| December 09, 2024 | "Irreverent, but never irrelevant" | | |  | John Lothian
Publisher
John Lothian News | |
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Hits & Takes
John Lothian & JLN Staff
I am headed to New York from Florida at the end of the week and will be there on December 16 and 17. I have not been to NYC since before the pandemic. Of course my timing could not be worse in some regards, as The Wall Street Journal today has a story titled It Has Never Been More Expensive to Visit New York City; Tourists are canceling dinner plans, seeking cheaper activities and booking rooms farther from the city center.
The Financial Times has published a Special Report on Active Management, exploring various aspects of the evolving investment landscape. The report includes an article on "Special situations' funds hit by retreat from active investing," which discusses how these flexible funds are struggling to attract investors due to their lack of a clear mandate. Another piece, "Investors weigh if meetings or selling out most influences green goals," examines the debate between active and passive strategies in sustainable investing. The report also covers "Active ETFs gain ground on more passive benchmark trackers," highlighting the significant growth in assets and potential advantages over traditional mutual funds. Additionally, the report addresses how the "Rise of tech giants skews active fund portfolios," detailing the impact of major tech companies on index weightings and fund correlations. The fixed income market is becoming increasingly challenging to navigate as market participants recognize that the stable, low-interest rate environment of the past 15 years was an anomaly. Meanwhile, asset managers are making a significant push into private assets, with many executives viewing this move as crucial for their survival in the evolving investment landscape.
Anthony J. Perrotta, Jr. announced the launch of Paragon Market Advisors ("PMA"), a unique boutique advisory firm which he said "aspires to change the traditional consulting model in the capital markets" in a post in LinkedIn.
In sports news, the baseball player Juan Soto, formerly of the New York Yankees, San Diego Padres and Washington Nationals, is going to sign the richest known contract in sports history by signing a 15-year $765 million contract. The contract's escalator clauses could take it to $800 million, which grossly exceeds the 10-year $700 million contract of Shohei Ohtani that has deferred money, which values the contract at $460 million.
Additionally, Purdue University named Barry Odom its new head football coach. Odom had been the head coach at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) for the last two years and previously served as Missouri's head coach. I had expected Purdue would hire another former Missouri coach, Matt Eberflus, the former Chicago Bears head coach, as its new head coach.
Here are the headlines from in front of FOW's paywall from some recent stories: Four top trading firms back GFO-X launch in first quarter 2025, ICE challenges EEX with first Japan power futures contracts, SGX latest to report strong November volumes, up 23%, ICE launches long EU bond future, Japanese power - FOW Data, CFTC to discuss proposals on US Treasury basis trades and ANALYSIS: LSEG sees foreign exchange reorg as key to platforms push.
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:
- OIC Attends Benzinga Fintech Event and Receives 2024 'Best in Financial Education' Award from OIC.
- The stock market's 'fear gauge' is trading at lows. Why retail investors should take note. from MarketWatch.
- Bitcoin Options Shows Traders Are Already Hedging After Record Rally to $100,000 from Bloomberg. ~JB
Subscribe to the JLN Options Newsletter HERE (it's free).
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Chris Edmonds: ICE Enhances User Experience with ICE Connect Platform
JohnLothianNews.com
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has unveiled significant improvements to its ICE Connect platform, according to Chris Edmonds, president of fixed income & data services at ICE. In a recent interview with John Lothian News at FIA EXPO 2024, Edmonds highlighted the platform's evolution and its competitive edge in the market.
Watch »
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Former Prosecutor Shares Insights at FIA EXPO Event on CFTC's Future Enforcement Approach
JohnLothianNews.com
Renato Mariotti, a former prosecutor and defense attorney, collaborated with Eventus to host a gathering of industry participants and legal experts at the W Hotel in the financial district on the Monday of FIA's EXPO in Chicago. Later in the week, John Lothian News spoke with the Paul Hastings attorney at FIA EXPO to hear his insights on the event, the topics discussed, and the perspectives shared.
Watch »
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It Has Never Been More Expensive to Visit New York City; Tourists are canceling dinner plans, seeking cheaper activities and booking rooms farther from the city center
Jacob Passy and Dalvin Brown - The Wall Street Journal
New York City offers priceless experiences in December. There's the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, as well as ice skating at Bryant Park and walking the Brooklyn Bridge. But the things that do come with a price tag are causing visitors sticker shock this year. New York City hotel prices have hit new highs, with an average daily rate of $345 in recent weeks, according to one price tracker. The city recorded its highest-ever monthly rate in September, when hotels charged $417 a night, on average. Hotels are fuller than a year ago, with almost nine out of every 10 rooms occupied in November, according to CoStar.
/jlne.ws/3ZLBubb
***** This is the first time I have traveled to New York City by car and had to park my car there while staying in the city. It is nearly the cost of a hotel room in some small towns to park my car in New York City.~JJL
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It's Not Just Ken Griffin. Rich Chicago Residents Are Losing Their Shirts on Real Estate; Wealthy homeowners in the Windy City are selling at a loss-and looking for someone to blame
Katherine Clarke - The Wall Street Journal
For nearly a decade, billionaire hedge-fund magnate Ken Griffin and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker have been locked in a highly public feud. So it came as no surprise when Griffin, after selling a portion of his Chicago penthouse for a dramatic 44% loss last month, was quick to take a shot at Pritzker, blaming "failed political leadership in Illinois" for rising crime and declining luxury real-estate values in the Windy City. The saga took a bizarre turn, however, when the mystery buyer of Griffin's 9 West Walton Street penthouse turned out to be none other than Pritzker himself.
/jlne.ws/3OStE97
***** Reportedly Pritzker was attracted to the undeveloped penthouse because it lacked toilets.~JJL
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A Bitcoin Reserve Could Be the Biggest Crypto Scam Yet; Government crypto purchases would merely enrich current holders at the public's expense.
The Editorial Board - Bloomberg
Does the US government need a strategic reserve dedicated to Bitcoin, as President-elect Donald Trump seems to be contemplating? At risk of oversimplifying: no. In fact, the idea looks like the biggest crypto rip-off yet. Bitcoin has soared more than 50% since Nov. 4, topping $100,000 in part on hopes that crypto advocates - having donated some $135 million to Trump and dozens of successful congressional campaigns - will persuade Trump to make the reserve a reality. Much depends on the details.
/jlne.ws/3ZtdWq1
***** There is no good reason for a bitcoin reserve except to reward the people who helped elect you using the money they made from bitcoin by convincing other people that bitcoin was worth a lot more money. If they are looking for government handouts, they must be running out of greater fools.~JJL
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Friday's Top Three
Our top clicked item on Friday was CFTC Staff Issues Advisory Related to the Use of Artificial Intelligence by CFTC-Registered Entities and Registrants, a CFTC press release. Second was The 28 best Christmas gifts for him - from $10 to $200, from Yahoo!Life. Third was the page to buy tickets for mHUB Industry Disruptors - Matt Hulsizer & Jenny Just, taking place on Thursday, February 13, 2025 from 5:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. at mHUB in Chicago. (Tickets are $20.)
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| Lead Stories | Young Men Are Making Risky Bets on Crypto and Politics-and Raking It In Right Now; Markets are booming, but investments and bets that disproportionately draw young men are leaving everything else in the dust
Katherine Hamilton - The Wall Street Journal
Byron Hayes has lost so much money on meme stocks, crypto and betting that he goes by the name Financial Failure on online forums. He might need to rebrand. His six-figure cryptocurrency portfolio jumped more than 30% since Election Day. The gold he owns has increased 28% this year. The investment accounts where he trades stocks and bet on the presidential election were up around 6% in November alone. Young men hold a disproportionate share of the kinds of risky and volatile investments that financial professionals tend to warn against. Right now, they are hitting pay dirt. A hypothetical portfolio holding equal amounts of bitcoin, gold, the meme stock GameStop and the sports-betting stock DraftKings returned 62% in the first 11 months of this year. That is more than triple the returns of a traditional portfolio of 60% stocks and 40% bonds, according to an analysis by the financial firm Leuthold Group.
