| August 17, 2023 | "Irreverent, but never irrelevant" | | | | John Lothian
Publisher
John Lothian News | |
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Hits & Takes
John Lothian & JLN Staff
Zero-day options are in the news in a Bloomberg story titled, Goldman Sachs blaming 0DTE options for fueling the S&P 500 selloff and a UBS study showing zero-day options play a role in stock dynamics.
Cboe Global Markets has come out with their own whitepaper on the product titled "The Rise of SPX & 0DTE Options." The new report takes a deeper dive into the entire SPX 0DTE ecosystem and covers everything from total options volume versus SPX options volume to the history of SPX 0DTE growth, use cases, quote quality and trading strategies with 0DTE trading, Cboe said.
The research was led by a next-generation talent at Cboe named Jonathan Zaionz, Cboe's senior derivatives analyst.
The FIA is holding its annual Washington Update 2023, hosted by the FIA Operations Americas Division, on September 6 at the Union League Club of Chicago from 3:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. CT.
The topics and agenda of STA's 90th Annual Market Structure Conference on October 11 to 13 in Washington, DC have been posted HERE.
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) today announced the appointment of Catherine Yien as managing director and head of Listed Issuer Regulation, Listing Division.
Trish Foshee of The IFM reported on LinkedIn: "Developed with the help of the CME Group, FIA-IFM's e-learning course, "CME Group Market Rules and Regulatory Guidelines" has been expanded to include important information on CME position limits."
R.J. O'Brien is hiring a commodity market strategist in West Des Moines, IA. Details for the job are HERE.
Your golf game needs some help, so you buy the latest $400 putter to come out and the stock of that putter company surges 624% in its stock debut because there are more bad golfers seeking to improve their putting. However, the next day the shares of the company, Sacks Parente Golf Inc., sank 85%, eliminating most of the previous day's rally. Just like your golf game, the putt looked good until the ball slid off the green.
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 yesterday on JLN Options were:
- Goldman Sachs Blames Zero-Day Options for Fueling S&P 500 Selloff
- 'Big Short' investor Michael Burry's new bets against the S&P 500 and Nasdaq-100 are no surprise. Here's why.
- Caroline Ellison caught on secret recording blaming Sam Bankman-Fried for FTX collapse: prosecutors ~JB
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The Art of Persuasion Hasn't Changed in 2,000 Years
Carmine Gallo - The Harvard Business Review
Ideas are the currency of the twenty-first century. The ability to persuade, to change hearts and minds, is perhaps the single greatest skill that will give you a competitive edge in the knowledge economy - an age where ideas matter more than ever. Some economists believe that persuasion is responsible for generating one-quarter or more of America's total national income.
/jlne.ws/3KJ0W98
***** I am sure I can't convince you otherwise.~JJL
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Authorities to Return Materials Seized From Kansas Newspaper; County attorney says he will withdraw search warrant and return computers, cellphones taken in raid on newspaper
Shannon Najmabadi - The Wall Street Journal
The Marion County attorney has agreed to withdraw a search warrant and asked that all seized computers and cellphones be returned to a small central Kansas newspaper, after a raid on the outlet's office and the home of its owners last week prompted national outrage from advocates for a free press and experts in First Amendment law.
/jlne.ws/3qAC7FC
****** The basis of the search warrant was found wanting. The police were told to give back all the computers, phones and other technology. Unfortunately, the 98-year-old publisher who died is still dead. ~JJL
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Elon Musk won't fight Mark Zuckerberg in a 'cage match' - because he knows he'd lose
Hamilton Nolan - The Guardian
Never challenge anyone to a fight. Not even if you think you would win. Especially not if you think you would win. To break this commandment is to invite the wrath of all universal karma down upon your head. It is to engage in the folly of hubris, to break the prohibition against violence, and to set oneself up as a poster child for "getting what's coming to you".
/jlne.ws/3E3frRz
***** This writer has it right, Musk is a coward. You can see it in the way he runs X, formerly Twitter.~JJL
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Wednesday's Top Three
Our top clicked item Wednesday was the web site for Climate Week NYC, which takes place September 17-24, 2023. Second was the subscription page for the Marion County Record, whose offices were raided by the chief of police and the entire police force after it investigated the police chief. Third was Bloomberg's FXGO Expands Pricing Quality Analytics, an announcement from Bloomberg.
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| Lead Stories | CME Group Realigns Foreign Exchange Businesses, Expanding Trading Opportunities and Efficiencies for Clients Across Futures, Cash and OTC Markets
CME Group
CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, today announced a realignment of its FX futures, options, cash and over-the-counter (OTC) FX businesses into a single unit led by Paul Houston, who has overseen CME Group's futures and options business for seven years.
