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John Lothian Newsletter
​ March 29, 2023 ​ "Irreverent, but never irrelevant"
 
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Hits & Takes
John Lothian & JLN Staff

The Global Digital Asset & Cryptocurrency Association announced the release of its Core Principles for the Digital Asset Industry. The steering committee that developed the core principles included J. Christopher Giancarlo, Maggie Sklar, Renata Szkoda and Dawn Stump

According to the Global DCA, the "Core Principles are created to set minimum standards and best practices for the conduct of centralized digital asset businesses that handle customer (or user) digital assets and funds and cover." The core principles include: strong governance and system of checks and balances, protection of customer assets, enterprise risk, management and stress testing, liquidity reserves, proper books and records and annual independent audit.

It used to be that Sam Bankman-Fried was in the news every day because he had a great public relations team working for him and because there was great buzz around the boy wonder who had amassed the greatest fortune under 30 since Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. Journalists would convince their editors they had to travel to the Bahamas to get the firsthand story about SBF in his beanbag chair and with his wild hair. Well, these days SBF stays in the news for other reasons and most of them are not good. Today he is in the news for yet another indictment, this time for bribing foreign officials in order to get frozen funds released. The Financial Times reports "US charges Sam Bankman-Fried with bribing Chinese officials" with the subheadline "Prosecutors allege FTX founder made multimillion-dollar payment to help unfreeze accounts."

If Sam's goal was to stay in the news, then he is accomplishing his goal. However, the cost is pretty steep.

The Financial Times is not the New York Post. You can tell because a story in the Financial Times reported "First German Leopard 2 tanks delivered to Ukraine" rather than "First German Leopard 2 Tanks Spotted in Ukraine."

Here is another reason to ban TikTok: a Norwegian arms manufacturer said that a TikTok data center was eating all the electricity in the region, preventing the company from keeping up for the surging demand for ammunition, Business Insider reported.

JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon is going to do something he really does not want to do, which is give sworn under oath testimony about the Jeffrey Epstein lawsuits, the Financial Times reported. He tried his best to get out of it, but alas the law is for everyone.

It costs a lot to buy into all the connections you get from an Ivy League education. Bloomberg is reporting that Ivy League tuition, room and board prices are pushing $90,000 per year, with Yale up 4% and Dartmouth and Brown up 5%. Compare that to Purdue, which has kept tuition frozen for the last 12 years and who's out-of-state tuition is less than $30,000 per year and instate less than $10,000 per year. You need to add room and board on to the Purdue numbers, but they are still significantly below the Ivy League prices. All you have to do to go to Purdue is put up with yearly disappointments in the men's NCAA basketball tournament.

You don't hear much about the metaverse anymore. Maybe the crypto winter has put a freeze on this alternative universe. You would expect a company like Disney, which creates magical alternative worlds, to be in the forefront of such a great opportunity to expand its storytelling business. However, in the latest round of layoffs at Disney, which saw 7,000 people given pink slips, the 50 person metaverse team were all laid off. Right now, there is no magic in the metaverse kingdom for Disney. Even The Wall Street Journal is piling on with the metaverse is so over stories with a piece titled "The Metaverse Is Quickly Turning Into the Meh-taverse."

Are you looking for an investment that can really pop and has some real fizz? Well, Bloomberg has a story for you with the investment that will make you money, but keep you from celebrating too much lest you eat (drink) into your profits. The story is "Champagne Is Outperforming Gold and the S&P 500. Here's What to Buy."

Peak6 is always looking for new talented employees, but I really like their slogan for recruiting: Peak6 - We're in the business of what ought to be.

Peter Fusaro is starting a new position as managing director/head of decarbonization, ESG & Impact at Weild & Co.

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

*****

ESG Investing: Risk Mitigation, Alpha & Intentionality, April 11-12 in Chicago at London House, presents institutional investors and ESG leaders discussing the risk-return outcomes of environmental, social and governance investing. Pensions & Investments' ESG Investing Conference looks at how material ESG factors are being incorporated across institutional portfolios and which leading ESG data and analytics are being used in calculating risks and opportunities. Learn more and register here.~SAED

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Gain Small-Cap Exposure with Options on the Russell 2000 Index
Learn why small-cap indexes like the Russell 2000 have historically outperformed large-cap counterparts, and how an options strategy can help you manage your risk while expressing an opinion on the index.



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CME Group's Terry Duffy Reflects on Career, CME Civic Leadership and Dreams for Exchange Group
JohnLothianNews.com

John Lothian News interviewed Terry Duffy, the longtime CME Group chairman, who has served as CEO since 2016, at the FIA's International Futures Industry Conference in Boca Raton, Florida. We asked him about his recent interview with ICE's podcast, about CME's corporate citizenship and how that relates to the issues Chicago is facing and even his wife's recent carjacking.

Watch the video »

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Ken Fisher Boosts Wall Street West With $197 Billion Texas Shift
Shelly Hagan and Suzanne Woolley - Bloomberg
Ken Fisher made a serious investment when he moved his firm north from California to Washington seeking a friendlier business climate to house its rapid expansion. Now, just years after settling into a scenic wooded campus in Camas, just across the river from Portland, Oregon, the billionaire money manager is again shifting the headquarters of Fisher Investments, this time south to a Dallas suburb.
/jlne.ws/3lYH1tA

***** You would think someone named Fisher would want to live by the seashore instead of in the middle of Texas. But he is running away from high taxes to go live the life of high cotton in Texas.

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Credit Suisse sale 'forever impairs' ability of banks to issue AT1s, investors warn; Additional tier 1 bond market faces 'risk premium repricing' in wake of Swiss bank's debt being written down ahead of equity
Nikou Asgari and Owen Walker and Harriet Clarfelt - Financial Times
Some banks will struggle to issue a form of risky bonds used to bolster their capital and others will pay a much higher price for them after similar debt held by Credit Suisse was wiped out in its forced sale, investors have warned. Swiss regulators' decision to write down $17bn worth of Credit Suisse's additional tier 1 (AT1) bonds as part of the bank's purchase by UBS rather than wipe out shareholders has called into question the future viability of the $260bn segment of debt markets.
/jlne.ws/3M0GPVr

*****Maybe the investors should just price that risk into the bonds they buy? The binary element of having your investment wiped out does present a different kind of risk.~JJL

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Russia Says Crop Titan Cargill Will Stop Exporting Its Grain; Ministry doesn't see move impacting overall Russian shipments; Cargill decision to take effect in coming crop year, RBC says
Aine Quinn, Anuradha Raghu and Megan Durisin - Bloomberg
Russia said top agricultural commodities trader Cargill Inc. will stop exporting its grain, adding to uncertainty over the future of Black Sea crop shipments. As the biggest wheat exporter, Russian grain is vital to global crop trade and food supplies. A bumper harvest there last year helped wheat futures drop more than 40% from a record reached just after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Although Cargill is a big exporter of Russian wheat and a huge Western crop merchant, the government said the firm's decision shouldn't affect overall shipments from the country.
/jlne.ws/40H1xxJ

***** Someone will want Russia's grain and someone will find a way to ship it.~JJL

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Tuesday's Top Three
Our most read item Tuesday was the CFTC's announcement, CFTC Charges Binance and Its Founder, Changpeng Zhao, with Willful Evasion of Federal Law and Operating an Illegal Digital Asset Derivatives Exchange. Second was [[https://jlne.ws/3ZlPK6W|Binance rejects U.S. charges of violating trading rules, manipulating markets, from Forkast. Third was Bloomberg's Is Coffee Bringing People Back to the Office?

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27,266 pages; 243,938 edits
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John Lothian News (JLN) is the news division of John J. Lothian & Company, Inc. (JJLCO). The online media and financial services firm is staffed by derivatives industry, journalism and technology professionals.
 