/jlne.ws/4glZln9
London Stock Exchange boss: We must make people proud to own shares; Dame Julia Hoggett opens up about her mission to save the LSE, when she decided to come out at work, and why she is desperate for the IPO gates to reopen
Jill Treanor - The Times
Dame Julia Hoggett is on a mission. This 5ft 1in, glasses-wearing gay woman - her description - is trying to save the London Stock Exchange. It is a critical mission, too. So far this year, there have been three times as many companies leaving the 250-year old LSE, either through takeovers or mergers, as new ones joining, and there is little sign of the pressure easing. An activist investor in Rio Tinto is calling on the mining giant to shift its main listing from London to Sydney, while the fast-growing payments app Revolut has declared it would be more likely to list in New York than London.
/jlne.ws/4gng4qa
IPOs Are So Passe. Here's How Employees Are Getting Rich Now; More than $6 billion of stock in private companies has been sold this year
Corrie Driebusch - Bloomberg
For years, the biggest startup founders would dream of an initial public offering. It was the key to raising capital, drumming up attention and rewarding longtime employees and early investors with a big payout. Not any more. These days, many founders happily avoid the costs, disclosure requirements, scrutiny and regulations of going public. Many big startups are already well funded and famous. The one hitch: Their employees still want to get rich. They're finding the solution is the tender offer, an arrangement where shares are sold to a set of investors in a prearranged trade and employees and early investors can cash out some of their holdings. Elon Musk's rocket maker, SpaceX, and payments giant Stripe are marquee, repeat users.
/jlne.ws/4ggQTWi
Billionaires plan overhaul of US news groups as media confronts trust issue; Patrick Soon-Shiong and Jeff Bezos announce efforts to address bias at LA Times and Washington Post
Anna Nicolaou in New York - Financial Times
Efforts by tech billionaires Patrick Soon-Shiong and Jeff Bezos to overhaul two of America's most storied newspapers in an effort to "restore trust" in the news media are raising alarm among press advocates. Soon-Shiong, a biotech entrepreneur who bought the Los Angeles Times in 2018, said this week he had been "quietly building" an artificial intelligence-powered "bias meter" to attach to the newspaper's stories. "So somebody could understand as they read it that the source of the article has some level of bias...And then, automatically, the reader can press a button and get both sides of that exact same story...and then give comments", said Soon-Shiong in an appearance on political commentator Scott Jennings' radio show.
/jlne.ws/49psls1
China targets Nvidia with antitrust probe, escalating US chip tensions
Liam Mo and Brenda Goh - Reuters
China said on Monday it has launched an investigation into Nvidia Corp over suspected violations of the country's anti-monopoly law, in a move widely seen as a retaliatory shot against Washington's latest curbs on the Chinese chip sector. The statement from the State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) announcing the probe did not elaborate on how the U.S. company, known for its artificial intelligence (AI) and gaming chips, might have violated China's anti-monopoly laws.
/jlne.ws/4f6SkFJ
UBS CEO Warns Markets Risk Being Rattled by Tariffs, Politics
Jeff Black and Joumanna Bercetche - Bloomberg
The incoming US administration's potential move to raise tariffs on trading partners could combine with conflicts around the globe to increase risk in financial markets next year, according to the chief executive of UBS Group AG. "The acceleration of geopolitical events coupled with escalation on the macroeconomic fronts - tariffs, protectionism - it's definitely something that has to be watched," Sergio Ermotti said in a Bloomberg Television interview on the sidelines of Abu Dhabi Finance Week on Monday. "It's still very uncertain, we're going to see a lot of volatility in markets."
/jlne.ws/4faxrcE
Massive Wealth Transfer Will Give Women $34 Trillion by 2030; A spike in female fortunes thanks to inheritance and career gains is set to transform investing and philanthropy around the world.
Claire Ballentine - Bloomberg
Women are controlling ever-greater sums of money around the world, setting the stage for major shifts in wealth management and philanthropy. In the US alone, McKinsey & Co. expects women to control $34 trillion - or roughly 38% - of investable assets by 2030, close to double last year's total. The figure was just $7.3 trillion, or 29%, 10 years ago.
/jlne.ws/3D3wk13
Scandal of attempted murder shakes Nomura's doorstep sales army; Violence against elderly couple comes as Japanese bank tries to convince customers to invest in riskier assets
David Keohane and Leo Lewis - Financial Times
Deep at the heart of Nomura's corporate culture is the legend of Yoshihisa Tabuchi: the hyper-driven salesman-turned-chief executive who led Japan's biggest brokerage through the 1980s bubble and whose supremacy as a banker sent shockwaves through Wall Street. Rookie Nomura salespeople, psyching themselves up for their first knock on a stranger's door, are told of how in his early days Tabuchi would visit more than 500 homes and wear out a pair of shoes each week plying his trade with absolute dedication.
/jlne.ws/4ghtbcu
BNP Paribas Hires Head of US Rates Strategy and Chief US Economist; Key Hires Demonstrates Bank's Mission to Further Strengthen Americas Client Franchise
BNP Paribas
BNP Paribas, the European Union's leading global bank, announced today the appointment of Guneet Dhingra as Head of US Rates Strategy and James Egelhof as Chief US Economist for Markets 360â„¢, the bank's market strategy and economics division. Guneet Dhingra has joined as Head of US Rates Strategy. He is responsible for BNP Paribas' coverage of US rates products, including Treasuries, swaps, inflation, and volatility. Mr. Dhingra joins BNP Paribas after 16 years at Morgan Stanley, where he held numerous roles within the rates space, most recently as Head of US Rates Strategy. He has consistently been one of the top-ranked US rates strategists in the Institutional Investor survey, and he has been Wall Street's top inflation strategist for the past five years running. Mr. Dhingra is based in New York.
/jlne.ws/49pRp1X
GFO-X Announces ABN AMRO Clearing, IMC, Standard Chartered Bank and Virtu Financial as Strategic Partners Ahead of Launch in Q1 2025
Global Newswire
GFO-X announces ABN AMRO Clearing, IMC, Standard Chartered Bank and Virtu Financial as strategic partners ahead of launch in Q1 2025. GFO-X is the UK's first regulated and centrally cleared trading venue dedicated to digital asset derivatives. GFO-X has been working closely with these partners to deliver the requirements necessary to grow the institutional digital asset index futures and options market. GFO-X provides a cutting-edge trading platform built for institutions, delivering investors a secure and efficient trading environment to seamlessly manage digital asset exposure.
/jlne.ws/3OPnZRr
UK should pay whistleblowers to cut financial crime, says think-tank; Royal United Services Institute says scheme would reduce those who take information to US agencies
Suzi Ring and Martin Arnold - Financial Times
The UK should break its "long-held antipathy" to paying whistleblowers in order to reduce economic crime and prevent hundreds of Britons taking information to the US, the Royal United Services Institute said. Launching an effective whistleblower payments programme could play a "pivotal role" in reducing white-collar offences, the defence and security think-tank found, adding weight to calls from the Serious Fraud Office for the UK to consider such a scheme.
/jlne.ws/3D5Ku1L
This Fund Manager Raised Billions in a Bet on MicroStrategy. Can He Keep It Going? Matthew Tuttle was a bit player. Now he runs a red hot fund-but there are signs the T-Rex 2X Long MSTR Daily Target ETF isn't ready for prime time.