/jlne.ws/3OYWdBN
Venture capital funds are mostly just wasting their time and your money; Howling at the moonshots
Bryce Elder - Financial Times
A good investment strategy is to only buy stocks that go up. Most stocks don't go up though, at least not consistently, so an easier strategy is to buy lots of stocks and hope some will go up by more than most go down. It's an application of power law, where just a handful of portfolio investments will generate nearly all of the returns.
/jlne.ws/3OyIKQK
Scam Crypto Tokens Proliferate on Blockchain Hatched by Coinbase; More than 500 scam tokens were deployed on blockchain; Solidus Labs says scammers pocketed about $2 million in profit
Olga Kharif - Bloomberg
Token scams are flourishing on Base, the new blockchain launched by crypto exchange Coinbase Global Inc., earlier this month, an unfortunate byproduct of how vulnerable these networks are because they allow anyone to use them.
/jlne.ws/3DXZmMS
The Legendary, Wildly Profitable QQQ Fund Makes No Money for Its Owner; An historical artifact prevents Invesco from profiting from its flagship ETF. The company's Q-themed offshoots are finally solving that problem.
Katherine Greifeld - Bloomberg
Invesco QQQ Trust Series 1, better known by its ticker QQQ, is one of the most storied funds in the investing universe. It's also wildly profitable-just not for its owner, Invesco Ltd. Since its inauspicious introduction in March 1999, a year before the dot-com bubble burst, the exchange-traded fund has become almost synonymous with tech investing. Made up of the 100 or so biggest US companies listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange, it's enjoyed meteoric gains-about 430% on a total return basis over the past decade, nearly double the S&P 500-thanks to a portfolio heavy with tech juggernauts such as Apple, Microsoft, Amazon.com and more.
/jlne.ws/448z4lT
Mainland investors help ETFs grab record share of Hong Kong trading; ETF Connect scheme boosts Chinese participation despite falling Hong Kong stock trading
Sinyi Au - Financial Times
The average daily turnover of Hong Kong-listed exchange traded funds rose to a record high of 15.5 per cent of the stock market's total turnover in July at HK$15.9bn ($2.04bn), according to Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) data analysed by Ignites Asia.
/jlne.ws/47yyCAa
Global investors dump Chinese securities as state support hopes fade; Reversal of flows reflects crumbling confidence in promises made by party leaders
Hudson Lockett - Financial Times
Foreign investors have dumped Chinese stocks and bonds after losing confidence in Beijing's promises of more help to shore up the country's wobbling economy. Financial Times calculations based on data from Hong Kong's Stock Connect trading scheme show that investors have almost completely reversed Rmb54bn ($7.4bn) in net purchases of Chinese equities that followed a July 24 pledge from the politburo of top Communist party leaders to increase policy support.
/jlne.ws/3DY9kh8
Turmoil at Zhongzhi sparks alarm over China's $3tn shadow finance sector; Finance giant's missed payments to investors fuel concerns of spillover effect from property slowdown
Thomas Hale and Wang Xueqiao and Cheng Leng - Financial Times
On a messaging platform hosted by the Shanghai Stock Exchange where investors can put queries directly to companies, the focus this week has been on missed payments from a sprawling financial conglomerate.
/jlne.ws/459XcpB
PBOC Vows to Prevent Excessive Currency Movements as Yuan Slides
Bloomberg News
China's central bank pledged to avoid excessive movements in the yuan as the currency slides toward its weakest level since 2007. The People's Bank of China also said it will "step up macroeconomic policy adjustment," while largely reaffirming its policy stance, according to its quarterly monetary policy report published Thursday.
/jlne.ws/3shkP0P
Don't Deja Vu Me, Argentina. Markets Are Out of Tears; The crying game will start all over again if Javier Milei dollarizes the economy and abolishes the central bank, however satisfying that might be.
John Authers - Bloomberg (opinion)
A New Argentina. Oh what a circus, oh what a show. Javier Milei, the leading candidate to be Argentina's next president, is a libertarian economist who named his dogs after Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard and Robert Lucas. He's also an avowedly devout Roman Catholic who boasts of his many sexual adventures, and says his first acts in office would include abolishing Argentina's central bank and sending a bill to Congress to ditch the peso and use the US dollar instead. His success in finishing first in a crowded field in last Sunday's primaries has already pushed the government into an 18% devaluation.
/jlne.ws/44fn1TQ
Lex in depth: how investors are underpricing climate risks; The costs of inaction on global warming are potentially vast and often not sufficiently factored in to asset values
Vanessa Houlder and Nathalie Thomas - Financial Times
The world is reeling from record-breaking heatwaves, wildfires and rainfall. Devastating floods have ravaged northern China. Wildfires have ripped through Canada, southern Europe and, in recent days, the Hawaiian island of Maui. The human toll from these disasters, which experts say are becoming more common and more intense due to human-induced climate change, can be counted first of all in the thousands of lives lost.