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Lead Stories
UBS Brings Back Former CEO Sergio Ermotti After Credit Suisse Deal; Ralph Hamers steps down as Swiss lender moves into a new era
Margot Patrick and Serena Ng - The Wall Street Journal
UBS Group AG said Sergio Ermotti will return as chief executive officer to tackle the integration of Credit Suisse Group AG, less than two weeks after regulators engineered a shotgun marriage of the Swiss banking giants. Mr. Ermotti led UBS for nine years until 2020 and is credited with restoring the bank to health after a government bailout in 2008. He will succeed current CEO Ralph Hamers, who has run the bank for the past three years, on April 5.
/jlne.ws/3ZoQjwO

***** Here is The New York Times version of this story.~JJL

US charges Sam Bankman-Fried with bribing Chinese officials; Prosecutors allege FTX founder made multimillion-dollar payment to help unfreeze accounts
Scott Chipolina and Joe Miller - Financial Times
The US has accused former FTX chief executive Sam Bankman-Fried of paying a $40mn bribe to one or more Chinese government officials in a revised indictment filed in federal court in Manhattan on Tuesday. Prosecutors allege Bankman-Fried sent the bribe in cryptocurrency to Chinese officials in order to regain access to trading accounts that had been frozen by law enforcement in the country. The accounts were linked to Alameda Research, FTX's sister company.
/jlne.ws/3ZxY6IU

Cboe Australia completes technology migration alongside launch of Cboe BIDS Australia; Technology migration follows Cboe's acquisition of Chi-X Australia in 2021 and will aid expansion into Australia and Asia-Pacific, while Cboe BIDS Australia becomes first new launch post-migration.
Wesley Bray - The Trade
Global market infrastructure and tradable products provider Cboe Global Markets successfully migrated Cboe Australia to the Cboe technology platform on 27 March. Cboe Australia, which was formerly Chi-X Australia, was acquired by Cboe Global Markets in July 2021 and then later rebranded as Cboe Australia in February 2022.
/jlne.ws/3LXoJUn

Binance hid extensive links to China for several years; Company documents show crypto exchange relied on country long after it said it had left in 2017
Scott Chipolina - Financial Times
Binance hid substantial links to China for several years, contradicting executives' claims that the crypto exchange left the country after a clampdown on the industry in late 2017, according to internal company documents seen by the Financial Times.
/jlne.ws/3lOW4Ge

A Rapid-Finance World Must Ready for a Slow-Motion Banking Crisis; Though the Fed and FDIC have stopped contagion from SVB for now, smaller banks could face pressure for years to come
Greg Ip - The Wall Street Journal
In recent decades financial crises have tended to be fast-moving and violent. They usually revolve around a handful of companies or countries, and often climax over a weekend, before Asian markets open. That template is grounds for hope that the worst of the current turmoil may have passed with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank and the forced merger of Credit Suisse with UBS Group AG this month, as well as the federal backstops implemented in response to these events.
/jlne.ws/3TUS1oH

Binance Crackdown Threatens US Trading Firms, Spooks Market; CFTC complaint this week signaled scrutiny of Binance ties; Derivatives watchdog doesn't identify companies in lawsuit
Austin Weinstein - Bloomberg
A top US regulator's case against Binance Holdings Ltd. is mushrooming well beyond Changpeng Zhao's company and rattling American firms that officials say worked with the exchange to trade crypto. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission's scrutiny of arrangements that three trading firms had with the exchange has already sent chills across an industry, which relies on US licenses to make markets for securities. The firms weren't identified in the CFTC's lawsuit.
/jlne.ws/3KggsJI

UBS chief steps down 'in the interest of Switzerland' after Credit Suisse deal
Simon Foy - The Telegraph
UBS has drafted in the chief executive who helped it recover from the financial crisis to steer the bank through the takeover of Credit Suisse. Sergio Ermotti, who led the Swiss lender for nine years until 2020, will replace Ralph Hamers less than two weeks after regulators engineered an emergency takeover of UBS' fiercest rival.
/jlne.ws/3K16wCS

Sergio Ermotti returns as UBS chief to steer Credit Suisse takeover; Ralph Hamers to step down after agreeing $3.25bn rescue deal
Owen Walker - Financial Times
UBS has brought back Sergio Ermotti as chief executive to steer its takeover of Credit Suisse, replacing Ralph Hamers less than two weeks after regulators orchestrated the rescue deal. Ermotti, who was UBS chief executive for nine years before stepping down in 2020, will start on April 5, the Swiss bank said on Wednesday. Hamers will remain as an adviser during a transition period.
/jlne.ws/40GWflR

Sergio Ermotti returns as UBS CEO to steer Credit Suisse takeover
John Revill - Reuters
UBS Group AG has rehired Sergio Ermotti as CEO to steer its massive takeover of neighbour Credit Suisse - a surprise move to take advantage of the Swiss banker's experience rebuilding the bank after the global financial crisis. The trader turned corporate problem fixer faces the tough challenge of laying off thousands of staff, cutting back Credit Suisse's investment bank and reassuring the world's wealthy that UBS remains a safe harbour for their cash.
/jlne.ws/3zgGl6c

The US indictment against SBF grows thicker
Financial Times
This week, Manhattan federal judge Lewis Kaplan approved a request by Sam Bankman-Fried's lawyers at Cohen & Gresser to allow their client access to a list of "preapproved websites" as he awaits his fate on house arrest. We're honoured to be included on the list, among a handful of our esteemed competitors, as well as DoorDash and Uber Eats. We hope the FTX founder has been blessed with FT premium so he can access Due Diligence.
/jlne.ws/3TTMdLR

SBF Cut Off From His Favorite Toys Under New Proposed Bail Conditions
Kyle Barr - Gizmodo
The judge in FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried's ongoing fraud case previously suggested the best way to stop the defendant from accessing the internet was to throw him in jail. Former CEO of failed crypto exchange FTX Sam Bankman-Fried was already ordered to live every millennial's nightmare and move back in with his parents. Now, prosecutors have laid out how SBF is being grounded, curtailing his ability to access the internet or even play any online video games.
/jlne.ws/3zhtnVw

Weapons firm says it can't meet soaring demand for artillery shells because a TikTok data center is eating all the electricity
Lindsay Dodgson - Business Insider
A Norwegian arms manufacturer said that a TikTok data center is eating all the electricity in the region, meaning that the company cannot keep up with the surging global demand for ammunition. Experts are increasingly commenting on the massive demands of big tech companies, and how energy usage by their data centers is causing issues for other industries.
/jlne.ws/42P73A3

U.S. banking regulator has begun misconduct probes in Signature, SVB failures
Chris Prentice and Pete Schroeder - Reuters
A U.S. banking regulator is investigating potential misconduct on the part of executives and others involved in the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairman Martin Gruenberg said in prepared testimony to Congress that the agency had begun investigations into "directors, officers, professional service providers and other institution-affiliated parties of the banks for the losses they caused to the banks and for their misconduct in the management of the banks."
/jlne.ws/42ILmBX

Inside North Korea's oil smuggling: triads, ghost ships and underground banks
Christian Davies in Seoul, Primrose Riordan and Chan Ho-him
Now, a joint investigation by the Financial Times and the Royal United Services Institute think-tank shows how business figures in east Asia linked to organised crime have helped facilitate illicit deliveries of hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil. Documents show that the Unica conducted deliveries to North Korea while co-owned by Gary To, a Hong Kong oil trader with links to the triads, a syndicate of organised crime groups with roots in southern China.
/jlne.ws/3G0RYBE

Citigroup Adds More Sterling Traders After Revenue Boost From 2022's Truss Turmoil; Wall Street firm estimated to make over $200 million last year; Big banks made $3 billion from the trade last year, Vali says
William Shaw - Bloomberg
Citigroup Inc. is bolstering its sterling rates desk after its traders saw revenue more than double last year. Citigroup plans to hire three more junior traders after outperforming during the market turmoil that followed the UK government's mini-budget in September, Su Liu, head of sterling trading within the rates division, said in an interview. Traders made in excess of $200 million last year on gilts and sterling swaps and inflation, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the information is private.
/jlne.ws/3lSaeGK

U.S. colleges face loss of racial diversity if race-conscious admissions banned, study shows
Gabriella Borter - Reuters
If the U.S. Supreme Court bans the consideration of race in college admissions, enrollment of minority groups at selective colleges will likely stall or decline - even if the schools give more weight to factors such as class, a new study found. The conservative-leaning court will issue rulings this spring in cases questioning the legality of race-conscious admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.
/jlne.ws/40M8jSG

U.S. FDIC tells Signature Bank's crypto clients to close accounts by April 5
Reuters
The U.S. Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC) has informed collapsed lender Signature Bank's crypto clients that they have until April 5 to close their accounts and move their money. The deposits in question were not part of a rescue deal arranged with Flagstar Bank, a unit of New York Community Bancorp, earlier this month. "Flagstar's bid did not include about $4 billion in deposits related to Signature's digital-asset business," an FDIC spokesperson said.
/jlne.ws/3G2FQjH

Warehouse workers around the world are being told to kick bags of nickel to make sure they're not filled with stones like JPMorgan recently discovered
Lakshmi Varanasi - Business Insider
The mega-bank had stored bags of what was presumed to be 54 metric tons of nickel at a warehouse in the Dutch city of Rotterdam. Yet when the bags were weighed earlier this month, it turned out that they were filled with stones instead of nickel briquettes. Since then, the tale has only continued, with warehouse workers around the world frantically checking tens of thousands of two-ton bags of nickel - by kicking them, in some instances - to ensure they're the real deal, Bloomberg reported.
/jlne.ws/40Od7r3

Banks face a tough choice over crypto; After the collapse of SVB, lenders are increasingly leery of digital assets
Brooke Masters - Financial Times
When First Citizens Bank agreed over the weekend to buy most of what is left of Silicon Valley Bank, there was one thing it absolutely did not want. Though SVB, whose March 10 failure shook the global banking sector, was best known for serving venture capitalists and techies, First Citizens' purchase agreement went out of its way to exclude cryptocurrencies and loans backed by crypto from the deal.
/jlne.ws/3KgoceN

