preparing to take a $1.1 billion hit after discovering what it suspects was fraud involving employees in its Mongolian oil business. The loss, which could also force the commodity trading giant to restate prior earnings, comes less than two years since Trafigura rocked the industry with the revelation it lost more than $500 million in an alleged nickel fraud.
/jlne.ws/4fpJPGp
****** Here is the Financial Times' version of this story.~JJL
Korea Financial Watchdog to Probe Korea Zinc's Share Sale Plan; FSS to probe if board omitted share sale plan during buyback; Company's share plan triggers 35% stock decline in two days
Youkyung Lee and Heesu Lee - Bloomberg
South Korea's financial watchdog plans to review potential wrongdoings in Korea Zinc Co.'s share sale plan, citing "a high likelihood" that the case may constitute an unfair trade. Among the issues the Financial Supervisory Service plans to review is the sequence of recent events including the sale plan and a recent buyback, as well as what the board knew and should have been disclosed, Hahm Yong-il, senior deputy governor at the FSS, told reporters Thursday at a briefing.
/jlne.ws/40xNy0a
Remarks of Commissioner Summer K. Mersinger at ISDA's Annual Legal Forum; Rethinking Enforcement
CFTC
Over the past few weeks, I have had several opportunities to speak with professionals from a variety of industries on numerous topics. While I always value these discussions, I was surprised by how many times people asked me: "Are you enjoying the job?" Usually, I am quick to answer, "Of course I enjoy the job." The work we do at the CFTC is interesting, impactful, and important. I am constantly learning, and there is never a dull day. I started to wonder, though, if there was a reason people were frequently asking me this question. Maybe it was my body language; maybe I was not smiling enough; or maybe I have spent too much time with my teenage daughters and have adopted their surly demeanor. But then it occurred to me-maybe they read my recent dissenting statements. I have issued quite a few dissenting statements in the past few weeks[1], and I guess you could say I sounded a little frustrated, maybe even disgruntled.
/jlne.ws/40qjSSE
NFA orders New Jersey-based commodity pool operator Scalebuilder LLC to pay a $200,000 fine
NFA
October 30, Chicago--NFA has ordered Scalebuilder LLC (Scalebuilder) to pay a $200,000 fine. Scalebuilder is an NFA Member commodity pool operator located in Summit, N.J. The Decision, issued by NFA's Business Conduct Committee (BCC), is based on a Complaint issued by the BCC and a settlement offer submitted by Scalebuilder, in which the firm neither admitted nor denied the allegations in the Complaint.
/jlne.ws/3YvSBLY
SEC Announces New Members of Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee
SEC
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced four new members of the Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee. The new members were appointed to four-year terms and will join the 14 current Commission-appointed committee members.
/jlne.ws/3YuGxdV
ASIC releases third publication on insights from the reportable situations regime
ASIC
ASIC has released its third publication on information lodged under the reportable situations regime. The publication provides high-level insights into reporting trends from 1 July 2023 to 30 June 2024. The publication covers licensee population reporting, breach identification and investigation, root causes, consumer impact and remediation efforts.
/jlne.ws/3Yrx4Eq
Market Cleanliness in the New Zealand Equity Market
FMA
As New Zealand's financial conduct regulator, the Financial Market Authority (FMA) has a statutory requirement to ensure our capital markets are fair, efficient and transparent, to encourage investors to participate and allow businesses to raise funds. Insider trading, among other forms of market abuse, is a threat to the integrity and reputation of markets as it leads to unfair advantages for some investors over others.
/jlne.ws/40s1rNM
FMA publishes Market Cleanliness research report into New Zealand Equity Market
FMA
The number of potential incidents of market abuse on the New Zealand equity market has been trending down over the past 20 years, research by the Financial Markets Authority (FMA) - Te Mana Tatai Hokohoko - has found. Market Cleanliness in the New Zealand Equity Market research, published today, examined trading behaviour at a macro level in the lead up to market announcements between 2004-2024.
/jlne.ws/4f8yz1w
Financial Institutions making steady progress getting CoFI licences
FMA
With less than eight weeks until Christmas, the majority of financial institutions have now embarked on - or even better, completed - their Financial Institution (CoFI) licence application process. CoFI introduces a new regulatory regime to ensure registered banks, licensed non-bank deposit takers and licensed insurers (collectively, financial institutions) comply with a fair conduct principle when providing relevant services to consumers. Financial institutions are required to be licenced to continue providing relevant services to consumers in New Zealand from 31 March 2025.