/jlne.ws/45xyrDu
Economics Tamed the Weather. Now the Weather Strikes Back.; As extreme conditions grow more frequent, threat mounts to growth and inflation, especially in poor countries
Greg Ip - The Wall Street Journal
In the Federal Reserve's campaign to bring down inflation without tanking the economy, there's a key factor over which it has zero control: the weather. U.S. scientists are predicting that an unusually strong El Niño, a recurring weather pattern over the Pacific Ocean, could drive temperatures up by 1.5 degrees Celsius this fall and winter.
/jlne.ws/3scjpEF
How a Small Group of Firms Changed the Math for Insuring Against Natural Disasters
Emily Flitter - The New York Times
As disasters like the wildfires that devastated the Hawaiian town of Lahaina and the storms that tore apart roofs from Alabama to Massachusetts last week intensify, insurance companies have pulled back from offering coverage in certain areas or cut the kinds of damage they will pay to repair. A little-noticed slice of the financial industry that provides insurance to insurers, called reinsurance, has helped drive the changes.
/jlne.ws/45uSySO
So, You Want to Be a Tax Whistleblower; It takes a lot of time and determination, but the payoff from the IRS could be huge. Here's how to do it.
Tom Herman - The Wall Street Journal
Whistleblowers rarely win popularity contests. But in the tax world, whistleblowing sometimes can lead to handsome rewards. The Internal Revenue Service offers rewards for information on tax evasion and other noncompliance and that enables the government to collect additional revenue. Getting a reward, however, generally requires enormous patience and persistence as well as a deep understanding of tax-law intricacies, IRS rules and procedures.
/jlne.ws/448pcsl
Wirecard's byzantine fraud grips courts in Munich and Singapore; A complex international set-up and an absconded top executive have made going tough for investigators
Olaf Storbeck and Mercedes Ruehl - Financial Times
Three years after the collapse of German payments company Wirecard, one of the most enigmatic actors in the saga has made his first public appearance. After the start of a trial in Singapore in early August, James Henry O'Sullivan, a wealthy payments industry veteran and one-time confidant of former Wirecard executive Jan Marsalek, has been in court to hear charges against him of abetting the falsification of documents related to the business.
/jlne.ws/3qqsolm
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| Ukraine Invasion | | News about the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and its military, economic, political and humanitarian impact | Ukraine reclaims village in Donetsk region from Russian troops amid grueling counteroffensive
Lauren Said-Moorhouse, Alex Stambaugh and Kostan Nechyporenko - CNN
Ukrainian forces have retaken the village of Urozhaine in the eastern Donetsk region, Kyiv said on Wednesday, after days of punishing battles as part of its counteroffensive against Russia. Andrii Kovalov, spokesperson of the Ukrainian military's general staff, said on national television Wednesday morning that "Ukrainian defense forces took control of Urozhaine" and were consolidating their positions.
/jlne.ws/3P0jQLe
Military briefing: Russia hunts Ukraine's western missile stocks; British Storm Shadows and French Scalps have helped Kyiv in its counteroffensive, but more are needed
Roman Olearchyk - Financial Times
Russia's increased attacks on targets deep within Ukraine appear to have one goal above all: destroying Kyiv's ability to launch the long-range missiles it is receiving from western allies.
/jlne.ws/3smg85F
Unexploded Missile Suggests Moscow Is Rushing Weapons to the Front; Intact Russian rocket shows unusual production turnaround time; The Ukrainian counteroffensive has made slow process so far
Alberto Nardelli, Marc Champion and Natalia Drozdiak - Bloomberg
A recently manufactured Russian missile recovered by Ukrainian forces suggests the invading army is running low on stocks of some advanced weapons, and is having to produce them more quickly to maintain the intensity of its war.
/jlne.ws/3E0RmdX
Russia Turns Screws on Exporters After Debating Capital Controls; Government readies recommendations for exporters to help ruble; Formal capital controls remain an option if currency plunges
Bloomberg News
Russia's government will hold off on stiffening restrictions on the movement of capital and instead prepare recommendations for exporters to coax them into surrendering more of their foreign revenues to help stabilize the ruble.
/jlne.ws/3QJbWHj
A Sickly Ruble Reveals What Putin Will Not; Sanctions have not breached Russia's economic fortress, but they have put a time bomb under its foundations.
Alexandra Prokopenko - Bloombewrg
In the 18 months for which Russia has been waging war against Ukraine, Western countries have imposed more than 13,000 sanctions on Russia - yet the Russian economy shows no sign of collapsing. On the contrary, the International Monetary Fund forecast for the country is for 1.5% growth this year - more than the economies of Germany or the UK.