Elon Musk and other tech experts call for 'pause' on advanced AI systems; More than 1,000 researchers and executives sign open letter to halt what they describe as a 'dangerous' arms race
Tim Bradshaw and Ian Johnston - Financial Times
Elon Musk and more than 1,000 tech researchers and executives have called for a six-month "pause" on the development of advanced artificial intelligence systems such as OpenAI's GPT to halt what they call a "dangerous" arms race. An open letter, published on Wednesday by the Future of Life Institute, a non-profit campaign group, had been signed by more than 1,100 individuals from across academia and the tech industry within hours of its publication.
/jlne.ws/3M1cqq3

JPMorgan chief Jamie Dimon to be interviewed under oath in Jeffrey Epstein lawsuits; Sworn testimony scheduled to take place behind closed doors in May as bank fights litigation
Joe Miller and Joshua Franklin - Financial Times
Jamie Dimon, the longtime chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, will be interviewed under oath over his bank's decision to retain the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein as a client, said people familiar with the matter. The sworn deposition, due to take place behind closed doors in May, is the latest development in two high-profile cases brought against the US bank by an alleged Epstein victim and by the US Virgin Islands, where the disgraced financier had a home.
/jlne.ws/42LX9PL



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Ukraine Invasion
News about the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and its military, economic, political and humanitarian impact
Russia claims to have shot down US 'smart bomb'
Maighna Nanu - The Telegraph
Russia claims to have shot down a "smart bomb" reportedly supplied to Ukrainian forces by the US to double Kyiv's battlefield firing range. The Ground-launched Small Diameter Bomb (GLSDB) is fired on a rocket and then glides to its target, guided by GPS satellite, at 150 km range, around double that of the US-supplied Himars that Kyiv deployed so successfully last year.
/jlne.ws/3zm6LTL

Disney joins Microsoft and Snapchat as latest big-name company to slink away from metaverse ambitions
Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez - Fortune
The Walt Disney Company's once-grand plans for the metaverse have been quietly shelved, and the media and entertainment giant has joined other big companies in laying off employees dedicated to the technology, according to the Wall Street Journal. The around-50-person next-generation storytelling and consumer experiences division was created under former CEO Bob Chapek, who once described the metaverse as "the next great storytelling frontier," according to the Journal. All of the team's employees were laid off in the company's most recent round of layoffs-about 7,000 people-sources told the Journal.
/jlne.ws/3FYNj3g

Russian regiment loses 'large proportion' of tanks in 'ill-disciplined attack' on frontline
Joe Barnes - The Telegraph
A Russian formation created for the Ukraine war has suffered heavy losses due to a lack of discipline and low morale, with one regiment losing a "large proportion of its tanks," according to British intelligence. The 10th Tank Regiment is part of the 3rd Army Corps, the first major new Russian formation formed to support the invasion. In recent weeks, Moscow has switched its focus to Avdiivka in the Donetsk region, hoping to encircle the Ukrainian troops defending it after having so far failed to capture nearby Bakhmut.
/jlne.ws/3JWhJnW

First German Leopard 2 tanks delivered to Ukraine; Further boost for Kyiv after recent tank consignments from Poland, Spain and the UK
Laura Pitel - Financial Times
The first consignment of German Leopard 2 tanks has reached Ukraine, offering a symbolic and a practical boost for Kyiv as it battles to repel Russian forces. Germany's defence ministry said 18 of its modern Leopard 2A6 fighting vehicles reached Ukraine on Monday, along with two armoured recovery vehicles, ammunition and spare parts.
/jlne.ws/3nyaVVZ

Kyiv urges Russians not to adopt Ukraine's 'stolen' children
Reuters
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk urged Russians on Tuesday not to adopt children who she said were "stolen" in Ukraine during the war and deported to Russia. The war that Russia has been waging on its neighbour for 13 months now has seen millions of people displaced, including families and children. The real number of children who have been forcefully deported to Russia is impossible to establish.
/jlne.ws/3FVG5NB

Even Putin's allies are turning against him
William Nattrass - The Telegraph
Vladimir Putin has announced that Russian tactical nuclear weapons will be stationed in Belarus. This new sabre-rattling was clearly intended to intimidate the West, and the free states of eastern Europe in particular; once deployed, these weapons systems would threaten a swathe of the continent from the Baltic States in the north, to Romania and Moldova in the south east. But there is also another motivation behind the decision. As even his old allies lose faith in the Kremlin's power, Putin is becoming deeply paranoid.
/jlne.ws/3KjCcoo








Exchanges, OTC & Clearing
Top news from exchanges, clearing, settlement and trade execution facilities
Cboe Australia Completes Technology Migration and Launches its First New Australian Offering
Cboe Global Markets
Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (Cboe: CBOE), a leading provider of global market infrastructure and tradable products, announced it successfully migrated Cboe Australia to Cboe technology on March 27, 2023. Cboe Australia, formerly Chi-X Australia, was acquired by Cboe Global Markets in July 2021 and rebranded as Cboe Australia in February 2022.
/jlne.ws/3JTDt42

MEMX Options Aims to Add Value to the Exchange Landscape
Anna Lyudvig - Traders Magazine
MEMX Options, a soon-to-be-launched options exchange, is planing to offer dynamic risk controls, according to MEMX CEO Jonathan Kellner. "This risk management functionality will allow firms the ability to dynamically manage their risk exposure on our Exchange and should help facilitate more competitive markets as a result," he told Traders Magazine.
/jlne.ws/3KfAqnZ

Press Release No. 1; News about Adani Enterprises Limited
NSE
The media had reports that The Adani Group wants you to believe it has repaid all its loans against promoters. The Exchange, in order to verify the accuracy or otherwise of the information reported in the media and to inform the market place so that the interest of the investors is safeguarded, had written to the company on March 28, 2023. A copy of the clarification is available on the NSE website (http://www.nseindia.com) under (List > Corporate filings > Announcements)
/jlne.ws/3nuYE4Q

Shanghai International Energy Exchange Has Released its Circular on Optimizing the Trade at Settlement (TAS) Orders
Shanghai International Energy Exchange
Shanghai International Energy Exchange has released its Circular on Optimizing the Trade at Settlement (TAS) Orders as follows: To whom it may concern: To meet market needs and improve market efficiency, the Shanghai International Energy Exchange (INE) will make the following adjustments to the Trade at Settlement (TAS) orders, as from 8:55 p.m. on April 10, 2023.
/jlne.ws/3FYQNCZ

Chess Replacement Project - Asic Investigation
ASX
ASIC has confirmed to ASX that it has commenced an investigation into suspected contraventions of the ASIC Act 2001 and the Corporations Act 2001 in relation to the CHESS replacement program.
/jlne.ws/351gPmZ




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Fintech
A roundup of today's market tech news and a look at tomorrow's disruptors
Sarna Receives Funding from Simplex Ventures, Motivate Ventures and Wedbush to Disrupt Digital Brokerage Space
Silicon Technology Powering Business
Sarna, a trading and investing platform, has today announced new seed investments totaling over $2.5 million from venture capital firms with deep experience in fintech and financial services. The infusion of capital will help the firm bring its mobile investing app, currently in beta, to market in the United States this summer and in Europe at the end of 2023.
/jlne.ws/3M5dGIV

Exclusive: Tax saving fintech, Playbook, raises $7m
Lucinda Shen - Axios
Playbook, a fintech automating tax savings across investment accounts, raised $7 million in Series A funding, the company tells Axios exclusively. Why it matters: Consumer-facing wealth management startups, including roboadvisors, have fallen out of favor among venture investors. Playbook is looking to defy that trend by focusing on tax optimization across multiple accounts.
/jlne.ws/3G0SMXq

Fintech's Fraud Problem Will End up Being the Consumer's Problem
Dan DeFrancesco - Business Insider
Move fast and break things. It's a phrase you've probably heard if you've spent time with anyone in the startup industry. While its origins date back to the early days of Facebook, it wasn't long before the phrase became a rallying cry to every two-bit tech entrepreneur with an idea.
/jlne.ws/40Oc4r3

Quantile enhances counterparty risk optimisation service to support SwapAgent FX Forwards; The move will help simplify optimisation hedge proposals, increase efficiency in the booking process and help clients better manage risk.
Wesley Bray - The Trade
Portfolio optimisation services provider Quantile has enhanced its counterparty risk optimisation service for foreign exchange by supporting SwapAgent FX Forwards. According to Quantile, the move will significantly simplify optimisation hedge proposals, improve efficiency in the booking process and help clients to better manage risk across SwapAgent and non-SwapAgent portfolios.
/jlne.ws/40qpauy



Vermiculus



Cybersecurity
Top stories for cybersecurity
Microsoft's latest use for GPT4: Stopping hackers; The tech giant unveiled new cybersecurity software, escalating the arms race between defenders and hackers
Gerrit De Vynck - The Washington Post
Microsoft's rapid campaign to integrate new artificial intelligence technology into its broad range of products continued Tuesday as the tech giant announced a new cybersecurity "co-pilot" meant to help companies track and defend against hacking attempts, upping the ante in the never-ending arms race between hackers and the cybersecurity professionals trying to keep them at bay.
/jlne.ws/431CUxV