Jack Pitcher and Gregory Zuckerman - The Wall Street Journal
Three months ago, Matthew Tuttle was a Wall Street bit player, running a small investing firm from his Connecticut home. Now he's managing billions on behalf of everyday investors betting on bitcoin in what may be the market's riskiest territory. Some in finance warn that just a few sharp down days could cause investors in his exchange-traded fund, known as the T-Rex 2X Long MSTR Daily Target ETF, ticker symbol MSTU, to face serious troubles.
/jlne.ws/4iq3jgq
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| Ukraine Invasion | | News about the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and its military, economic, political and humanitarian impact | Russia's Military Found a Surprisingly Simple Way to Buy US Chips; A cache of internal Russian documents reviewed by Bloomberg reveals how Putin's forces have been able to keep purchasing American semiconductors.
Alberto Nardelli, Ian King, and Andy Lin - Bloomberg
Ever since the US and its allies imposed sanctions on Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, Western officials have been frustrated by Moscow's continued ability to get its hands on American technologies to help power its war efforts. Russian weapons recovered from battlefields in the region are chock full of gear from firms like Intel Corp. and Analog Devices Inc., much to the frustration of officials in Washington, Brussels and Kyiv. The nagging question: Why are trade controls failing? A cache of records obtained by Bloomberg reveals new details about this surprisingly resilient supply chain from Silicon Valley to Moscow. They show many of the steps that suppliers to Russia's military take to acquire components from US chipmaker Texas Instruments Inc., unbeknownst to the Dallas-based company. They also identify Russian distributors handling thousands of shipments bound for the country's military contractors, including several companies under US sanctions. They help produce drones, glide bombs, precision communication systems and the Iskander missiles that Moscow uses to hammer Ukraine's cities.
/jlne.ws/3OMVfZn
As Russia and China Rewrite Rules of War, NATO Adapts Its Game Plan; Sabotage, cyber and energy security are priorities for alliance's new leader, Mark Rutte
Daniel Michaels and Alan Cullison - The Wall Street Journal
NATO was created to fight a shooting war against Moscow. Now Secretary-General Mark Rutte wants the alliance ready to fight unconventional battles against unseen enemies. Sabotage, hacking and terrorist-type attacks in the U.S. and Europe are escalating, Western security officials say. Politicians and intelligence agencies finger Russia, China, Iran and the West's other adversaries for most of the incidents, but attributing blame is often difficult. Responding can be even harder.
/jlne.ws/3ZICg8z
Zelenskiy floats idea of deploying foreign troops to Ukraine before NATO membership
Reuters
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy floated the idea on Monday of foreign troops being deployed to war-stricken Ukraine until the country joins the NATO military alliance. He made the remark during a joint press conference in Kyiv with German opposition leader Friedrich Merz, as Donald Trump's imminent return to the White House intensifies talk of a possible deal to end Russia's 33-month-old war.
/jlne.ws/3ZvcIue
Zelensky endorses Trump call to end war in Ukraine
Tony Diver - The Telegraph
Volodymyr Zelensky endorsed Donald Trump's drive to end the war in Ukraine "as soon as possible" in a surprise meeting organised by Emmanuel Macron ahead of the reopening of Notre-Dame. The three men met on Saturday at the Élysée Palace to discuss their co-operation on "defence and offence" in Ukraine, Mr Trump said, adding that the world was "going a little crazy right now". The president-elect also met the Prince of Wales on the sidelines of the ceremony, in his first contact with the Royal family since leaving office in 2021.
/jlne.ws/49vl4GZ
Zelenskiy Says Ukraine Has Lost 43,000 Soldiers During War; Ukrainian leader responds to Trump's call for fast ceasefire; War 'cannot simply end with a piece of paper,' Zelenskiy says
Volodymyr Verbianyi - BloFixed omberg
Kyiv says fatalities among its soldiers since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022 have reached 43,000, a rare estimate much lower than a figure offered by US President-elect Donald Trump. The toll was revealed by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in a statement on the social media platform X on Sunday, hours after Trump claimed that Ukraine's had "lost" 400,000 soldiers.
/jlne.ws/3DhODQb
Inside Ukraine’s Battle for the Skies as Russian Bombardments Hit Records; Moscow fired four times as many drones and missiles this fall as it did the previous year, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis
Alistair MacDonald and Jane Lytvynenko - The Wall Street Journal
A team of soldiers sat inside a nondescript red bus with their eyes glued to a bank of screens blinking with yellow dots. The shapes represented Russian drones, missiles and planes cutting into Ukrainian skies. Soldiers from Ukraine's 164th Radiotechnical Brigade were trying to quickly identify targets and intercept them before they could sow destruction in towns and cities.
/jlne.ws/4iqfVUM
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| Israel/Hamas Conflict | | News about the recent (October, 2023) conflict between Israel and Hamas | Israel draws furious reaction from Egypt after taking more Syrian territory; Netanyahu has justified the incursion as a temporary move to protect Israeli citizens
Neri Zilber in Tel Aviv, Raya Jalabi in Damascus and Heba Saleh in Cairo - Financial Times
Israel has taken more Syrian territory, justifying the incursion as a temporary move to protect its citizens but drawing a furious reaction in the region. Defence minister Israel Katz on Monday said the country's military was continuing to seize "high ground" inside Syria after the toppling of Bashar al-Assad's regime on Sunday by a group led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
/jlne.ws/4gJrdC3
Assad's Fall Shows Russia, Iran and Hamas Made a Bad Bet; Nobody could have imagined that the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel could have rebounded so badly on America's enemies. But the Mideast remains very dangerous.
Hal Brands - Bloomberg Opinion
A great many actors had a hand in the fall of Syria's dictator, Bashar al-Assad: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the Islamist group that led the offensive; Turkey, which nurtured and supported HTS; the myriad Syrian groups and people who gave a hated tyrant a final push. But Assad's fall was also the work of a dead man, Yahya Sinwar. When Sinwar ordered Hamas's attack on Israel in October 2023, he meant to revolutionize the Middle East. Today, the region is being remade, just not as Sinwar intended: An astonishingly successful Israeli offensive has left Hamas and the rest of Iran's "Axis of Resistance" in ruins, and has now claimed Assad as its latest victim.
/jlne.ws/4f82rKj
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| Exchanges, OTC & Clearing | | Top news from exchanges, clearing, settlement and trade execution facilities | BME Launches SpainAtMid, a New Pool of Non-Displayed Liquidity, to Make Trading in Spanish Equities More Attractive
BME-X
SpainAtMid, the new pool of Non-Displayed Liquidity in Spanish Equities, goes live today. SpainAtMid is a cutting-edge order book that enables the execution of trades in Spanish market securities at the midpoint of the bid-ask spread. SpainAtMid provides an additional source of liquidity for Spanish securities, enabling large volume orders to be traded with minimal impact on the market with the robustness and efficiency of BME's trading system.
/jlne.ws/3ZGw7Ke
SIX's BME unveils new dark pool Named SpainAtMid, the new offering is set to make the trading of Spanish equities more attractive to the wider market.
Claudia Preece - The Trade News
SIX's BME has launched a new dark pool in a bid to provide an additional source of liquidity for Spanish securities. IvaÌn Lorenzo Specifically, SpainAtMid, going live today, enables Spanish market securities to be executed at the midpoint of the bid-ask spread. Key benefits of the offering according to stakeholders include high liquidity, better execution price and security.