/jlne.ws/3QKzzj2
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| Exchanges, OTC & Clearing | | Top news from exchanges, clearing, settlement and trade execution facilities | Cboe Global Markets Declares Increased Third-Quarter 2023 Dividend; Quarterly cash dividend increased 10 percent to $0.55 per share; 13th consecutive year Cboe has increased its dividend
Cboe Global Markets
Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (Cboe: CBOE), the world's leading derivatives and securities exchange network, today announced its Board of Directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.55 per share of common stock for the third quarter of 2023, representing a 10 percent increase from the prior quarter's dividend of $0.50 per share.
/jlne.ws/44fu2Eb
CME Group and CF Benchmarks to Launch APAC Reference Rates for Bitcoin and Ether on September 11
CME Group
CME Group, the world's leading derivatives marketplace, and CF Benchmarks, the leading provider of cryptocurrency benchmark indices, today announced plans to launch two new APAC-specific reference rates for bitcoin and ether on September 11 - the CME CF Bitcoin Reference Rate APAC (BRRAP) and CME CF Ether-Dollar Reference Rate APAC (ETHUSD_AP) - which will provide a once-a-day reference rate for the U.S. dollar price of the two digital assets, published at 4 p.m. Hong Kong/Singapore time.
/jlne.ws/3P0y7HS
HKEX Names New Head Of Listed Issuer Regulation
Hong Kong Exchanges
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) is pleased to announce today (Thursday) the appointment of Ms Catherine Yien as Managing Director and Head of Listed Issuer Regulation, Listing Division.
/jlne.ws/3P3ohFm
Abaxx Submits Nickel Futures Contract Specifications for Inclusion as a Flagship Abaxx Exchange and Clearing Product
Abaxx
/jlne.ws/3OHAOwH
Amendments To ASX Dividend Reinvestment Plan Rules
ASX
In accordance with Listing Rule 3.10.8, ASX advises that it has amended the rules of the ASX Limited Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRP). The key changes to the rules are designed to: provide the Board with more flexibility to determine the relevant DRP pricing period for each dividend; simplify and update the process for handling the return of residual amounts in DRP accounts; and align the DRP with current market practice.
Other releases today:
ASX Limited - Corporate Governance Statement
ASX Limited - 2023 Tax Transparency Report
ASX Limited - 2023 Full-Year Results Market Release
ASX Limited - 2023 Full-Year Results Presentation Slides
ASX Limited - 2023 Full-Year Results Presentation And Speaking Notes
ASX continues to uplift delivery capability
/jlne.ws/46R1Cme
Replacements in indices and revision in criteria
NSE
The Index Maintenance Sub-Committee (Equity) of NSE Indices Limited has decided to make the following changes in various Nifty equity indices as listed hereunder:
/jlne.ws/45yKe4y
SGX Group reports market statistics for July 2023
SGX Group
Record commodities volume as iron ore financialisation accelerates; Securities market turnover grows as STI outperforms most of region. Singapore Exchange (SGX Group) today released its market statistics for July 2023. Differing views over the pace of China's economic recovery, as well as signs that global central banks could be near the end of their monetary-tightening cycles, drove risk-management activity.
/jlne.ws/45c3C7z
SGX Group reports FY2023 net profit of S$503 million
SGX Group
FY2023 Financial Summary. FY2023.
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| Fintech | | A roundup of today's market tech news and a look at tomorrow's disruptors | Lombard Odier joins Neptune's buy-side community; Clients will now have access to real-time axe data from Neptune across rates, investment grade, high yield and emerging markets bonds.
Wesley Bray - The Trade
Fixed income axe provision platform, Neptune Networks, has added Geneva-based Lombard Odier to its expanding buy-side community. As part of the collaboration, Lombard Odier will have access to Neptune's axes across rates, investment grade, high yield and emerging markets bonds.
/jlne.ws/3OyMmCi
Musk now is requiring users of X to pay for access to TweetDeck
Taylor Lorenz - The Washington Post
The company formerly known as Twitter has revoked free access to TweetDeck, a tool for power users used primarily by journalists, and is now directing users to a sales page for X Premium, the company's new name for the subscription service it previously called Twitter Blue. X owner Elon Musk teased the change back in early July when he posted that the company would be launching "a new, improved version of TweetDeck," saying that the new version would support longer posts, Twitter Spaces, polls and the ability to post longer videos.