North Korean hackers play the 'long con' by targeting experts
Michelle Ye Hee Lee and Tim Starks - The Washington Post
Bruce Klingner, a longtime Northeast Asia specialist, once received a message from a verified email address of Korea analyst Aidan Foster-Carter that seemed innocuous: Would Klingner review a paper by nuclear policy expert Jamie Kwong? Klingner agreed, and began exchanging emails with "Kwong" about her paper. Then came an email with a fishy link, which he forwarded to his IT team. It was malware, and the entire exchange was a trap; neither Foster-Carter nor Kwong had contacted Klingner.
/jlne.ws/3nsamNI

How Does Data Literacy Enhance Data Security?
Sam Rehman and Taryn Hess - Dark Reading
The shift to cloud computing is perhaps the most significant tech trend of recent years, with the public cloud computing market expected to be worth more than $800 billion by 2025. From decreasing IT costs to increasing opportunities for innovation, the cloud holds many benefits for companies across every industry. However, many employees are unprepared to securely set up cloud applications or unaware of how poor configuration could affect data security. One of the main reasons why organizations struggle to secure their cloud environments is a companywide lack of data literacy.
/jlne.ws/3noBLjr

Microsoft Puts ChatGPT to Work on Automating Cybersecurity
Ryan Naraine - Security Week
Microsoft on Wednesday rolled out an AI-powered security analysis tool to automate incident response and threat hunting tasks, showcasing a security use-case for the popular chatbot developed by OpenAI. The new tool, called Microsoft Security Copilot, is powered by OpenAI's newest GPT-4 model and will be trained on data from Redmond's massive trove of telemetry signals from enterprise deployments and Windows endpoints.
/jlne.ws/3zgAg9O

Exxon's Climate Opponents Were Infiltrated by Massive Hacking-for-Hire Operation; Charity of Rockefeller heirs among groups targeted by hackers; oil giant not accused of wrongdoing
Christopher M. Matthews - The Wall Street Journal
In the midst of perpetrating what federal prosecutors say was a massive corporate hacking campaign, Israeli private detective Aviram Azari in 2017 received welcome news. A group of hackers in India wrote him to say they had successfully infiltrated the email and social-media accounts of a group of environmental activists campaigning against Exxon Mobil Corp.
/jlne.ws/42H07Fc





Cryptocurrencies
Top stories for cryptocurrencies
FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Charged With $40 Million Bribery Scheme
Eileen AJ Connelly - The Wrap
FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried paid 10s of millions of dollars in bribes to at least one Chinese government official, the Justice Department charged in a new indictment of the disgraced crypto CEO. The federal government claims that after bank accounts held by Bankman-Fried's hedge fund, Alameda Research, were frozen by Chinese police around November 2021, he and others "directed and caused the transfer" of at least $40 million in cryptocurrency "intended for the benefit of one or more Chinese government officials in order to influence and induce them" to unfreeze the accounts, CNBC reported.
/jlne.ws/3JVFyMz

Binance's On-Chain Balance Stands at $64B, Nansen Data Shows
Sage D. Young - CoinDesk
Binance's on-chain balance remains high, despite U.S. regulators charging Binance for violating U.S federal law this past week and Forbes' allegations last month that Binance cd shuffled assets in a similar manner as FTX. Data from blockchain analytics firm Nansen shows that Binance's on-chain portfolio currently stands at $64 billion. USDT, BTC, ETH, BUSD and BNB are Binance's largest holdings, making up roughly 81% of the crypto exchange's total balance at press time.
/jlne.ws/3lJGITH

Binance sees US$627 mln in net Ethereum outflow following CFTC lawsuit
Timmy Shen - Forkast
Binance saw about US$627 million in net Ethereum-related withdrawals in the 24 hours through Tuesday morning, data from blockchain analytics platform Nansen showed. This followed the Monday lawsuit filed by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission against the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange for alleged violations of derivatives rules.
/jlne.ws/3ze6PF4

What the Bank of England's Stablecoins Regime Could Look Like
Camomile Shumba - CoinDesk
The U.K.'s central bank wants to protect citizens against the collapse of large stablecoin issuers by updating an existing regulatory regime - a move which is imminent. Global standard setters are working on norms for stablecoins, especially as regulators fear that they will get more entangled with the broader financial system. The U.K. is joining other economies like the U.S., European Union and Hong Kong, which are also working to set up targeted regulations for crypto pegged to the value of other assets.
/jlne.ws/42GQN4a

MicroStrategy Repays Silvergate Loan, Spends $150M Buying More Bitcoin
Stacy Elliott - Decrypt
Microstrategy Acquired About 6,455 Bitcoins For About $150 Million In Cash
Software company MicroStrategy, the largest corporate holder of Bitcoin, has fully prepaid the $161 million outstanding balance on its $205 million loan from Silvergate Bank. By doing so, the company has ended its credit agreement with Silvergate and reclaimed the 34,619 BTC that was being held as collateral against the loan, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.
/jlne.ws/3zfH1bL

Stake.com: the Aussie gambling minnow that made it big on crypto
Oliver Barnes and Scott Chipolina - Financial Times
One morning last year, Australia's youngest billionaire Ed Craven woke up to the news that one of his celebrity partners, the rap star Drake, had won $38mn in Bitcoin gambling on his cryptocurrency betting site Stake.com. "That was a tough morning," recalled Craven. But on the whole, his business has been on a winning streak since the start of the pandemic thanks to wealthy gamblers from across the globe drawn to the anonymity of betting in crypto.
/jlne.ws/3zdw2zC

What the Binance CFTC Lawsuit Means for Crypto
Stacy Elliott - Decrypt
The Commodities Futures Trading Commission's enforcement action against Binance could shutter the crypto behemoth if the regulator's requests for injunctive relief and penalties stick-but there's a lot more to the Commission's lawsuit to unpack. The CFTC filed its lawsuit against Binance on Monday morning, which the company has said was "unexpected and disappointing," citing its ongoing cooperation with regulators. The company also said in its statement that it has invested heavily in its compliance team "to ensure we do not have U.S. users active on our platform."
/jlne.ws/3lOidV9

Crypto's Unfulfilled Dreams Get a Tailwind From U.S. Crackdown on Binance, Coinbase
Helene Braun - CoinDesk
A founding principle of this whole cryptocurrency experiment is to extol the benefits of decentralizing the financial system. "Governments are good at cutting off the heads of a centrally controlled" network, Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoin's creator, wrote in 2008. "But pure P2P [peer-to-peer] networks ... seem to be holding their own."
/jlne.ws/3zeCS7R

FTX's $45M Sequoia Sale Cleared, as Embed Divestment Delayed
Jack Schickler - CoinDesk
A Delaware bankruptcy judge has approved the $45 million sale of FTX's assets in Sequoia Capital Fund to the investment arm of Abu Dhabi, a Tuesday court filing shows. In a declaration requested by FTX on March 8, Judge John Dorsey declared that the sale to Al Nawwar Investments RSC Limited met the requirements of U.S. bankruptcy law, which sets restrictions to prevent unduly hasty divestment of assets.
/jlne.ws/40Iu1Hl

US Crypto Firms Eye Overseas Move Amid Regulatory Uncertainty
Jeff Wilser - CoinDEsk
I recently spoke with U.S. Senator Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), aka "the Crypto Queen," who wants to pass legislation that will bring regulatory clarity to the cryptocurrency space. She's frustrated it hasn't yet happened. "The failure of the United States Congress to enact policy is pushing the industry to other countries," she said. "Europe is ahead of us in terms of its regulatory framework. Australia and the U.K. are getting ahead of us. Switzerland is far ahead of us."
/jlne.ws/3zi6Bgu

Binance's BUSD Stablecoin Suffers $500M Outflows After CFTC Lawsuit
Shaurya Malwa - CoinDesk
Binance USD (BUSD), a stablecoin pegged to the U.S. dollar, endured over $500 million in outflows in the roughly 24 hours since a U.S. lawsuit was filed against Binance and CEO Changpeng Zhao, data from CryptoQuant shows. This rush to the exits is quite a bit smaller than that seen following the February crackdown on New York-based BUSD issuer Paxos by the New York Department of Financial Services and a Wells Notice of potential action from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Binance at that time processed over $2 billion in BUSD outflows.
/jlne.ws/40F1Dqd

North Korea Is Now Mining Crypto to Launder Its Stolen Loot
Andy Greenberg - Wired
In the Cryptocurrency ecosystem, coins have a story, tracked in the unchangeable blockchains underpinning their economy. The only exception, in some sense, is cryptocurrency that's been freshly generated by its owner's computational power. So it figures that North Korean hackers have begun adopting a new trick to launder the coins they steal from victims around the world: pay their dirty, stolen coins into services that allow them to mine innocent new ones.
/jlne.ws/3FZKFdQ

Disney joins Microsoft and Snapchat as latest big-name company to slink away from metaverse ambitions
Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez - Fortune
The Walt Disney Company's once-grand plans for the metaverse have been quietly shelved, and the media and entertainment giant has joined other big companies in laying off employees dedicated to the technology, according to the Wall Street Journal. The around-50-person next-generation storytelling and consumer experiences division was created under former CEO Bob Chapek, who once described the metaverse as "the next great storytelling frontier," according to the Journal. All of the team's employees were laid off in the company's most recent round of layoffs-about 7,000 people-sources told the Journal.
/jlne.ws/3FYNj3g