/jlne.ws/3BlW1JM
CCP Global publishes a comment letter on EU DORA
CCP Global
Re: REGULATION (EU) 2022/2554 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 14 December 2022 on digital operational resilience for the financial sector and amending Regulations (EC) No 1060/2009, (EU) No 648/2012, (EU) No 600/2014, (EU) No 909/2014 and (EU) 2016/10111 ("EU Digital Operational Resilience Act")
Dear Ms. Robertson, Dear Mr. Levin,
CCP Global is the international association for central counterparties ("CCPs"), representing 44 members who operate over 60 individual CCPs across the Americas, EMEA, and the Asia-Pacific region. CCP Global promotes effective, practical, and appropriate risk management and operational standards for CCPs to ensure the safety and efficiency of the financial markets it represents. CCP Global leads and assesses global regulatory and industry initiatives that concern CCPs to form consensus views, while also actively engaging with regulatory agencies and industry constituents through consultation responses, forum discussions, and position papers.
/jlne.ws/3ZpRNc1
DTCC Appoints Jason Angrisani Chief Marketing Officer; Angrisani brings more than 20 years of experience at leading financial firms to DTCC
DTCC
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC), the premier post-trade market infrastructure for the global financial services industry, today announced the appointment of Jason Angrisani as Managing Director, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). He reports to Sharon Biran, Managing Director, Chief Client Officer.
/jlne.ws/3Zs7UWD
ICE Expands Global Energy Offering with the Launch of Japanese Power Futures
ICE
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE:ICE), a leading global provider of technology and data, today announced the latest addition to its global energy offering with the launch of Japanese Power Futures. ICE has launched four Japanese Power Financial Baseload and Peakload Futures covering the Tokyo and Kansai areas respectively, allowing market participants to manage exposure to the day-ahead auction price of the Japanese Electric Power Exchange (JEPX) for these areas.
/jlne.ws/3ZpiKg9
ICE Mortgage Monitor: Recent Vintage Borrowers Pounced on Early-Autumn Rate Drops as 300K+ Refinanced in September and October
ICE
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE:ICE), a leading global provider of technology and data, today released its December 2024 ICE Mortgage Monitor Report, based on the company's robust mortgage, real estate and public records data sets. When 30-year conforming mortgage interest rates fell into the low 6% range in August/September of this year, the mortgage industry experienced a welcome burst of refinance activity. This month's Mortgage Monitor dives deep into ICE Mortgage Trends closed loan data to learn what that brief "boomlet" in borrowing activity reveals about U.S. mortgage holders and their motivations in today's market. As Andy Walden, ICE Vice President of Research and Analysis explains, homeowners with loans originated in the last few years were quick to act when the rate calculus turned in their favor.
/jlne.ws/41vsaJP
Notice on Investigation and Penalties for Violations of Relevant Rules and Regulations in November 2024
SFE
Shanghai Futures Exchange (hereinafter referred to as "the Exchange") has been on continuous efforts in investigating and penalizing violations of relevant rules and regulations, so as to strengthen the risk management of the futures market, regulate the futures trading activities and protect the legitimate rights and interests of futures market participants. The enforcement against such violations in November 2024 is listed as follows: In the aspect of administration of abnormal trading behaviors, the Exchange has dealt with 38 cases, among which 19 cases were self-trades, 16 cases were frequent order cancellations, 3 cases were exceeding the intraday position opening volume prescribed by the Exchange. The Exchange has separately notified the relevant clients by phone through the members, notified 7 abnormal trading behaviors to all the members and suspended 3 groups of accounts that exist the actual control relationship from opening new positions on the relevant futures or futures contracts and notified to the market.
/jlne.ws/49vp6iB
TMX Group Equity Financing Statistics - November 2024
TMX
December 6, 2024 - TMX Group today announced its financing activity on Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV) for November 2024. TSX welcomed 14 new issuers in November 2024, compared with 11 in the previous month and seven in November 2023. The new listings were 11 exchange traded funds, one clean technology company, one mining company and one consumer products & services company. Total financings raised in November 2024 decreased 37% compared to the previous month, and were down 48% compared to November 2023. The total number of financings in November 2024 was 33, compared with 37 the previous month and 34 in November 2023.
/jlne.ws/3VpCmiP
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| Fintech | | A roundup of today's market tech news and a look at tomorrow's disruptors | Bold Names: The CEO Who Says Cheaper AI Could Actually Mean More Jobs
WSJ Podcasts
Cloud storage used to be a sleepy part of the computing world but, with artificial intelligence becoming cheaper than ever, the companies collecting and protecting that data are now a hot investment. That includes cloud storage company Box, which has seen its stock climb nearly 40% this year. Its customers include most of the Fortune 500, including movie studios, automakers, consumer electronics giants, marketing firms and the Pentagon. Box CEO Aaron Levie says AI is getting better at piecing through 90% of companies' data that previously was an intractable mess, and is doing some tasks better than humans - from processing invoices and parsing contracts to building marketing campaigns. So why does he think that could actually lead to more jobs for humans? Plus, why his company plans to stay "model agnostic" and continue to work with all the major artificial intelligence models, including OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude. He speaks to WSJ's Christopher Mims and Tim Higgins in episode four of our interview series Bold Names.
/jlne.ws/4faMbse
Meta rolls out internal AI tool as it pushes into business market
Cristina Criddle and Hannah Murphy - Financial Times
Meta is pushing forward with plans to develop its artificial intelligence offering to businesses, as the social media platform rolls out a new AI tool internally that aims to boost productivity. The AI software, called Metamate after the internal name for the group's employees, is built on the tech giant's large language model, Llama, and is used for coding, conducting research, as well as drafting communications internally and externally.
/jlne.ws/3OMV5RV
China launches antitrust probe into Nvidia; Move comes as tensions deepen between Washington and Beijing over development of AI
Ryan McMorrow - Financial Times
China has launched an antitrust probe into chip giant Nvidia, as competition with the US deepens over the development of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence. Chinese state media on Monday night reported that the State Administration of Market Regulation had in recent days opened an investigation into Nvidia for alleged antitrust violations. The state media report indicated that China's market regulator was also reviewing the US chipmaker's commitments made during its $6.9bn acquisition of Mellanox, an Israeli-American supplier of networking products. China's market regulator conditionally approved the deal in 2020.
/jlne.ws/4f7WCfV
AI Voice Startup From Ex-OpenAI Researcher Valued at $200 Million; WaveForms wants to help people have better spoken conversations with machines.
Rachel Metz - Bloomberg
A lead researcher behind OpenAI's voice assistant has raised $40 million in funding from venture firm Andreessen Horowitz for a new artificial intelligence startup focused on helping people have better spoken conversations with computers. WaveForms AI, which launched Monday, is working on AI audio software to pick up on emotional cues and enable more seamless verbal interactions with machines, co-founder and chief executive officer Alexis Conneau told Bloomberg News. The seed funding values WaveForms at $200 million, the company said.
/jlne.ws/3OM0Wac
Reddit to Launch AI-Powered Chatbot to Ward Off Search Engines; AI chabot will summarize Reddit posts and conversations; Reddit uses artificial intelligence models from OpenAI, Google
Aisha Counts - Bloomberg
Reddit Inc. is testing a new AI-powered chatbot as the social media company looks for ways to increase user interactions and keep people on its site. The chatbot, called Reddit Answers, will help users find information, make recommendations and surface discussions from across the platform's forums.
/jlne.ws/4ip9HVb
How the Hedge Fund Magnetar Is Financing the AI Boom; Trading computing power for equity.
Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal - Bloomberg
AI software and the hardware that enables it have been hugely popular investments this year. But there have still been limiting factors on the sector, including a shortage of compute to power so many new start-ups. Investors don't want to finance companies that lack a signed contract for compute, and compute providers don't want to sign contracts for startups that haven't already secured funding. Now Magnetar, a hedge fund that started its first ever venture capital fund earlier this year, is trying to solve this "chicken and egg" problem by offering compute in exchange for equity. Magnetar was an early investor in the AI space, partnering with Coreweave and recently helping the hyperscaler to raise $7.5 billion. On this episode, we speak with Jim Prusko, partner and senior portfolio manager on Magnetar's alternative credit and fixed income team, about why the hedge fund is getting into venture capital and some of the new ways they're deploying money in the space.
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Meet the Small AI Chip Maker Now More Valuable Than Intel; Marvell's role in helping tech titans create their own data center chips has boosted its revenue-and valuation
Dan Gallagher - Bloomberg
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Blackstone's Data-Center Ambitions School a City on AI Power Strains; Property owners around Fayetteville, Georgia, are at the front lines of a battle over infrastructure critical to our tech future.
Dawn Lim and Josh Saul - Bloomberg
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Payments Are Going Digital, but Many Seniors Still Rely on Cash; "We're putting another burden on the elderly that we don't have to," one researcher said.
Paula Span - The New York Times
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Broadridge launches buy-side AI-powered algo service; New service will offer insights to hedge funds, asset managers and other buy-side based off real-time liquidity mapping.
Editors - The Trade News
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| Cybersecurity | | Top stories for cybersecurity | He Investigates the Internet's Most Vicious Hackers-From a Secret Location; In the increasingly dangerous world of cybercrime, Brian Krebs faces threats, manipulation and the odd chess challenge
Robert McMillan and Vipal Monga - The Wall Street Journal
One morning in September, a hacker known as Waifu sent a message to Brian Krebs, a cybersecurity researcher investigating him. Waifu wanted to play a game. "Here is the deal," Waifu wrote. "Beat me 2 out of 3 in chess, and if your demand is reasonable, I would answer questions without trolling u." Krebs didn't reply, but the messages kept coming in. "I would rate you FBI range in terms of HUMINT skill and capability," Waifu wrote, using a military term for gathering intelligence from human sources. "But I really want to play you in chess."
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| Cryptocurrencies | | Top stories for cryptocurrencies | Virtu, StanChart Join New UK Crypto Derivatives Trading Platform; GFO-X now expects to launch in first quarter of 2025; New venue for trading of Bitcoin index futures and options
Anna Irrera - Bloomberg
Standard Chartered Plc and Virtu Financial Inc. are among large financial companies poised to join a new London-based crypto derivatives venue, as a market rally boosts the appeal of digital currencies. Trading platform Global Futures and Options Ltd., known as GFO-X, said on Monday that it had also signed up ABN Amro Clearing and market maker IMC, and expects to launch in the first quarter of next year. GFO-X is backed by M&G Investments, the asset management arm of pensions giant M&G Plc.
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Swamp Notes: America's first 'Bitcoin president'; Cryptocurrencies used to be 'anti-establishment'. Donald Trump might change that.
Financial Times (podcast)
Donald Trump once called cryptocurrencies a "scam". He's long since changed his tune, and now, crypto enthusiasts are hoping he'll catapult the industry into the financial mainstream. The FT's digital markets correspondent Nikou Asgari and US legal and enforcement correspondent Stefania Palma join this week's Swamp Notes to discuss what the industry could look like under a second Trump administration.
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Mainstream memecoins signal changing markets; Ordinary investors need to pay attention to new information flows online
Gillian Tett - Financial Times (opinion)
Dead squirrels normally do not feature in financial history. But we do not live in "normal" times right now. Far from it. A month ago, America's online Maga crowd exploded in social media outrage after New York health officials euthanised a pet squirrel called Peanut suspected of carrying rabies. Since Peanut was already famous on the internet, Elon Musk decried the death. "The government can barge into your home...take your pets and execute them," he declared. Then, as viral outrage spread, the price of a memecoin - or digital asset - named after the squirrel jumped from $0.1 to $2.27 in a few days, pushing its market capitalisation over $2bn.
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MicroStrategy Buys More Bitcoin as Funding Draws Scrutiny
Monique Mulima - Bloomberg
MicroStrategy Inc. (MSTR) bought another $2.1 billion in Bitcoin while its combination of equity and fixed-income securities sales to finance the rapidly increasing acquisitions draws increased scrutiny. It was the fifth consecutive Monday that the Tysons Corner, Virginia-based firm announced purchases of the digital asset. Co-founder and Chairman Michael Saylor has accumulated Bitcoin now worth more than $41 billion over the past four years after deciding that the small enterprise software maker needed to embark on a different path to survive. He accelerated the strategy shift in October by announcing plans to raise $42 billion over the next three years through an evenly split combination of at-the-market stock sales and convertible debt offerings.
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Larry Summers: National Bitcoin Reserve 'Crazy'
Bibhu Pattnaik - Benzinga
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers has dismissed the idea of a national Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) reserve as "crazy" amidst ongoing deliberations in Congress and the crypto industry. What Happened: In an interview with Bloomberg on Friday, Summers voiced his doubts about the feasibility of a national bitcoin reserve. He opined that although he feels cryptocurrencies have been excessively regulated, the concept of a national bitcoin reserve doesn't hold water. "There are probably respects in which crypto has been over-regulated by overzealous regulators. But some of what is being said, this idea that we should have some kind of national bitcoin reserve, is crazy," Summers told the outlet.
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How Long Will the Trump Crypto Boom Last?
John Cassidy - The New Yorker
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Firms Ride Bitcoin Wave to Raise Billions From Convertible Debt; MARA Holdings among followers of MicroStrategy's playbook; Bitcoin has gained over 40% since the US presidential election
Bailey Lipschultz - Bloomberg
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Hong Kong to introduce stablecoin bill to regulate virtual token, protect stability
South China Morning Post
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| Politics | | An overview of politics as it relates to the financial markets | Trump's Energy Secretary Pick Preaches the Benefits of Climate Change; Fracking CEO Chris Wright points to positive changes produced by global warming, in contrast with what some oil giants say
Benoit Morenne - The Wall Street Journal
Chris Wright, President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for energy secretary, says that climate change poses only a modest threat to humanity. The biggest U.S. oil companies disagree. A fracking executive, Wright acknowledges that burning fossil fuels is contributing to rising temperatures. But he also says climate change makes the planet greener by increasing plant growth, boosts agricultural productivity and likely reduces the number of temperature-related deaths annually.
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Trump Prepares for Legal Fight Over His 'Birthright Citizenship' Curbs; Many constitutional scholars and civil-rights groups have said a change can't be done through executive action
Tarini Parti and Michelle Hackman - The Wall Street Journal
President-elect Donald Trump's transition team is drafting several versions of his long-promised executive order to curtail automatic citizenship for anyone born in the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter, as his aides prepare for an expanded legal fight. Trump, who has railed against so-called birthright citizenship for years, said during his first term that he was planning an executive order that would outright ban it. Such an order was never signed, but the issue remained a focus of Trump's immigration proposals during his re-election campaign. He has said he would tackle the issue in an executive order on day one of his second term.
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Fiserv's Bisignano Takes on New Mess: Social Security
Emily Mason - Bloomberg
Frank Bisignano, the chief executive officer of financial-technology company Fiserv Inc., has long had the reputation as a fixer on Wall Street. Now, he's being tasked with fixing one of the biggest issues the US faces: Social Security. President-elect Donald Trump nominated Bisignano to lead the Social Security Administration, an almost 60,000-person government agency that provides benefits to roughly 71.6 million Americans. For years, management of the program has been a political football and subject of hot debate due to its cloudy future. Estimates have emerged that benefit cuts will be necessary as early as 2033, the result of a projected shortfall between the taxes that fund the program and the amount needed to pay full benefits.