/jlne.ws/3QIH1uR
Visa Faces DOJ Scrutiny for How It Prices 'Token' Technology; Merchants get charged more if they shun Visa's tokens; Long-running probe is now scrutinizing those price differences
Jennifer Surane and Leah Nylen - Bloomberg
Visa Inc. is facing fresh scrutiny from the US Justice Department over how it charges merchants for technology it uses to protect cardholder information. As part of a long-running DOJ investigation, enforcement officials have begun probing the payment giant's policies for charging retailers more if they don't use Visa's proprietary "tokenization" technology, according to people familiar with the matter.
/jlne.ws/3YAohjf
Payments group Adyen defends hiring spree as shares tumble 20%; Sustained recruitment by Dutch payments company hits first-half profits
Siddharth Venkataramakrishnan - Financial Times
European payments company Adyen has defended a hiring spree that left its first-half profits far below expectations and sent shares in the group down more than 20 per cent in early trading on Thursday.
/jlne.ws/3YBdNA1
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| Cybersecurity | | Top stories for cybersecurity | Cyber security researchers become target of criminal hackers; Computer experts called in to tackle organised hacking groups say their work is attracting physical threats
Mehul Srivastava - Financial Times
Robert M Lee, the chief executive of cyber security company Dragos, received an ominous message earlier this year. An organised criminal hacking group had broken into Dragos's employee network, telling Lee they would release the company's proprietary data unless a ransom were paid.
/jlne.ws/3YFX3aS
Cybersecurity Is an Oxymoron for the Digital Age; Northern Ireland police data leak adds danger to an already high-risk job.
Martin Ivens - Bloomberg
The digital era has enriched the list of outstanding oxymorons that already includes "military intelligence" and "competent authorities" with a new contradiction in terms: "cybersecurity." Last week, in response to a freedom of information request, an official from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) mistakenly posted the personal details of 10,000 officers on the internet. For three hours, a digital free-for-all ensued; anyone could access the surname and first initial of officers, their rank and grade, where they are based and with whom they work - including with the domestic intelligence service, MI5.
/jlne.ws/3YHVYzd
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| Cryptocurrencies | | Top stories for cryptocurrencies | The End of the End of Crypto
Daniel Kuhn - CoinDesk
Trying to figure out whether crypto is here to stay isn't as simple as tallying up the industry's wins or losses. For a while there it genuinely seemed possible that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) could wipe crypto off the map (maybe with the help of other government agencies).
/jlne.ws/4542suJ
'Don't You Remember Me?' The Crypto Hell on the Other Side of a Spam Text; In an exclusive excerpt from Zeke Faux's forthcoming book, "Number Go Up: Inside Crypto's Wild Rise and Staggering Fall," he uncovers a crypto-powered human-trafficking ring in Cambodia.
Zeke Faux - Bloomberg
The mysterious WhatsApp message arrived one night in August 2022, while I was out at a bar with a friend: "Hi David, I'm Vicky Ho don't you remember me?" This was strange. My name isn't David, and I didn't know anyone named Vicky. But I'd been getting a lot of seemingly misdirected messages on my phone. Usually I ignored them. This time, for some reason, maybe because I'd had a spicy watermelon margarita, I didn't.
/jlne.ws/3DY7RYk
Coinbase secures approval to offer crypto futures to US retail investors
Scott Chipolina - Financial Times
Coinbase has secured regulatory approval to offer crypto futures for retail customers in the US, even as the cryptocurrency exchange faces a lawsuit from authorities alleging it has violated securities laws. The company said on Wednesday that the National Futures Association, a self-regulatory body for the US derivatives industry, had given permission for small investors to trade futures on tokens such as bitcoin on its market.
/jlne.ws/45tgvd6
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| Politics | | An overview of politics as it relates to the financial markets | Republicans Question Gensler on How Prometheum Got SEC Approval
Hope C - CoinMarketCap
Republicans in the U.S. legislative panel in charge of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have asked SEC Chairman Gary Gensler to provide an explanation for the allegedly unusual approval given to Prometheum Inc. as a cryptocurrency broker-dealer.
/jlne.ws/47EhnxA
Ken Griffin Reshaped Law Banning Chinese Real Estate Purchases; Citadel founder opposed sweeping push to block property buying; Law could have complicated moving Citadel's employees to Miami
Anna Jean Kaiser, Michael Smith, and Felipe Marques - Bloomberg
When Florida Governor Ron DeSantis pushed through an anti-China crackdown in his state earlier this year, he won praise from populist Republicans across the country. But to Ken Griffin, the state's wealthiest man, the effort represented an ideological affront. In its most extreme version, the proposed legislation would have essentially prohibited citizens of seven nations, including China and Venezuela, from buying property anywhere in South Florida, even if they had work permits. Those limitations also could have posed complications for Griffin's plan to relocate hundreds of employees to Miami where he's planning to build a headquarters costing at least $1 billion.