/jlne.ws/4fqym9k
FCA bans Steven Hodgson and Paul Adams for pension transfer advice failings
FCA
The FCA has banned Steven Hodgson and Paul Adams of Vintage Investment Services (Vintage) from advising any customers on pension transfers and opt outs. Mr Hodgson and Mr Adams poorly advised people to transfer out of defined benefit pension schemes, including the British Steel Pension Scheme (BSPS). They are also banned from holding any senior management function in a regulated firm.
/jlne.ws/3C6W6Be
FCA and PSR Boards appoint new chair to decision-making committees
FCA
The FCA and PSR Boards have appointed Alison Potter as chair of the FCA's Regulatory Decisions Committee (RDC) and the PSR's Enforcement Decisions Committee (EDC). These 2 committees are responsible for taking certain regulatory decisions on behalf of the FCA and the PSR. Committee members are selected based on their ability to make independent decisions grounded in evidence and experience. The new appointment has been made ahead of the existing chair, Tim Parkes, standing down later this year. Alison Potter will begin on 1 November 2024, with a short transitional period alongside Tim Parkes.
/jlne.ws/4f3qxa8
The fifth Meeting of the Japan-EU Joint Financial Regulatory Forum
FSA
On October 30 and 31, 2024, the fifth Meeting of the Japan-EU Joint Financial Regulatory Forum was held in Tokyo by the Financial Services Agency (FSA) and the European Commission. The Forum was established to exchange views on financial regulations. At the Forum meeting, participants discussed the market developments in the Japanese, EU, and global markets, as well as financial stability. They also exchanged views on a number of regulatory and supervisory issues, including in the sustainable and digital finance areas, banking and insurance sectors, capital markets as well as possible closer cooperation in international fora.
/jlne.ws/4htd395
SFC concludes consultation on market sounding guidelines
SFC
The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) today published consultation conclusions on its proposed guidelines for market soundings (Note 1). The guidelines set out the principles and requirements applicable to licensed or registered persons when they conduct market soundings, which are most commonly seen in block trades. These requirements include implementing protocols to protect confidential information they are entrusted with during market soundings.
/jlne.ws/3YIHPna
SFC furthers Hong Kong-Saudi Arabia capital market ties on Riyadh visit
SFC
The Securities and Futures Commission's (SFC) Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Ms Julia Leung, its Executive Director of Investment Products, Ms Christina Choi, and other senior SFC delegates met with the top executives of the Capital Market Authority (CMA) and Saudi Tadawul Group (parent company of the Saudi Exchange) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, yesterday to strengthen regulatory collaboration on their second business trip to Riyadh in less than six months (Note 1). The SFC delegates witnessed the successful cross-listing on the Saudi Exchange of the first Hong Kong exchange-traded fund (ETF) which tracks an index comprising major Stock Connect eligible Hong Kong-listed stocks. They are also on hand to witness the cross-listing of another ETF tracking the city's flagship equity benchmark today.
/jlne.ws/4hpMOjT
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| Investing & Trading | | Today's top stories from equities, indices and FICC (fixed income, currencies and commodities) | A Trader's Guide to Most-Watched Chinese Stocks as US Vote Looms; Solar, EVs, biotech under pressure regardless of vote outcome; Chipmakers have survived US pushback as domestic support grows
Sangmi Cha - Bloomberg
As the US presidential election nears, investors in Chinese stocks are zeroing in on the prospects of key sectors that look set to remain in the crosshairs of the White House, whoever wins it. From solar panels to electric cars and biotech, Chinese firms in some of the world's fastest-growing industries will likely keep suffering from heightened trade frictions with the US, whether Donald Trump or Kamala Harris becomes the next president. That said, investors have become so accustomed to the bilateral tensions that higher tariffs, as threatened by Trump, may no longer deliver a major shock.
/jlne.ws/4hvr85R
"There is room in the market for a CLS competitor to come up the ranks"
Ho Yun Kuan - PostTrade 360
The international nature of US securities trading means market participants cannot afford to ignore the currency exchange implications of faster settlement. Following his in-depth look at the issue in an article published earlier this year, contributor Paul Golden, along with three panellists, took to the stage at the PostTrade 360 Nordic 2024 conference to give the audience a live version of the discussion in the session titled "Faster settlement creates currency conundrum". The popular consensus seems to be that the US T+1 transition went smoothly. "Everything looks good on paper," admitted Peter Herrlin, head of client solutions capital markets and banking EMEA at Northern Trust. But "it's too early to tell", he cautioned. "We need to see another cycle of rebalancing; we need to have more ugly long weekends in various jurisdictions to see where the pain points are."