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Republicans who oppose Donald Trump face risk of retaliation from Elon Musk; Billionaire has hinted he will back challenges to lawmakers who vote against the Maga agenda
Joe Miller - Financial Times
Republicans weighing Donald Trump's cabinet nominations and proposed budget cuts face the threat of retaliation from Elon Musk if they vote down parts of the incoming administration's agenda. The multi-billionaire, who spent more than $250mn on Trump's campaign and has been at the president-elect's side in Mar-a-Lago since his election win, has suggested those who frustrate the administration's plans should face a primary challenge. He has also said elected officials who do not agree to slash the US's national debt "need to be fired next election cycle".
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Trump's Crypto-AI Czar Sacks Is Longtime Critic of Tech Regulation; David Sacks, the VC and staunch Trump supporter, hasn't been a key player in either crypto or AI until now.
Sarah McBride and Emily Nicolle - Bloomberg
David Sacks, President-elect Donald Trump's surprise pick to guide policy on artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, doesn't have deep ties to either industry or an extensive track record of investing in them. What he does have, though, is even more important in the eyes of technology investors - a tech-friendly worldview and a long history of skepticism about government regulation.
/jlne.ws/4ikOmw9
Assad Resurfaces in Moscow After Syrian Regime Swept Away
Flavia Krause-Jackson - Bloomberg
Syria's Bashar al-Assad has landed in Moscow after Islamist-led forces entered the capital and ended more than half-a-century of his family's rule. The mystery surrounding his whereabouts was finally put to rest late Sunday. According to a Kremlin official familiar with the situation, he has arrived in the Russian capital and TASS state media reported he and his family were granted asylum.
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Taiwan reports near doubling of Chinese warships nearby
Reuters
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How Peter Thiel's network of right-wing techies is infiltrating Donald Trump's White House
Jessica Mathews - Fortune
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| Regulation & Enforcement | | Stories about regulation and the law. | New rules sharpen investment focus on modern slavery; EU human rights directive adds to US laws on forced labour - but uncertainty surrounds Trump administration's stance
Patrick Temple-West - Financial Times
New regulations on human rights are forcing global companies to address concerns about modern slavery and tackle problems in their supply chains. In Europe, a landmark human rights rule was adopted by the EU in July 2024. The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) requires European companies - and some businesses abroad but with significant turnover in the EU - to identify and prevent possible human rights abuses. This applies to product manufacturing supply, raw materials, and other aspects of companies' supply chains.
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Swiss Probe of Credit Suisse Nears With UBS Capital at Stake
Bastian Benrath-Wright and Noele Illien - Bloomberg
Switzerland is nearing publication of a landmark political inquiry into the causes of Credit Suisse's 2023 downfall, a report which is likely to apportion blame for the crisis and set the tone for the future regulation of UBS Group AG. The commission working on it - known in Switzerland by its acronym PUK - has said it wants to finish before the end of this year, paving the way for legislative proposals and new regulatory ordinances by the spring.
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Exclusive-China regulators tell banks to expedite offshore company listings, sources say
Selena Li, Scott Murdoch, Julie Zhu and Kane Wu - Reuters
Regulators in mainland China and Hong Kong have told some of the world's biggest investment banks to help speed up Chinese companies' listings in the city, said sources, in a bid to boost fundraising overseas and revitalise the world's No. 2 economy. The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) in October told two meetings, attended by a total of more than 10 banks and law firms, it was working towards speeding up some approvals for offshore listings, seven sources said.
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Yellen warns against weakening financial risk watchdog
Pete Schroeder - Reuters
U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Friday warned it was "crucial" that a panel charged with monitoring financial risks be able to continue its work as worries grow President-elect Donald Trump's administration will again weaken the body. Speaking at Friday's Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) meeting, the last of President Joe Biden's administration, Yellen said that under Trump's first term the panel's staff shrank to single digits and the infrastructure supporting interagency coordination was significantly scaled back.
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Commissioner Johnson Announces Agenda for CFTC Market Risk Advisory Committee Meeting on Dec. 10
CFTC
CFTC Commissioner Kristin N. Johnson, sponsor of the Market Risk Advisory Committee, today released the agenda for its public meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 10, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (ET) at the CFTC's Washington, D.C. headquarters.
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ASIC accepts court enforceable undertaking from Northern Territory pawnbroker for unlicensed credit
ASIC
ASIC has accepted a Court Enforceable Undertaking (CEU) from Northern Territory-based pawnbroking business Lend NT Pty Ltd and its sole director Laddawan Te Maro after investigating concerns Lend NT was engaging in unlicensed credit. Lend NT and Ms Te Maro admitted that Lend NT contravened sections 29 and 32 of the National Credit Act by providing Drive Away Loans to consumers.
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Court verdict on fraud over secret backdoor listing
SFC
The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) welcomes the conviction by the District Court today of Mr Chim Pui Chung and his son Mr Ricky Chim Kim Lun of two counts of conspiracy to defraud Asia Resources Holdings Limited (Asia Resources), its board of directors and shareholders as well as the Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (SEHK) over a secret backdoor listing arrangement concerning Asia Resources. Their convictions arose from a prosecution brought by the Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) following a referral by the SFC. Ms Wong Poe Lai was also convicted of one count of money laundering in the same case (Notes 1 to 3).
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Transaction in Securities of Unlisted Public Limited Companies on Electronic Platforms1
SEBI
It has come to the notice of SEBI that certain electronic platforms and/or websites are facilitating transaction in unlisted securities of public limited companies. Such activities are in violation of Securities Contract (Regulation) Act, 1956 and SEBI Act, 1992 which are, inter alia, laws designed to regulate and protect the interest of investors in securities market.
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| Investing & Trading | | Today's top stories from equities, indices and FICC (fixed income, currencies and commodities) | Elon Musk vs Delaware battle puts spotlight on value of shareholder votes; Pay package twice-approved by Tesla investors could sway courts
Sujeet Indap - Financial Times (opinion)
Elon Musk's seemingly unbreakable bond with Tesla shareholders may be his superpower. That special relationship may very well be compelling enough to get him his $56bn pay deal which was rejected by the Delaware Court of Chancery for a second time last week. Musk has easily won two votes over the pay package, the second time this June even after an original scathing ruling in February from a trial court that held the Tesla board process around the original 2018 approval was tainted. Tesla's board has insisted that those successful votes cure any corporate governance defects. Vox Populi, Vox Dei indeed, as inscribed on a cake Musk said he was sending to the Delaware courts as a "parting gift", reminding them that "the voice of the people is the voice of the gods". Love him or hate him, Musk has offered Tesla shareholders a voice, even if the Delaware judiciary is unimpressed so far with those efforts.
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Can Stocks Pull Off a Third Consecutive Year of Big Gains? One concern darkening the longer-term outlook is uncertainty about whether the AI boom can continue
Krystal Hur - The Wall Street Journal
Wall Street is grappling with whether another year of robust gains is possible for a stock market that is looking precariously expensive. The S&P 500 has surged 28% in 2024 and is on pace for back-to-back annual jumps of more than 20% for the first time since a four-year stretch that ended in 1998. Strategists at some of the nation's biggest banks are projecting more modest returns in 2025. JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs project that the S&P 500 will reach 6500 by the end of next year, a 6.7% increase from Friday's close of roughly 6090.