/jlne.ws/47MHsdQ
Trump Georgia Trial Could Start Day Before Super Tuesday; Fulton County DA proposes March 4 start date for election case; Trump likely to argue the trial should start after 2024 vote
Zoe Tillman and Erik Larson - Bloomberg
Former President Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants charged in an alleged scheme to steal the 2020 election in Georgia should stand trial starting March 4, the office of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis told a judge. The proposal filed Wednesday would mean starting the trial one day before Super Tuesday, a pivotal primary date on the Republican nomination calendar when the most delegates will likely be up for grabs.
/jlne.ws/3YChBRE
Foes of Biden's Climate Plan Sought a 'New Solyndra,' but They Have yet to Dig Up Scandal; By the first anniversary of the climate law Republicans opposed, their Congressional districts had captured the majority of new clean energy jobs created.
Marianne Lavelle - Inside Climate News
One year after President Joe Biden signed the nation's first comprehensive climate legislation-the Inflation Reduction Act-Republicans have yet to find their "Solyndra." Although GOP Congressional leaders have organized hearings and fired off letters to administration officials, they have not hit upon a scandal-Solyndra was a California solar company that went bankrupt in 2011 after receiving aid from the Obama administration-they could use to tarnish the law's unprecedented $370 billion federal investment in clean energy.
/jlne.ws/45cCyoI
Behind the Scenes in the Senate, This Scientist Never Gave Up on Passing the Inflation Reduction Act. Now He's Come Home to Minnesota; Pete Wyckoff went from teaching college to staffing a U.S. senator, and he played a key role in the largest climate legislation in the country's history.
Dan Gearino - Inside Climate News
The "Never Give Up Caucus" got its name at a time when many people who cared about climate change were ready to give up. In December of 2021, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-West Virginia) had announced that he would oppose the Build Back Better climate legislation. The bill looked dead. But in meetings of Senate staff members, Pete Wyckoff struck the tone of a coach preparing his team for a fourth-quarter comeback.
/jlne.ws/3qzm4bc
Russian court bans UBS, Credit Suisse from subsidiary disposals
Reuters
/jlne.ws/3qyE7OC
Russia Has Shown Scant Interest in Prisoner Swaps for Dozens Held in U.S. Prisons
Dustin Volz and Louise Radnofsky - The Wall Street Journal
/jlne.ws/45dvpV3
US, Japan and South Korea to deepen security ties to deter China; Washington convinces Tokyo and Seoul to move past historical disagreements
Demetri Sevastopulo - Financial Times
/jlne.ws/3qA9PLr
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| Regulation & Enforcement | | Stories about regulation and the law. | Asset manager Valkyrie files for Ethereum-focused ETF with US SEC
Reuters
Asset manager Valkyrie has filed for an Ethereum Strategy exchange-traded fund (ETF) that will invest in ether futures and other collateral assets, paperwork filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed on Wednesday.
/jlne.ws/3sd54Ia
FCA sets out expectations for UK cryptoasset businesses complying with the Travel Rule
FCA
From 1 September 2023, cryptoasset businesses in the UK will be required to collect, verify and share information about cryptoasset transfers, known as the 'Travel Rule'. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has called on other jurisdictions to swiftly implement the Travel Rule, which aligns practices for cryptoasset businesses sending and receiving transactions with those common in other areas of financial services.
/jlne.ws/3OD61B5
ASIC acknowledges ASX's release of the CHESS Program External Review Special Report and Audit Report
ASIC
Today, ASX released the Special Report and the Audit Report in response to recommendations and findings identified in the CHESS Replacement Program External Review Report (the External Review). The Special Report details ASX's response plan, including remediation actions and timelines. The Audit Report found that the ASX Special Report met the requirements of the relevant notices issued by ASIC on 21 February 2023, however, it included four recommendations to support the timely, quality delivery of the ASX response plan.
/jlne.ws/3OBx7bP
Full Federal Court dismisses ASIC appeal but clarifies conflicted remuneration provisions
ASIC
The Full Federal Court has dismissed ASIC's appeal against an earlier Federal Court decision to dismiss ASIC's case against the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) and Colonial First State Investments Limited (Colonial) for allegedly breaching conflicted remuneration laws.
ASIC alleged in the proceeding that CBA and its wholly owned subsidiary, Colonial, breached conflicted remuneration laws when they reached an agreement in which Colonial paid CBA to distribute its Essential Super product to retail clients through CBA's branch and digital channels. Essential Super was distributed to over 390,000 individuals.
/jlne.ws/3sdXgWL
MAS Will Not Tolerate the Abuse of Our Financial System for Illicit Activities
Monetary Authority of Singapore
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said today that it had worked closely with the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) to facilitate the development of the case that led to the Police's arrest, on 15 August, of 10 individuals for suspected involvement in offences including forgery and/or money laundering and resistance to lawful apprehension.