/jlne.ws/4fsfvuC
Bond Traders Hedge Deeper Selloff, Targeting US 10-Year Yield at 4.5%
Edward Bolingbroke - Bloomberg
A bearish tone is taking hold in Treasury options as traders bet that a crucial stretch ahead - with the US presidential election just days away - will deepen losses in bonds and spark bouts of increased volatility. Yields have already surged this month, in part on speculation that the winner of the Nov. 5 vote will boost fiscal stimulus, spurring quicker growth and inflation and swelling the supply of Treasuries.
/jlne.ws/40o2s9h
Currency Traders Are Positioning for Global Surge in Volatility; Dollar hedging over the next week costs most since March 2020; Yuan, Mexican peso among most sensitive currencies to election
Vassilis Karamanis - Bloomberg
Traders are preparing for a surge in currency volatility around the world after the cost of hedging dollar moves over the next week climbed to the most expensive since early 2020. The options market shows investors expect to see big price swings in Group-of-10 currencies, particularly in Japan's yen, the Norwegian krone and New Zealand's dollar. The Mexican peso, the Chinese yuan and South Korea's won also look vulnerable.
/jlne.ws/4huKDLM
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| Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance | | Stories about environmental, social and governance investing | More than 90 die in Spanish floods; Worst European flooding since 2021 raises questions about how residents were alerted to forecasts of intense rain
Barney Jopson and Carmen Muela - Financial Times
More than 90 people have died in southern and eastern Spain as towns were inundated and road and rail links severed in the most devastating flash floods to hit Europe for several years. Local authorities said torrential rains on Tuesday had led to the deaths of at least 92 people in the Valencia region as well as two in Castile-La Mancha and one in Málaga. Officials warned that the death toll was likely to rise.
/jlne.ws/4fJvepB
Companies boost social and climate reporting amid ESG backlash
Ross Kerber - Reuters
Many U.S. companies have stepped up reporting on environmental and social matters in recent years even with sustained pressure from conservative politicians, data reviewed by Reuters shows. The trend shows the importance investors and regulators now place on environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, analysts said, amid rapid global warming and shifting workforce demographics. Some political conservatives call the attention misplaced or worry the disclosures could give activists leverage to force companies to make unnecessary changes.
/jlne.ws/3NMMFtf
Tourist Investors Are Ditching Climate Tech for AI; As more climate startups enter a capital-intensive, hardware-focused stage of development, scaling up is seen as expensive and risky. It's also more important than ever.
Michelle Ma - Bloomberg
Generalist investors' rush into buzzier artificial intelligence has added to funding woes for climate-tech startups at just about the worst time for an industry racing to combat the effects of climate change. Globally, climate-tech companies raised roughly $10.3 billion in equity across public and private markets in the third quarter, putting full-year funding on track to fall about 50% this year, data from BloombergNEF show. Meanwhile, capital for AI has climbed, with startups in that space raising more than $21 billion in the quarter, Pitchbook estimates.
/jlne.ws/3UvOzSF
Hacking the Planet Needs Guardrails and Guidelines; Now that solar geoengineering isn't just sci-fi, a regulatory system is required.
Lara Williams - Bloomberg
A few years ago, solar geoengineering was considered a sort of science fiction. These days, it's fast becoming a reality. Without international consensus on the guardrails and guidelines, that's a very dangerous prospect. The technique, also known as solar radiation management, encompasses a range of technologies including sunshields in space, marine cloud brightening and stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI). They all work in slightly different ways but the goal is the same: reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth's surface in an effort to turn down the global thermostat.
/jlne.ws/40ray0V
Asia has 'enormous' shortfall of funds to adapt to climate change, warns ADB; Development bank report says region still needs hundreds of billions of dollars for action to tackle impact of global warming
Edward White - Financial Times
The Asia-Pacific needs to increase funding for climate change adaptation by up to 12-fold to prepare the world's most populous region for the dangers of global warming, the Asian Development Bank has warned. The Manila-based development bank estimated that between $102bn and $431bn was needed in annual financing to adapt to climate change across the Asia-Pacific region from 2023 to 2030, compared with just $34bn in commitments it recorded in 2022.
/jlne.ws/4e4eFDq
Misinformation Is Turning American Disasters Into Toxic Battlegrounds; Rumors and conspiracy theories interfered with recovery efforts in North Carolina. It wasn't a one-off, experts say.
Lauren Rosenthal and Zahra Hirji - Bloomberg
When recovery workers with the US Federal Emergency Management Agency arrived in Boone, North Carolina, after Hurricane Helene and began setting up temporary housing in a local park, it prompted a backlash in the storm-wracked town: "We had folks that were literally protesting FEMA out at the site," says Tim Futrelle, Boone's mayor.