The Metaverse Is Quickly Turning Into the Meh-taverse; Disney and Microsoft both closed projects tied to the digital realm this month
Meghan Bobrowsky - The Wall Street Journal
The metaverse that was the hot thing in tech less than two years ago has cooled. Walt Disney Co. has shut down the division that was developing its metaverse strategies, The Wall Street Journal reported this week. Microsoft Corp. recently shut down a social virtual-reality platform it acquired in 2017. And Mark Zuckerberg, who renamed Facebook as Meta Platforms Inc. to signal his seriousness about the metaverse, focused more on artificial intelligence on an earnings call last month.
/jlne.ws/40qnPUy




FTSE



Politics
An overview of politics as it relates to the financial markets
Lawmakers Scold Fed Over Silicon Valley Bank Collapse; Federal Reserve official tells Senate panel that SVB failed because it didn't address clear risks
Andrew Ackerman, David Harrison and Andrew Duehren - The Wall Street Journal
Senators rebuked the Federal Reserve for failing to prevent the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank despite identifying risks beforehand, while the central bank's top regulator blamed the firm's executives for not fixing its problems. In an appearance Tuesday before the Senate Banking Committee, Michael Barr, the Fed's vice chairman for banking supervision, defended the actions of the Fed's supervisors and said the central bank had privately raised concerns with SVB before its March 10 collapse and had given the lender poor ratings for managing its risks.
/jlne.ws/3TPwr4N

Credit Suisse violated tax evasion deal, says US Senate committee; Probe reveals Swiss bank failed to disclose nearly $100mn in secret offshore accounts
Owen Walker - Financial Times
The US Senate finance committee has concluded that Credit Suisse violated a 2014 plea deal with the government for the Swiss bank's role in helping wealthy Americans evade tax. The latest two-year investigation by the committee found the bank - which is being taken over by rival UBS - failed to disclose nearly $100mn in secret offshore accounts belonging to a single family of US taxpayers.
/jlne.ws/3M5Ffln

US Justice Department Backs EU Push to Freeze Russian Bank Assets Over Ukraine; Lisa Monaco says the move is 'absolutely appropriate'; US tracking those who feed Russian war machine, Monaco says
Chris Strohm - Bloomberg
US Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco backed European efforts to freeze Russian Central Bank assets, as allied nations look to force Russia to pay to repair the damage caused by its invasion of Ukraine. Monaco said Group of 7 nations recently came together and "made a commitment to say we're going to keep immobilized those assets wherever they are frozen across the globe, in jurisdictions across the globe."
/jlne.ws/3zbAzCN

U.S. Treasury to Change Proposed Corporate-Ownership Reporting Form
Dylan Tokar - The Wall Street Journal
The U.S. Treasury Department said it would change its plans for rolling out a corporate-ownership database, after its release of a draft reporting form appeared to give companies a way to opt out of providing certain information and prompted criticism by lawmakers and advocacy groups. "FinCEN is working to issue an updated beneficial ownership information reporting form as soon as possible," Himamauli "Him" Das, the acting director of the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, said in a statement.
/jlne.ws/40DYGFI

U.S. colleges face loss of racial diversity if race-conscious admissions banned, study shows
Gabriella Borter - Reuters
If the U.S. Supreme Court bans the consideration of race in college admissions, enrollment of minority groups at selective colleges will likely stall or decline - even if the schools give more weight to factors such as class, a new study found. The conservative-leaning court will issue rulings this spring in cases questioning the legality of race-conscious admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina.
/jlne.ws/40M8jSG

Biden says White House response to banking stress is 'not over yet'
Andrea Shalal and Nandita Bose - Reuters
U.S. President Joe Biden said on Tuesday his administration had done what was possible to address the banking crisis with available authorities, but added the White House response on the matter was "not over yet." "We've done what we need to do executively. I feel confident things are settling out. The markets seem to be responding," Biden told reporters before departing North Carolina to return to the White House.
/jlne.ws/3ntaInb

The foolishness of the energy windfall tax has now been proven
The Telegraph
The impact of windfall taxes on North Sea oil and gas exploration has turned out to be every bit as disastrous as critics predicted. More than 90 per cent of offshore firms are cutting investment, driven away by a raid on profits and the uncertain future caused by political meddling. Successive governments, in pursuit of "net zero", have deliberately presided over the decline in North Sea extraction in order to reduce the UK's carbon emissions while switching to renewables.
/jlne.ws/3G48C3t

Russia's Economy Is Starting to Come Undone; Investment is down, labor is scarce, budget is squeezed. Oligarch: 'There will be no money next year'
Georgi Kantchev and Evan Gershkovich - The Wall Street Journal
The opening months of Russia's invasion of Ukraine last year drove an increase in oil and natural-gas prices that brought a windfall for Moscow. Those days are over. As the war continues into its second year and Western sanctions bite harder, Russia's government revenue is being squeezed and its economy has shifted to a lower-growth trajectory, likely for the long term.
/jlne.ws/40BGm0c

Western groups leaving Russia face obligatory donation to Moscow; Move raises pressure on companies that have not made a complete exit since Ukraine was invaded
Polina Ivanova and Anastasia Stognei - Financial Times
Every western company seeking to leave Russia and sell its assets in the country will now be obliged to make a direct donation to the Russian state, a commission on foreign investments in the country has said. The ruling, published on Monday, raises the pressure on western groups that have yet to make a complete exit from Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine began 13 months ago.
/jlne.ws/3U7pZq9

Russia says it has rerouted all oil exports hit by Western embargo
Vladimir Soldatkin and Olesya Astakhova - Reuters
Russia has successfully redirected all its crude oil exports affected by Western sanctions over Ukraine to "friendly" countries, Energy Minister Nikolai Shulginov said on Tuesday, while still a decline in oil and gas output this year. The West imposed wide-ranging sanctions, including an embargo on seaborne Russian oil imports, after Moscow sent its armed forces into Ukraine in February 2022.
/jlne.ws/40H3TNc



Regulation & Enforcement
Stories about regulation and the law.
William Hill to Pay Record $23.7 Million in Settlement With U.K. Gambling Commission; The settlement comes amid the regulator's anti-money-laundering crackdown
Richard Vanderford - The Wall Street Journal
Gambling company William Hill will pay about £19.2 million, equivalent to $23.7 million, in the U.K. Gambling Commission's largest ever enforcement action, as the regulator presses an aggressive crackdown on anti-money-laundering failures. Three William Hill units have entered into settlements over alleged anti-money-laundering failures and alleged problems ensuring responsible gambling, the Gambling Commission said Tuesday.
/jlne.ws/3zfiTpH

First German Leopard 2 tanks delivered to Ukraine; Further boost for Kyiv after recent tank consignments from Poland, Spain and the UK
Laura Pitel - Financial Times
The first consignment of German Leopard 2 tanks has reached Ukraine, offering a symbolic and a practical boost for Kyiv as it battles to repel Russian forces. Germany's defence ministry said 18 of its modern Leopard 2A6 fighting vehicles reached Ukraine on Monday, along with two armoured recovery vehicles, ammunition and spare parts.
/jlne.ws/3nyaVVZ

Former CFTC Chair: It's Not Correct That All Cryptocurrencies Are Securities
CoinDesk
J. Christopher Giancarlo, Willkie Farr & Gallagher Senior Counsel and Former CFTC Chairman, reacts to recent enforcement actions from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) claiming multiple cryptocurrencies are deemed securities. "It's not correct," Giancarlo said.
/jlne.ws/40qX0zE

Former CFTC Chair on Crypto Derivatives, Stablecoin Regulation
CoinDesk
"I worry sometimes that regulators, instead of trying to set up a regulatory framework, will cause activity to move offshore in ways that make it harder to regulate," said Timothy Massad, former CFTC chair and Harvard Kennedy School research fellow and digital assets policy project director. Massad also discusses his outlook for U.S. regulation following the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission suit against prominent crypto exchange Binance and its founder, Changpeng Zhao.
/jlne.ws/3TTKSEN

CFTC Orders New York-Based Commodity Pool Operator and Commodity Trading Advisor to Pay $400,000 Penalty for Supervision Failures
CFTC
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission today issued an order simultaneously filing and settling charges against BBL Commodities LP (BBL), a New York-based CFTC-registered commodity trading advisor (CTA) and commodity pool operator (CPO). The order finds that BBL failed to establish and implement an adequate supervisory system to detect whether its employees were engaging in disruptive trading or for deterring its employees from such conduct.
/jlne.ws/3KerNKy

Remarks of Commissioner Summer K. Mersinger Before the WFECLEAR: The World Federation of Exchange's Clearing and Derivatives Conference 2023; What a Year it Has Been
CFTC
Good morning. It is an honor to speak with all of you today. I want to thank the World Federation of Exchanges ("WFE") for inviting me to join you, and a special thanks to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange ("JSE") for hosting the conference events this week. Before I begin giving my remarks, I have to provide my standard disclaimer: The views I share today are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission ("CFTC"), on which I am proud to serve, or my fellow commissioners.
/jlne.ws/3TPtW2v