/jlne.ws/3qB4N1b
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| Investing & Trading | | Today's top stories from equities, indices and FICC (fixed income, currencies and commodities) | High-frequency traders impose costs on others - BIS paper Study of dark pools finds HFTs almost never provide liquidity, while raising the cost for all
Central Banking
High-frequency trading firms (HFTs) take advantage of "stale" prices to make nearly risk-free profits, while imposing costs on other market participants, research published by the Bank for International Settlements finds. Sharks in the dark: quantifying HFT dark pool latency arbitrage uses regulatory data to assess the impact of "latency arbitrage" - in which firms race to respond to a price signal - on liquidity.
/jlne.ws/45dLf1R
China's sliding yuan could be next 'black swan event' for markets, hedge fund EDL says
Nell Mackenzie - Reuters
Hedge fund EDL Capital is betting on further falls for China's offshore currency and says the yuan's slide could be the next "black swan event" to rattle world markets, according to an investor presentation this month seen by Reuters.
/jlne.ws/45vb8tL
Barrick Gold CEO Says This Is The 'Most Strategic' Metal Of Them All - And It's Not Gold
Jing Pan - Benzinga
Barrick Gold Corp. (NYSE:GOLD) is one of the largest producers of gold in the world. But CEO Mark Bristow recently emphasized the importance of another metal to keep an eye on. During an interview with CNBC, Bristow said, "My view is that copper is the most strategic metal out of all the metals." He pointed out that batteries are a major driver for copper demand, but there's more to the story.
/jlne.ws/3qAbAbv
Stock-Market Rally Makes More 401(k) Savers Millionaires; The average retirement saver with a seven-figure balance is 59 years old
Anne Tergesen - The Wall Street Journal
The number of people with at least $1 million in their 401(k) accounts has grown about 25% so far this year. Some 378,000 retirement savers in Fidelity plans had seven-figure-plus balances as of June 30, up from 299,000 at the end of 2022. The number of IRA millionaires increased by a similar percentage to nearly 350,000 on June 30, the nation's largest retirement-plan and individual retirement-account provider said.
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Ex-Bridgewater Executive to Launch Eight Hedge-Fund Style ETFs; Bob Elliott launched his first hedge-fund ETF last year; New funds will feature strategies like long-short, low beta
Emily Graffeo - Bloomberg
Former Bridgewater Associates LP executive Bob Elliott is expanding his firm's ETF lineup with a variety of hedge fund-like strategies. Elliott's Unlimited, which focuses on alternative investments, is planning to launch eight exchange-traded funds that aim to replicate the returns of styles such as equity long-short, global macro and low beta, according to regulatory filings.
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Beware of wealth managers quoting data; Ninety-four per cent of providers claim to deliver 'top' performance
Moira O'Neill - Financial Times
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We should examine why investors are betting on the sure things; Their AI mania is being channelled into the Magnificent Seven group of tech stocks, as familiarity is a priority right now
Peter Atwater - Financial Times
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| Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance | | Stories about environmental, social and governance investing | Lex in depth: how investors are underpricing climate risks; The costs of inaction on global warming are potentially vast and often not sufficiently factored in to asset values
Vanessa Houlder and Nathalie Thomas - Financial Times
The world is reeling from record-breaking heatwaves, wildfires and rainfall. Devastating floods have ravaged northern China. Wildfires have ripped through Canada, southern Europe and, in recent days, the Hawaiian island of Maui. The human toll from these disasters, which experts say are becoming more common and more intense due to human-induced climate change, can be counted first of all in the thousands of lives lost. But it can also be measured in the economic value destroyed, and potentially created, as governments shift policies to contain or mitigate the climate crisis.
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New Tax-Credit Market Aims to Funnel Billions to Clean Energy; First deal in federal program helps fund $1.5 billion wind-energy transaction
Amrith Ramkumar - The Wall Street Journal
A government plan to let companies cut their taxes by financing clean-energy projects kicked off with a deal to help fund a $1.5 billion wind-energy transaction that officials hope will spur tens of billions of dollars in climate financing. The tax-credit plan is part of the climate legislation that became law one year ago.
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Former Obama Energy Official Named CEO of Climate Tech Incubator; Kevin Knobloch will take the reins at Greentown Labs, the largest climate-tech startup incubator in North America
Michelle Ma - Bloomberg
The largest climate-tech startup incubator in North America has tapped a former Obama administration energy official as its next chief executive officer. Kevin Knobloch will take the reins at Greentown Labs Sept. 5, replacing interim CEO and co-founder Jason Hanna, who will remain on the board. Knobloch, formerly the chief of staff to US Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz under the Obama administration, is president of Knobloch Energy LLC, a Massachusetts-based clean energy consulting firm.