/jlne.ws/3NOHSaS
Texas Sued New Mexico Over Rio Grande Water. Now the States are Fighting the Federal Government; After the Supreme Court sided with the federal government in the long-standing Texas v. New Mexico case, the parties are going back to the drawing board. The case hinges on the federal government's role in fulfilling inter-state water agreements.
Martha Pskowski - Inside Climate News
/jlne.ws/4hsc3lt
Hindered Wildfire Responses, Costlier Agriculture Likely If Trump Dismantles NOAA, Experts Warn; Many industries rely on the agency's weather and climate data. Even a small gap in its operations could raise food prices and drastically disrupt how people navigate the West's changing climate.
Jake Bolster - Inside Climate News
/jlne.ws/4f4ESmv
Big Oil Sees Brazil Becoming Major Global Hub for Clean Jet Fuel; Companies backed by Shell and Mubadala mull new SAF plants; Brazil has cheap feedstock, makes low carbon intensity fuels
Dayanne Sousa and Clarice Couto - Bloomberg
/jlne.ws/4hte7d5
China's Top Solar Firms Post Big Losses as Oversupply Persists
Bloomberg
/jlne.ws/3NNRdzB
The US is on the cusp of a lithium boom to loosen China's grip on EVs
Catherine Boudreau - Business Insider
/jlne.ws/3YvUSa2
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| Banks, Brokers & Managed Funds | | The latest from banks, brokers, hedge funds and managed futures | Ex-Nomura Worker Arrested for Attempted Murder of Clients: Kyodo
Takashi Nakamichi and Nao Sano - Bloomberg
A former Nomura Securities Co. employee has been arrested on suspicion of robbery and attempted murder of an elderly couple who were clients of the brokerage, Kyodo reported, the latest negative headlines to hit the Japanese financial firm. The 29-year-old man worked for the unit of Nomura Holdings Inc. when the alleged crime took place in Hiroshima in July, Kyodo reported, citing an unidentified person involved in the investigation.
/jlne.ws/48BpyeU
Nomura Trader Departs, Executives Return Pay After Scandal
Takashi Nakamichi and Nao Sano - Bloomberg
The Nomura Holdings Inc. trader at the heart of a market manipulation scandal has left the firm, while its chief executive officer and other top managers are giving up part of their pay to take accountability. The employee who manipulated Japanese government bond futures is no longer with Nomura, according to an official at the firm who asked not to be identified discussing a private matter. CEO Kentaro Okuda will voluntarily return 20% of his pay for two months, a Nomura statement showed on Thursday. Deputy President Yutaka Nakajima and several other executives at the firm's domestic securities unit will take similar or smaller cuts.
/jlne.ws/48sJOz6
Schwab to Significantly Expand Its 24-Hour Trading Capabilities
Anna Lyudvig - Traders Magazine
Charles Schwab has announced it will begin piloting additional access to the overnight trading session by expanding to include stocks in the S&P 500, Nasdaq-100 and hundreds of additional exchange-traded funds (ETFs) available for trading 24 hours a day, five days a week (24/5). James Kostulias "Our goal has always been to offer and expand access to 24/5 trading in a responsible way that takes into account client demand, the evolving dynamics of the overnight trading market, and - importantly - providing clients with the full library of Schwab's educational content and 24-hour support to help them balance the opportunities and risks, as well as the unique considerations of overnight trading," James Kostulias, Managing Director and Head of Trading Services at Charles Schwab, said in a statement.
/jlne.ws/3Yp3e3r
Archax to Buy Spanish Broker King & Shaxson Capital Markets to Expand in Europe; Completion of the acquisition is subject to regulatory approval in Spain.
Will Canny - CoinDesk
Archax, a U.K.-regulated crypto exchange and custodian, agreed to buy Spanish broker King & Shaxson Capital Markets (KSCM) to expand in the European Union as the trading bloc's Markets in Crypto-Assets Regulation (MiCA) rules take effect. Completion of the deal is subject to regulatory approval in Spain, the London-based company said Thursday. The value of the transaction was not disclosed.
/jlne.ws/3NNpJKh
Ex-JPMorgan Adviser Agrees to Temporarily Halt Client Poaching
Erik Larson - Bloomberg
A former JPMorgan Chase & Co. private client adviser who jumped ship to Wells Fargo & Co. agreed to temporarily stop soliciting clients from his former book worth more than $250 million while an arbitration is underway. Gary Carruthers, who resigned in September, was sued by JPMorgan last week after persuading more than two dozen former clients with $24.3 million in assets under management to transfer their business to Wells Fargo. JPMorgan alleges he violated contracts barring him from soliciting clients for a year after leaving.