CFTC Charges Chinese National with Fraudulent Scheme to Trade Against Employer
CFTC
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission today announced it filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois charging Dichao Xie, a Chinese national, with a fraudulent scheme in which he misused knowledge of his employer's trading in feeder cattle futures and options to trade for his own benefit in breach of a duty to his employer.
/jlne.ws/3lOhLX0

Testimony by Chairman Rostin Behnam Before the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies Committee on Appropriations, U.S. House of Representatives
CFTC
Thank you, Chairman Harris, Ranking Member Bishop, and members of this Subcommittee. I appreciate the opportunity to testify on the President's fiscal year 2024 budget request for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC or Commission). Thank you for your historical support of the CFTC and its funding needs.
/jlne.ws/3G2MruG

The foolishness of the energy windfall tax has now been proven
The Telegraph
The impact of windfall taxes on North Sea oil and gas exploration has turned out to be every bit as disastrous as critics predicted. More than 90 per cent of offshore firms are cutting investment, driven away by a raid on profits and the uncertain future caused by political meddling. Successive governments, in pursuit of "net zero", have deliberately presided over the decline in North Sea extraction in order to reduce the UK's carbon emissions while switching to renewables.
/jlne.ws/3G48C3t

Binance Case Is Clear Evasion of Law, Says CFTC Chair Behnam
Camomile Shumba - CoinDesk
There was clear documentation of Binance's intent to evade the law, said U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) Chair Rostin Behnam in a CNBC appearance on Tuesday. The CFTC on Monday sued Binance and CEO Changpeng Zhao, alleging they knowingly offered unregistered crypto derivatives products. The regulator is charging the exchange and its founder with allegedly violating laws against offering futures transactions, failing to register as a futures commissions merchant and poorly supervising operations, among other things.
/jlne.ws/40mNUnN

Brazilian Mining Company to Pay $55.9 Million to Settle Charges Related to Misleading Disclosures Prior to Deadly Dam Collapse
SEC
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Vale S.A., a publicly traded Brazilian mining company and one of the largest iron ore producers in the world, agreed to pay $55.9 million to settle charges brought last April stemming from the company's allegedly false and misleading disclosures about the safety of its dams prior to the January 2019 collapse of the Brumadinho dam that killed 270 people. The SEC's complaint alleged that, for years, the dam did not meet internationally-recognized safety standards even as Vale's public sustainability reports assured investors that all of its dams were certified as stable.
/jlne.ws/3ZoqBsq

Securities and Exchange Commission Obtains Final Judgment Against Massachusetts Investment Adviser Who Misappropriated Funds from Clients
SEC
On March 27, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts entered a final judgment against Massachusetts-based investment adviser, James K. Couture in connection with the SEC's allegations that he engaged in a deceptive scheme to misappropriate a total of approximately $2.9 million from unsuspecting clients.
/jlne.ws/3nvMith

FCA updates on its Sustainability Disclosure Requirements (SDR) and investment labels consultation
FCA
We are working to build a world-leading and competitive regime that will help the UK's asset management sector thrive by setting standards that improve the sustainability information consumers have access to. Consumers are at the heart of our proposals for SDR and investment labels. To create a UK market that functions competitively and effectively for the benefit of consumers, those consumers must be able to trust sustainable investment products.
/jlne.ws/3M2FSMw

Fugitive Jho Low gets 10-year prison sentence in absentia from Kuwait court
Jennifer Gould - NY Post
International fugitive Jho Low has been sentenced in absentia to 10 years in a Kuwait prison for his role in laundering a minimum of $1 billion connected to $4.5 billion that was stolen from the Malaysian sovereign wealth fund known as 1MDB, according to reports. The $1 billion laundered through Kuwait was paid in Chinese currency, so it stayed out of the US banking system - "and out of reach of the Justice Department and its investigators," a source close to the case told The Post. The son of Kuwait's former prime minister, Sheikh Sabah Jaber Al-Mubarak Al-Hamad Al-Sabah, and a third man who went to the prestigious Wharton business school with Low, Hamad Al Wazan, were also sentenced to 10 years each in jail.
/jlne.ws/3lMfVpM








Investing & Trading
Today's top stories from equities, indices and FICC (fixed income, currencies and commodities)
Binance Sees $2 Billion in Outflows as Troubles Compound
Vicky Ge Huang and Dave Michaels - The Wall Stress Journal
Traders are pulling billions of dollars from Binance as problems plaguing the world's largest crypto exchange continue to mount. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Monday sued Binance, alleging the exchange operated illegally in the U.S. and violated rules designed to prevent illicit financial activity. Last week, Binance announced it would charge fees on spot bitcoin trading again after cutting them to zero last summer. It also had to temporarily suspend spot trading for hours while it fixed a software error.
/jlne.ws/40qzoer

Top ECB official claims CDS market 'contaminates' bank stocks and deposit flows; Sharp moves in thinly-traded credit insurance needs scrutiny, Andrea Enria says
Martin Arnold and Laurence Fletcher - Financial Times
The European Central Bank's top supervisor has claimed "opaque" trading in credit default swaps is harming banks' share prices and could threaten a run on deposits. Andrea Enria, chair of the ECB supervisory board, called for a review of the market after sharp moves in the prices of CDS preceded a sudden drop in the shares of Deutsche Bank and other European lenders last Friday.
/jlne.ws/3ZnwWnW

JSCC and the future of clearing and settling yen-denominated trades
Japan Securities Clearing Corporation
When the market was caught off-guard by the Bank of Japan's (BoJ's) December 2022 yen rate shock, JSCC's risk management remained robust and supported the wider financial system. Following more than 25 years of interest rates being held at (or near) zero by Japan's central bank, JSCC's risk management framework was suddenly and severely tested. In December 2022, the BoJ announced a surprise change to the level of its yield curve control policy, doubling the range for Japanese Government Bond (JGB) yields from 0.25% to 0.5%.
/jlne.ws/40LwMaL

Future Returns: Why Women Need to Participate in Financial Planning
Andrea Riquier - PENTA
It sounds hopelessly antiquated: A female spouse cedes control of the family's finances, either willingly or unwillingly, to her male partner, only to be caught by surprise when her husband dies. Yet financial advisors say it's true-and problematic. Data is spotty, but a 2019 UBS survey of high-net-worth women found that 56% of American women aged 20-34 deferred long-term financial decisions to their spouse, as did 54% of women 51 and older.
/jlne.ws/3KiFZCm

Crowdcube launches fund as client company reports setback; Crowdfunding platform hit by news of financial difficulties at Clim8
Rafe Uddin - Financial Times
Britain's largest crowdfunding platform has been put in an awkward position after announcing a new venture on the same day that a company which raised £6.6mn on its site from private investors fell into financial difficulties. Crowdcube announced on Tuesday that it would partner with Octopus Investments, the UK's largest venture capital trust (VCT) fund manager, to offer VCT funds to a wider range of retail savers by slashing minimum investment levels.
/jlne.ws/3ZoT3dA

Rules on listing Coco bond ETFs changed after first approvals; The two existing funds have suffered steep losses since Credit Suisse's AT1 bonds were written down to zero
Steve Johnson - Financial Times
Regulators appear to have got cold feet after approving two funds investing in the niche bank debt central to losses in the wake of UBS's takeover of Credit Suisse, but allowed the existing funds to continue. Two exchange traded funds, the EUR1.1bn Invesco AT1 Capital Bond Ucits ETF (AT1) and the $265mn WisdomTree AT1 CoCo Bond Ucits ETF (CCBO) invest 100 per cent of their assets in "additional tier 1" bonds issued by banks.
/jlne.ws/3zi1fBE

Wall Street Has No Idea How to Price In Banking Upheaval; S&P 500's year-end target has stayed the same for three months; Analysts' 2023 profit estimates are hovering near $220 a share
Lu Wang - Bloomberg
Struggling to figure out what all the financial stress means to markets? So are professional forecasters. As fast and furious as the news has come, the reaction among stock strategists and earnings analysts has been uniform: no reaction. Whether unwilling to commit to a new course, unable to formulate a new thesis - or simply unconvinced anything important has happened - estimates remain almost exactly where they were before all the action erupted.
/jlne.ws/3LUUEoq




Qontigo




Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance
Stories about environmental, social and governance investing
A breach of fiduciary duty
Nico McCrossan - GreenFin Weekly
"We're not woke - we're awake and we need to be awake to pay attention to our fiduciary duty," Anne Simpson, global head of sustainability for Franklin Templeton and former managing investment director for board governance and sustainability for CalPERS, last week told an audience of investment, corporate, government and nonprofit climate leaders at the Ceres Global conference in New York. During her remarks, Simpson broke down a few of the duties that make up fiduciary duty to highlight how anti-ESG legislation being put forward and enacted by Republicans actually require financial professionals to violate their duty as fiduciaries.
/jlne.ws/3G1UUya