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Wall Street isn't worried about a stock-market crash. That's why you should be; Stock traders have become even more bullish and complacent - and that's a bearish sign
Mark Hulbert - MarketWatch
Yet another black cloud on the stock market's horizon is the new all-time high for the CBOE's SKEW Index. Most market commentators are putting a different spin on this index's new high. They suggest that traders now believe a Black Swan event, such as a crash, has become more likely. But if that were so, it would be a positive development to contrarian investors, indicating that Wall Street is not as irrationally exuberant as other sentiment indices are suggesting. The SKEW's new high actually means just the opposite. It means that the great majority of traders have become even more bullish than they were before. And that's bearish from a contrarian point of view.
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How Did Taylor Swift Fans Juice the Economy? We Tracked One Friend Group's Spending; Manicures, brunch, cocktails, friendship bracelets. How five women (and two husbands) splurged on an Eras Tour road trip.
Hannah Miao - The Wall Street Journal
When Taylor Swift comes to town, people open up their wallets. Such is the power of the 34-year-old singer-songwriter billionaire, whose record-busting Eras Tour ends Sunday. The extravaganza-spread across two years, five continents and 149 shows-is estimated to have sold roughly 10 million tickets generating around $2 billion in revenue, based on calculations by The Wall Street Journal. It is certain to be the biggest tour, by revenue, in history. And that's only the concert tickets. Unofficially, the Swift lift is much wider. Hotels, restaurants, bars and other businesses lucky enough to be in the tour's path often get a boost when Hurricane Taylor blows in.
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Accounting errors force US companies to pull statements in record numbers; 'Concerning' rise in restatements of financial results raises questions about quality of auditing
Stephen Foley - Financial Times
The number of US companies forced to withdraw financial statements because of accounting errors has surged to a nine-year high, raising questions about why mistakes are going unnoticed by auditors. In the first 10 months of this year, 140 public companies told investors that previous financial statements were unreliable and had to reissue them with corrected figures, according to data from Ideagen Audit Analytics. That is up from 122 in the same period last year and more than double the figure four years ago. So-called reissuance restatements cover the most serious accounting errors, either because of the size of the mistake or because an issue is of particular concern to investors.
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Late to Party, Morgan Stanley Analyst Jumps on Reddit Bandwagon
Kit Rees - Bloomberg
A Morgan Stanley analyst admits he missed the boat on Reddit Inc.'s huge post-initial public offering gains. Yet he feels there's still time to jump aboard. Having held an equal-weight recommendation on the social media company since starting coverage in April, analyst Brian Nowak upgraded the stock to overweight, bringing him into line with the majority of peers. He also almost tripled his price target, taking it from the lowest to the highest on the Street.
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Cocoa Hits 7-Month High on West Africa Crop Prospects Souring
Mumbi Gitau - Bloomberg
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Private credit's struggling pioneer is a warning sign for market
Francesca Veronesi and Silas Brown - Bloomberg
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Bond Vigilantes Are Still Hibernating as the Market Sizes Up Trump 2.0
Ye Xie - Bloomberg
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| Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance | | Stories about environmental, social and governance investing | Goldman Decides to Leave World's Top Climate Alliance for Banks; Move comes as financial firms prepare for new ESG regulations; Franklin Templeton is quitting separate climate fund alliance
Natasha White, Alastair Marsh, and Saijel Kishan - Bloomberg
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is quitting a major climate group for banks, as increasingly complex regulations and US political attacks lead some of the financial industry's biggest firms to rethink such affiliations. The bank's decision to leave the Net-Zero Banking Alliance was mainly motivated by the need to comply with mandatory reporting guidelines, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing internal deliberations at the bank. The person pointed to the rollout of the European Union's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive as a key development guiding Goldman's approach to the matter.
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Data shortfall undermines ESG investment, asset managers warn
Chris Newlands - Financial Times
Asset managers have had two accusations levelled at them when it comes to green investing. First, that they are not doing enough to use their influence as investors to tackle climate change. And, second, that they have, in some cases, overstated the green credentials of their funds to benefit from the growing interest in sustainable investing. In their defence, however, investment managers say they are working with "one hand tied behind their backs" - as one portfolio manager puts it - because of a lack of high-quality, comprehensive, and trustworthy data regarding any company's environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance.
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High Pacific surface temperatures fuel record warm year; Unusually hot seas lead to more rain, causing flooding in many parts of the world
Kenza Bryan and Jana Tauschinski - Financial Times
Sea surface temperatures remained unusually high across many regions in the Pacific Ocean in November, leaving the world on course for a record warm year, the European Earth observation agency said. The month of November was the second-warmest on record on land and at sea, with air temperatures at 1.62C above pre-industrial levels, data from Copernicus showed. The average sea surface temperature for the month was 20.58C.
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How the world's biggest offshore wind company was blown off course; Denmark's Orsted was once seen as a model for how oil and gas giants could go green. Its recent troubles suggest that things may not be so easy
Rachel Millard - Financial Times
As the Danish renewable energy company Orsted battled to restore its reputation following a bruising year, a rival across the North Sea had the company in its sights. After months of quietly buying Orsted shares, Norway's state-owned oil and gas giant Equinor revealed in October that it now had a 10 per cent stake, promising to be a "supportive" shareholder.
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Three-Quarters of Earth's Land Got Drier in Recent Decades, U.N. Says; Human-caused global warming helped increase dry conditions on every continent, scientists said in a new report, as talks on halting desertification were underway in Saudi Arabia.
Raymond Zhong - The New York Times
From the American West to eastern China, more than three-quarters of Earth's land became persistently drier in recent decades, according to a new United Nations report that called the shift a "global, existential peril." Industrial emissions of planet-warming gases were a major culprit, the report said. If nations don't stop the rise in temperatures, the drying is likely to expose more places to sand and dust storms, wildfires, water shortages, crop failures and desertification.
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Trump's policies 'should be turning off farmers' - why did so many vote for him?; Plans of deportation and trade wars should concern farmers, yet they backed him by a three-to-one margin
Stephen Starr - The Guardian
Every year, farmers in California's Central valley heavily rely on the labor of hundreds of thousands of immigrant agricultural workers to grow and harvest their crops. But for many in a region that produces one-quarter of the country's food, president-elect Donald Trump's promise to deport millions of undocumented migrants - a move that could result in national agricultural output falling by up to $60bn - is not a threat to their livelihoods.
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Global Temperature Set to Surpass 1.5C Threshold in Hottest Year on Record
Olivia Rudgard - Bloomberg
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OPEC's market power is 'less than you would imagine' and the US doesn't need to get fussed over the cartel, State Dept. official says
Jason Ma - Fortune
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| Banks, Brokers & Managed Funds | | The latest from banks, brokers, hedge funds and managed futures | Deutsche Bank Reshuffles Operations Team; Deutsche Bank Renews Asia Tech Partnership
FI News Asia
Frankfurt-headquartered Deutsche Bank has announced changes to its operations team in the emerging markets business, finews.asia has learned. Deutsche Bank has appointed Geraldine Chow as chief operating officer (COO) for Singapore wealth management, according to an internal memo seen by finews.asia, effective December 2. In the expanded role, she has various responsibilities including heading «change-the-bank» initiatives across the whole APAC wealth management platform.
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An old strategy is being reinvented on Wall St; A growing market for credit risk transfers is drawing a debate over potential hazards and benefits
William Cohan - Financial Times (opinion)
The writer is a former investment banker and author of "Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon"
There is an old idea making new waves on Wall Street. Banks of all stripes are once again moving risk off their balance sheets, in line with the demands of their prudential regulators, to make room for taking on more risk. These so-called "credit risk transfers," or CRTs, enable banks to sell only the risks associated with various loans, or pools of loans - but not the loans themselves - to third-parties willing to assume those risks and take the associated rewards, or so they hope. They are also known as "significant risk transfer" or SRTs. "One of the major growing pains for this market is that no one can decide on a name. The product is known by different names in different places," notes law firm A & O Shearman.