/jlne.ws/40m7C5O
Pimco Raises $2 Billion for Asset-Based Private Lending Strategy
Laura Benitez and Silla Brush - Bloomberg
/jlne.ws/3YsU1ab
Deutsche Borse's Jens Hachmeister: 'Spotify' digital assets infrastructure to future-proof Europe's markets
Laurie McAughtry - Euromoney
/jlne.ws/3Au04mP
SocGen Beat Fueled by Securities Trading, French Retail Recovery; Lender beats estimates in all operating units in third quarter; CEO Krupa struggled to win over investors with his strategy
James Regan - Bloomberg
/jlne.ws/3Ahp8h1
Societe Generale's Slawomir Krupa shakes up leadership as profits rise; French lender's chief reshuffles management as company posts higher revenues from dealmaking
Adrienne Klasa and Ortenca Aliaj - Financial Times
/jlne.ws/3AkpnYB
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| Work & Management | | Stories impacting work and more about management ideas, practices and trends. | Marathon Oil Cuts 500 Houston Jobs Ahead of ConocoPhillips Takeover
Kevin Crowley and Joe Carroll - Bloomberg
Marathon Oil Corp. warned of a "mass layoff" involving more than 500 employees at its Houston headquarters as part of the $17 billion takeover by ConocoPhillips, according to state filings. The affected workers "may reasonably expect to experience a permanent loss of employment during the 12-month period" following closure of the transaction, Marathon said in a notice to the the Texas Workforce Commission released on Wednesday.
/jlne.ws/3NQ1ICx
Changing jobs is becoming 'less profitable,' limiting worker turnover
Josh Schafer - Yahoo Finance
American workers are no longer seeing large pay bumps when jumping from job to job as activity in the labor market continues to cool. New data from ADP released Wednesday showed that the median year-over-year pay increase for job switchers fell to 6.2% in October, well off its pandemic recovery peak of 16.4%. The gap between pay gains for job changers and those of job stayers, which grew at a 4.6% pace in October, is now at its lowest level since ADP began tracking the data in October 2019.
/jlne.ws/3YKbhsL
The Little Sins We Commit at Work-and the Bosses Who Are Cracking Down; Companies are strictly enforcing rules to show who's in charge and control expenses
Callum Borchers - The Wall Street Journal
Ever used the office printer for your kid's homework assignment or scrolled Facebook Marketplace during an all-hands Zoom meeting? Fair warning: Your employer may be paying close attention. Big companies on the hunt for efficiency are deploying perk police to bust employees for seemingly minor infractions that, by the letter of company law, can result in termination. "We have had lots of requests for new controls," says Katie MacKillop, U.S. director of Payhawk, which administers company credit-card accounts and watches for misuse.
/jlne.ws/4ef5Iam
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| Wellness Exchange | | An Exchange of Health and Wellness Information | Shortage of IV fluids leads to canceled surgeries
Sydney Lupkin - NPR
Surgery was Katie Adase's best chance at finally getting a diagnosis for the chronic pelvic pain that has been plaguing her for years. "I couldn't do laundry or walk to the grocery store or even cook without having to then take like three or four hours to lay in bed with a heating pad," says the 26-year-old biologist. "It's been really scary." But in October, a few days before her surgical procedure was scheduled to take place, a nurse called. The surgery was off because there wasn't enough IV fluid to proceed.
/jlne.ws/4e9zbSU
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| Regions | | Stories of local interest from the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions | Hong Kong's First De-SPAC Listing Still Leaves Sector in Limbo
Dave Sebastian - Bloomberg
After Hong Kong's first listing of a firm acquired by a special purpose acquisition company, a long line of such deal vehicles in the city continues to struggle to find targets or receive regulatory approval. Singapore-based Synagistics Ltd., a digital-commerce platform backed by a unit of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., went public Wednesday after combining with HK Acquisition Ltd. The debut was the first since Hong Kong allowed in 2022 listings of SPACs, shell companies that seek to bring private businesses public.
/jlne.ws/3YvW514
Nigeria's Biggest Bank Opens HK Branch to Capture Asia Trade; Access Bank targets to break even in HK in three years; Bank to focus first on trade finance, then commercial banking
Kiuyan Wong and Jennifer Zabasajja - Bloomberg
Nigeria's biggest bank is opening a new branch in Hong Kong in its first step of Asian expansion. "Hong Kong is a pivot point as far as we are concerned into trade flows between Africa, China and the broader region," Jamie Simmonds, Access Bank UK founding chief executive officer, said in a Bloomberg Television interview Thursday. "The international arm is critical as we support the increasing footprint of our parent across Africa."
/jlne.ws/3NJcoCW
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