Ford's First Electric Vehicles for Gulf Region Coming Next Year; Mideast EV arrival delayed by lack of production capacity; Ford expects EVs to sell exceptionally well in Gulf markets
Zainab Fattah - Bloomberg
Ford Motor Co. plans to roll out its first electric vehicles in the Middle East next year and expects exceptional sales in the oil-rich region after expanding production capacity. Chris Noel, managing director of Ford Middle East and Africa, said the US automaker will introduce EV models to the six Persian Gulf countries before moving into the wider region.
/jlne.ws/3ntcPYf

Investment Needs of USD 35 trillion by 2030 for Successful Energy Transition; World Energy Transitions Outlook Preview warns of dramatic lack of progress, calls for strategic shift in the energy transition to sustain 1.5 degree C climate target
International Renewable Energy Agency
The global energy transition is off-track, aggravated by the effects of global crises. Introduced by IRENA's Director-General Francesco La Camera at the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue (BETD) today, the World Energy Transitions Outlook 2023 Preview calls for a fundamental course correction in the energy transition. A successful energy transition demands bold, transformative measures reflecting the urgency of the present situation.
/jlne.ws/3zh23qA

Talking heads - A silver lining for green stocks
Edward Lees and Daniel Morris - BNP Paribas
Bank sector turmoil will likely lead to a reduction in credit in the US, particularly important for start-ups and venture capital investments. However, slower growth should also lessen inflationary pressures and may enable the US Federal Reserve to cut interest rates later this year. That should boost valuations of long-duration assets such as growth stocks. Earnings of selected environmental industry stocks should benefit from the billions of dollars in investment under the US Inflation Reduction Act, which Europe is trying to emulate.
/jlne.ws/3Kgloyd

This carbon nanotube startup has materials scientists abuzz
Heather Clancy - ClimateTech Rundown
The climate tech press often bemoans shortages of lithium, a metal crucial for the development of electric vehicle batteries. Far less digital ink has been spilled over the scarcity of another metal that you could argue is even more crucial to the clean energy transition: Copper, which S&P Global recently dubbed the "metal of electrification." Copper is an integral component not just of transmission wires (search "copper theft," and you'll realize what a nagging issue it is already for utilities), it's crucial for scaling up production of solar panels, wind turbines and EVs.
/jlne.ws/3zcIqjs

Final draft released for framework on nature-related financial disclosure
Matt Mace - edie
The Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) has released its fourth and final draft framework to enhance corporate approaches to disclosing nature-related data, introducing new steps to align reporting with the Taskforce on Climate-related Disclosures (TCFD). The TNFD comprises of 40 senior executives drawn from leading financial institutions, corporates and market service providers, with combined assets of more than $20trn.
/jlne.ws/3nuPOEc

China's ESG Policy Dash
Vibeka Mair - ESG Investor
As China's carbon neutral by 2060 pledge spurs sustainable finance regulation, its financial institutions are calling on the government to move quickly on establishing a taxonomy and ESG standards. The world cannot win the fight against climate change without China successfully transitioning to a low-carbon economy, with it accounting for 27% of global carbon dioxide and a third of the world's greenhouse gases, according to the World Bank.
/jlne.ws/42MCECD

Germany Says New Highways Must Save Space for Renewables
Ruling coalition's late-night deal includes pledge on autobahn; Solar panels, wind mills to be built alongside new sections
Petra Sorge - Bloomberg
Germany's ruling coalition wants to make it mandatory to create space for wind mills and solar panels alongside any newly-built sections of the country's famed autobahn. "Not a single kilometer of highway should be planned without exhausting the possibilities for generating renewable energy," the three-party alliance said in a late-night agreement that touched on a range of climate protection and infrastructure measures.
/jlne.ws/3KhmOIY








Banks, Brokers & Managed Funds
The latest from banks, brokers, hedge funds and managed futures
Banks' internship and analyst programs could be in flux, and that might spell bad news for senior dealmakers
Dan DeFrancesco - Business Insider
Today, we've got stories on a brokerage that wants trading on Wall Street to be more transparent, a club for the ultra-rich focused on anti-aging, and the countries to move to if you want to be happy. But before we get started, First Citizens BancShares has agreed to buy Silicon Valley Bank, according to a statement from the FDIC. The deal includes the purchase of about $72 billion of Silicon Valley Bridge Bank assets at a discount of $16.5 billion. Read more on the deal here. Now, let's check on the youngsters.
/jlne.ws/40M3N6G

A Single Bet on Deutsche Bank's Credit Default Swaps Is Seen Behind Friday's Rout; A roughly EUR 5m trade may have fueled sell off, sources say; ECB's Enria says the illiquid market is prone to abrupt moves
Nicholas Comfort and Steven Arons - Bloomberg
Regulators are singling out a trade on Deutsche Bank AG's credit default swaps that they suspect fueled a global sell off on Friday. It was a roughly EUR 5 million ($5.4 million) bet on swaps tied to the German bank's junior debt, according to people familiar with the matter, who said regulators have spoken to market participants about the transaction. The contracts can be illiquid, so a single bet can trigger big moves. A spokesperson for Deutsche Bank declined to comment.
/jlne.ws/3zdtG3K

Credit Suisse's Klein Loses the Deal of His Life as Plans for First Boston Collapse; The rainmaker was at the center of the bank's turnaround plans; His payoff could've surpassed $200 million in an eventual IPO
Heather Perlberg and Marion Halftermeyer - Bloomberg
Not long ago, Michael Klein had a happy message for unhappy bankers at Credit Suisse Group AG: We're going to get rich. Things aren't quite turning out that way. Klein - Midas of M&A, money-whisperer to Saudi royals - just lost the deal of his life. And, along with it, a shot at C-suite glory and a personal payday stretching upward of $200 million
/jlne.ws/3Zk0d2R

Binance Sees $2 Billion in Outflows as Troubles Compound
Vicky Ge Huang and Dave Michaels - The Wall Stress Journal
Traders are pulling billions of dollars from Binance as problems plaguing the world's largest crypto exchange continue to mount. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission on Monday sued Binance, alleging the exchange operated illegally in the U.S. and violated rules designed to prevent illicit financial activity. Last week, Binance announced it would charge fees on spot bitcoin trading again after cutting them to zero last summer. It also had to temporarily suspend spot trading for hours while it fixed a software error.
/jlne.ws/40qzoer

US Officials Signal New Rules for Banks After SVB, Signature Failures; Congress kicks off hearings to examine recent bank turmoil; Fed, FDIC officials hint at regulatory, capital-rule changes
Chris Anstey - Bloomberg
Top US financial officials on Tuesday outlined what's likely to be the biggest regulatory overhaul of the banking sector in years, in an initiative aimed at addressing underlying issues that contributed to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and other US regional lenders. "I anticipate the need to strengthen capital and liquidity standards" for banks with assets larger than $100 billion, Federal Reserve Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr said in answering questions at a Senate Banking Committee hearing.
/jlne.ws/3KgSVZi

The Bank Regulators Are Disappointed; Also a Deutsche Bank CDS trade, a Credit Suisse carveout and the Steve Cohen Mets.
Matt Levine - Bloomberg
We talked the other day about the mechanics of Silicon Valley Bank's failure. Those mechanics are that a lot of depositors asked for their money back one Thursday, and SVB didn't have enough money to give them: It ended the day with negative money, and was shut down by its regulators. This is a somewhat weird thing to happen in a modern banking system: Silicon Valley Bank had lots of valuable, safe, liquid assets, and it is a US bank with access to the Federal Reserve.
/jlne.ws/3lXzyuR

Silicon Valley Bank Hearing Takeaways: A Blame Game, but Few Solutions
Alan Rappeport - The New York Times
Federal regulators faced more than two hours of intense questioning from lawmakers on Tuesday about what caused the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, the red flags that went unheeded and the steps that must be taken to avoid future collapses that could rattle the United States financial system. There was bipartisan concern about the state of the nation's banks that in many cases blurred the usual party lines, where Democrats want more strict oversight and Republicans call for looser regulations.
/jlne.ws/3LV6UoV

JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon to be interviewed under oath in Epstein case
Reuters
Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase & Co, will be interviewed under oath over the bank's relationship with late sex offender and former client Jeffrey Epstein, a lawyer involved in the case said on Tuesday.
/jlne.ws/40o7kso

Credit Suisse still helping wealthy dodge U.S. taxes, Senate Committee finds
Reuters
Credit Suisse continues to help ultra-wealthy Americans evade taxes and had concealed more than $700 million from tax authorities in violation of a 2014 plea agreement, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee said on Wednesday. After concluding a two-year investigation into Credit Suisse, the committee said it had uncovered "major violations" of the 2014 agreement between the Swiss lender and the U.S. Department of Justice for enabling tax evasion.
/jlne.ws/3lLkFvR