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Boutique Bank Raine to Shut HK Base, Offers Staff Singapore Move
Joyce Koh and Manuel Baigorri - Bloomberg
Raine Group plans to close its Hong Kong office and is offering the staff to relocate to Singapore as the New York-based boutique adviser seeks to consolidate its operations in Asia, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Three Hong Kong staff, including a managing director, have been offered to move, the people said, asking not to be named as the discussions are confidential. The move comes amid a pickup in activity in Singapore, its biggest office in Asia, which continues to be on an expansion path, the people said.
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BNP Boosts SRT for a Second Time to Back EUR17 Billion of Loans; Size of significant risk transfer set at EUR764 million; Deal priced at spread of 690 basis points over Euribor
Esteban Duarte - Bloomberg
BNP Paribas SA increased the size of a corporate loan portfolio linked to a significant risk transfer for a second time, according to people familiar with the matter, providing the latest sign of growing investor demand for these transactions. The lender bolstered the pool of debt to EUR17 billion ($18 billion), an increase from EUR14 billion set more than two months ago, said the people, who asked not to be identified because they're not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. Initial discussions were for a portfolio in a range of EUR8 billion to EUR12 billion, Bloomberg News reported in July.
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Hedge Fund Regal Partners, Platinum Asset End Takeover Talks
Harry Brumpton - Bloomberg
Australian hedge fund Regal Partners Ltd. has ended takeover talks with Platinum Asset Management Ltd. after almost two months of due diligence failed to lead to an improved offer. Discussions over the unsolicited A$526 million ($336 million) bid have been called off by both sides, "removing the uncertainty that has persisted since Platinum rejected Regal's initial proposal," Platinum said in a statement Monday.
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Dollar Optimism Is Spreading From Hedge Funds to Asset Managers
Masaki Kondo and Ruth Carson - Bloomberg
A resilient US economy and deepening geopolitical tensions around the world are making asset managers rethink their expectations for a weaker dollar. Investors such as pension funds, insurance firms and mutual funds halved their net dollar short positions to $2.05 billion as of Dec. 3 from a week earlier, the least since April 2017, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission data compiled by Bloomberg. Hedge funds boosted their bullish bets by 9.3%, having held a favorable view on the US currency since October, the data show.
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| Work & Management | | Stories impacting work and more about management ideas, practices and trends. | UK regulators urged to make City firms report data on 'class ceiling'; Letter from campaigners calls for mandatory reporting of socio-economic backgrounds
Martin Arnold - Financial Times
The "class ceiling" restricting people with poorer backgrounds from working in UK financial services would be broken if companies were forced to report on the socio-economic roots of their staff, leading social mobility organisations have told regulators. Economic growth would be increased, risk-taking enhanced and consumers better-served if financial services companies had more staff from less privileged upbringings, the organisations said in a letter to the UK's top financial watchdogs.
/jlne.ws/3ONoKdA
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| Wellness Exchange | | An Exchange of Health and Wellness Information | 'Poor sleep' could age your brain faster, new study finds
BBC
Researchers have found that poor sleep quality can lead to accelerated brain aging over time. The new study found that certain sleep characteristics like early morning awakening and difficulty falling asleep could be especially harmful.
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| Regions | | Stories of local interest from the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions | China Resumed Gold Purchases Last Month After Prices Soared
Sybilla Gross - Bloomberg
China's central bank expanded its gold reserves in November, ending a six-month pause in purchases after prices for the precious metal rose to a record. Bullion held by the People's Bank of China climbed by 160,000 fine troy ounces last month to 72.96 million fine troy ounces, according to official data released on Saturday. The PBOC had added to its stockpiles for 18 consecutive months up until April this year, helping to underpin the strength in bullion prices.
/jlne.ws/41j5VXk
China Signals Bolder Stimulus for Next Year as Trump Returns; Politburo to take 'moderately loose' monetary position in 2025
Bloomberg News
China's top leaders signaled bolder economic support next year using their most direct language on stimulus in years, as Beijing braces for a trade war when Donald Trump takes office. President Xi Jinping's decision-making Politburo vowed to embrace a "moderately loose" monetary policy in 2025, according to the official Xinhua News Agency, signaling more rate cuts ahead and shifting from a "prudent" strategy that's held for nearly 14 years.
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China develops new iron making method that boosts productivity by 3,600 times
Bojan Stojkovski - Interesting Engineering
A new iron making technology developed in China is set to significantly impact the global steel industry. Developed after more than 10 years of research, this method injects finely ground iron ore powder into a very hot furnace, causing an "explosive chemical reaction", according to the engineers. The result is a continuous flow of high-purity iron that forms as bright red, glowing liquid droplets that accumulate at the base of the furnace, ready for direct casting or one-step steel-making.
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Geologists Might Have Stumbled Upon the Largest Gold Mine in the World
Tim Newcomb - Popular Mechanics
A deposit of gold ore just discovered in China isn't just giant. It's supergiant. So much so, in fact, that Chinese experts claim it could be the largest deposit of any precious metal-not just gold ore-in existence today. How big is the "supergiant" deposit located under the Wangu gold field in the Hunan province? Experts estimate it at 1,100 tons.
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India Appoints Princeton-Educated Malhotra to Lead Central Bank
Anup Roy - Bloomberg
India appointed Sanjay Malhotra, a career bureaucrat, as the new governor of the nation's central bank, ending weeks of speculation over who would helm monetary policy in the world's fastest-growing major economy. The new governor will take charge of the Reserve Bank of India for a three-year term from Dec. 11, according to a government statement Monday. He succeeds Shaktikanta Das who has been the RBI chief since 2018.
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Women Are Still Struggling to Make It Into the C-Suite in the UK; New research shows that the path for women to become CEO remains "unbelievably narrow" across British corporations.
Katherine Griffiths - Bloomberg
Women are increasingly being hired for the roles at companies that tend to lead to the CEO slot, but they're still largely missing at the highest rungs of British corporations. Women now make up 23% of chief financial officers, chief operating officers, divisional bosses or are already chief executives across the FTSE 100, according to new research by 25x25, an organization formed to help boost the level of female talent at the top of British companies. That's up from 16% in 2021, the group said.
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Hedge Funds Set to Take Center Stage in Abu Dhabi
Adveith Nair - Bloomberg
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'It's an old person's drink.' Is Britain's love for tea cooling off?
Faarea Masud, Josh McMinn and Jennifer Meierhans - BBC
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El Salvador to scale back bitcoin dreams to seal $1.3bn IMF deal; Central American nation to make acceptance of cryptocurrency voluntary to unlock international lending
Michael Stott in San Salvador - Financial Times
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Trump Won't Be Able to Save the Struggling US Beef Industry; Even before the Republican's upcoming return to Washington, the country's cattle industry has been in a deepening rut.
Gerson Freitas Jr - Bloomberg
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| Miscellaneous | | Stories that don't quite fit under the other sections | What if Charity Shouldn't Be Optimized? The recent trend in philanthropy has been to look for the most bang for your buck. Maybe you don't have to.
Emma Goldberg - The New York Times
Equipped with tools to measure our calories, steps, working hours, wasted hours, water intake and sleep cycles, we have now been exhorted to measure our charitable impact, too. Books, podcasts, TikToks and digital guides implore us to donate our money cautiously, rationally, to the charities that promise to make a dollar go the furthest it can. Holiday season giving can start to feel a little like sports betting: It doesn't matter if you're loyal to a scrappy local team - the data can tell you exactly where your money should go.
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