UBS's Kelleher Says Credit Suisse Integration Bigger Than 2008 Crisis Deals
Myriam Balezou and Marion Halftermeyer - Bloomberg
UBS Group AG Chairman Colm Kelleher said that the task of integrating Credit Suisse Group AG is bigger than any deal that was executed during the height of the financial crisis in 2008, underlining the magnitude of the task facing Sergio Ermotti.
/jlne.ws/3ZkqI8l

UBS Tells Credit Suisse Bankers They Can Expect 'Culture Filter'
Marion Halftermeyer and Myriam Balezou - Bloomberg
UBS Group AG's Chairman Colm Kelleher said that he's keen to keep the most talented investment bankers at newly-acquired Credit Suisse Group AG - but they should expect to be screened for their fit with the bank's values and approach to risk. "We have to let everybody through a culture filter to make sure that we do not import something into our ecosystem that causes issues," Kelleher said, speaking at a press conference in Zurich after UBS named Sergio Ermotti to replace current Chief Executive Officer Ralph Hamers from April 5.
/jlne.ws/3G0USqg

The US Is Paying the Price for Being Overbanked; Canada has fewer banks than the state of North Dakota.
Marc Rubinstein - Bloomberg
When Signature Bank of New York was taken into receivership this month, depositors as far away as Arkansas, Georgia and Ohio took fright. That's because there are four Signature Banks in the US, and customers weren't immediately sure which one was in trouble. Signature Bank of Arkansas sent out this tweet: "Just a friendly reminder that we are Signature Bank >>of Arkansas /jlne.ws/3ZptYPJ

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Work & Management
Stories impacting work and more about management ideas, practices and trends.
Big tech companies cut AI ethics staff, raising safety concerns; Microsoft, Amazon and Google among those to cut 'responsible AI' teams as part of broader reductions
Cristina Criddle and Madhumita Murgia - Financial Times
Big tech companies have been slashing staff from teams dedicated to evaluating ethical issues around deploying artificial intelligence, leading to concerns about the safety of the new technology as it becomes widely adopted across consumer products. Microsoft, Meta, Google, Amazon and Twitter are among the companies that have cut members of their "responsible AI teams", who advise on the safety of consumer products that use artificial intelligence.
/jlne.ws/3zifjLI

Bank Turmoil Highlights Critical Role of Risk-Mitigation Technology; In financial services, chief information officers are working more closely than ever with chief risk officers to ensure the right tools for analyzing risk are in place
Isabelle Bousquette - The Wall Street Journal
Turmoil in the banking sector is spotlighting the critical role technology plays in evaluating financial risk and the strengthening ties between IT and risk leaders. Chief risk officers have become more reliant on technology to analyze data and model financial risk, and chief information officers are often responsible for providing the infrastructure that underpins that process.
/jlne.ws/3JMh








Wellness Exchange
An Exchange of Health and Wellness Information
The Next Stage of COVID Is Starting Now
Katherine J. Wu - The Atlantic
To be a newborn in the year 2023-and, almost certainly, every year that follows-means emerging into a world where the coronavirus is ubiquitous. Babies might not meet the virus in the first week or month of life, but soon enough, SARS-CoV-2 will find them. "For anyone born into this world, it's not going to take a lot of time for them to become infected," maybe a year, maybe two, says Katia Koelle, a virologist and infectious-disease modeler at Emory University. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, this virus will be one of the very first serious pathogens that today's infants-and all future infants-meet.
/jlne.ws/3JRgarC

'Being truthful is essential': scientist who stumbled upon Wuhan Covid data speaks out
Michael Safi and Eli Block - The Guardian
One of the most compelling clues to the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic was uploaded without announcement to a scientific database, going unnoticed for weeks. And then, just as suddenly, it vanished from public view. The genetic data, from swabs taken at the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, China, in the weeks after Covid-19 first emerged, were available online just long enough for a Parisian scientist to stumble upon them while working from her couch on a Saturday afternoon earlier this month.
/jlne.ws/3M0ck26

WHO revises COVID-19 vaccine recommendations for Omicron-era
Reuters
The World Health Organization has tailored its COVID-19 vaccination recommendations for a new phase of the pandemic, suggesting that healthy children and adolescents may not necessarily need a shot but older, high-risk groups should get a booster between 6 to 12 months after their last vaccine. The U.N. agency said the aim was to focus efforts on vaccinating those facing the greatest threat of severe disease and death from COVID-19, considering the high-level population immunity worldwide due to widespread infection and vaccination.
/jlne.ws/3lNxiGH

CDC's Top Priority Has to Be Rebuilding Public Trust; Political meddling helped destroy the CDC's credibility when Americans needed the agency the most.
Faye Flam - Bloomberg
Covid-19 was already spreading widely around the world in February and early March of 2020 - well before many Americans had gotten the message that the disease was something to take seriously. Now, the New York Times has reported that staffers at the disease intelligence service at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were pressured by the Donald Trump administration to keep silent about what they knew: that Covid was being spread quietly by asymptomatic carriers.
/jlne.ws/3M2InhS








Regions
Stories of local interest from the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions
China's Cities Are Buried in Debt, but They Keep Shoveling It On; China has long pursued growth by public spending, even after the payoff has faded. Cities stuck with the bill are still spending - and cutting essential services.
Li Yuan - The New York Times
In 2015, when Shangqiu, a municipality in central China, laid out a plan for the next two decades, it positioned itself as a transportation hub with a sprawling network of railways, highways and river shipping routes. By the end of 2020, Shangqiu had built 114 miles of high-speed rail, and today several national railways make stops in the city. By 2025, Shangqiu expects the coverage of its highway network to have increased by 87 percent. The city is building its first two airports, three new highways and enough parking space for 20,000 additional slots.
/jlne.ws/40rhvMA

Italy PM's party presents bill to split retail and investment banks
Reuters
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's party has presented a bill in parliament to separate retail and investment banks - a move that, it approved, would force a radical overhaul of the country's banking sector. The proposal by the Brothers of Italy (FdI) party comes in the wake of the collapse of U.S. tech lender Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and the emergency takeover of Credit Suisse by banking rival UBS, which raised fears of systemic stress that could lead to more bank failures.
/jlne.ws/3JRPOpq

Taiwan president defiant after China threatens retaliation for US trip
Fabian Hamacher and Bernard Orr - Reuters
External pressure will not stop Taiwan engaging with the world, President Tsai Ing-wen said on Wednesday as she left for the United States, hitting a defiant note after China threatened retaliation if she met U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
/jlne.ws/3M0KeDH

Japan PM Kishida sets eye on wage rises as focus of 'new capitalism'
Tetsushi Kajimoto - Reuters
Japan will draw up a plan in June on "new capitalism", focusing on wage increases, innovation and resolving social problems through support for start-ups, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida said on Wednesday. "First of all, we will aim to compile guidelines by June with regard to labour market reform including reskilling workers and facilitating labour turnover," Kishida told a panel tasked with implementing the plan.
/jlne.ws/3LUVhOO

Thai c.bank raises policy rate, more tightening likely
Orathai Sriring and Kitiphong Thaichareon - Reuters
Thailand's central bank raised interest rates by 25 basis points on Wednesday, as it attempts to bring inflation back within target while the economic recovery gathers pace against rising global headwinds. The Bank of Thailand's (BOT) monetary policy committee voted unanimously to raise the one-day repurchase rate (THCBIR=ECI) to 1.75%, as expected by 18 of 22 economists in a Reuters poll, for a fifth straight meeting.
/jlne.ws/3lUwqjt








Miscellaneous
Stories that don't quite fit under the other sections
Ivy League Prices Are Pushing $90,000 a Year; The cost of tuition, room and board keeps climbing at elite US colleges, with some economists warning about sticker shock.
Francesca Maglione - Bloomberg
Yale: up 4%. Dartmouth and Brown: up 5%. US college costs just keep climbing. And the increase is pushing the annual price for the upcoming academic year at Ivy League schools toward yet another hold-on-to-your-mortarboard mark: $90,000. Full costs at elite private colleges already stretch well into the $80,000s, or upward of $320,000 for four years.
/jlne.ws/3FYhQhL

The Deepfake Revolution May Bring a Media Revival; Who are you going to believe: News outlets that can be held legally accountable, or your lying eyes?
Leonid Bershidsky - Bloomberg
Russian pop music producer Iosif Prigozhin (not to be confused with Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the Wagner mercenary army) publicly supports Vladimir Putin and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Earlier this month, however, a recording, ostensibly of Prigozhin's expletive-laced telephone conversation with sanctioned billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov, was leaked on YouTube - and on it, both parties curse "Satan" Putin, his greedy, incompetent team and his dumb war.
/jlne.ws/3M0BEVC

Substack Asks Its Newsletter Writers to Become Investors Starting at $100
Gerry Smith - Bloomberg
Substack Inc., the online host of writers like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Matt Taibbi, is inviting contributors to become investors as the newsletter publisher looks to continue its growth in a tough market for fundraising. The San Francisco-based company is letting its authors put in as little as $100 for shares. Co-founders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi said in a blog post Tuesday that recent regulatory changes allow businesses to tap more money from less-wealthy investors, a move they see as advantageous to the company.
/jlne.ws/3zh3y8g







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