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Banks 'Largely Blind' to Portfolio Risk Posed by Nature Loss; Only 20% of financial companies measure exposure to nature-related risk compared to 85% who calculate climate risk, says a CDP report.
Alastair Marsh - Bloomberg
Most financial firms aren't assessing their portfolio exposure to nature-related risks with the same urgency they use to measure climate impacts, a shortcoming that could lead to higher costs, litigation and a hit to reputations, according to a new report. Only 20% of financial companies measure their exposure to nature-related risk compared to the 85% who calculate their potential vulnerability to climate impacts, according to the report by CDP, which helps companies disclose environmental impact.
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Why Hollywood A-listers Are Rushing to Star in Climate Shows; "Shows that don't portray climate change, those are the science fiction shows," says 'Extrapolations' executive producer Dorothy Fortenberry on this week's Zero.
Akshat Rathi, Christine Driscoll, and Oscar Boyd - Bloomberg
How do you turn climate change into a compelling TV drama? Which scenarios do you draw on? And how do you avoid giving the impression that a dystopian future is inevitable? When Extrapolations premiered on Apple TV+ in March, it became one of the first major TV shows to put climate change at the core of its narrative. Packed with A-list actors that include Meryl Streep, Kit Harington and Sienna Miller, Extrapolations begins in a not-too-distant 2037. The world is worse off, but still familiar. With each subsequent episode, the temperature keeps rising; but even as the planet becomes less hospitable, humanity remains much the same.
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IRA at 1: US heralds clean energy manufacturing 'renaissance'
Allison Good and Molly Christian - S&P Global Market Intelligence
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Standards Still Murky for Disposing Oilfield Wastewater in Texas Rivers
Martha Pskowski - Inside Climate News
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Flush With the Promise of Tax Credits, Clean Energy Projects Are Booming in Texas
Keaton Peters - Inside Climate News
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A Community-Led Approach to Stopping Flooding Expands in the Chicago Region
Maia McDonald and Katrina Pham - Borderless
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| Banks, Brokers & Managed Funds | | The latest from banks, brokers, hedge funds and managed futures | Goldman Sachs Blames Zero-Day Options for Fueling S&P 500 Selloff
Lu Wang - Bloomberg
Look closely at the contours of Tuesday's tumble in the S&P 500 and fingerprints of a new market force come into focus. They're options tied to S&P 500 with a maturity less than 24 hours. A flurry of trading in the contracts known as zero days to expiration, or 0DTE, was the backdrop to a jarring acceleration of the day's decline, one in which the equity benchmark slid roughly 0.4% in 20 minutes, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.'s managing director Scott Rubner.
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Citadel's Flagship Wellington Fund Is Up 9% for the Year; Billionaire Ken Griffin's hedge fund posted record 2022; The firm's entire commodities business is also up for the year
Devika Krishna Kumar - Bloomberg
Citadel's flagship Wellington fund is up about 9% for the year, after the firm run by billionaire Ken Griffin posted a record $16 billion profit in 2022. The multi-strategy Wellington fund gained 1.3% in July, with all of its core investment strategies, including commodities, up for the year, according to a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named discussing internal business.
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'Hot Money' Is Piling Up at Banks and It's Starting to Take a Toll; Investors scrutinize cost of surging brokered deposits and FHLB loans as midsize banks bear brunt of higher interest rates.
Jennifer Surane, Linly Lin and Mathieu Benhamou - Bloomberg
US banks have found a way to replace some of the hundreds of billions of dollars in deposits that flooded out their doors early this year. But it's expensive, and not particularly sticky. To shore up their books after a flurry of withdrawals by customers, midsize banks across the US have turned to a patchwork of other sources that demand significantly higher interest, typically around 5% or more.
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Daniel Och attacks sale of Sculptor hedge fund to Rithm; Billionaire founder says deal value of $639mn 'penalises all shareholders'
Ortenca Aliaj and Sujeet Indap - Financial Times
Daniel Och, the founder of Sculptor Capital Management and one of its largest shareholders, has come out against the hedge fund's sale to Rithm Capital for $639mn, saying the deal undervalues the business.
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| Work & Management | | Stories impacting work and more about management ideas, practices and trends. | Study: A-level students want green jobs, but struggle to afford relevant university degrees
Cecilia Keating - BusinessGreen
OVO Energy calls on government and employers to develop and fund apprenticeships that would help the UK meet its climate goals. A-level students overwhelmingly want jobs that can help the UK reach its climate goals, but financial barriers prevent many school leavers from applying to university degrees where they could gain the necessary skills for green careers.
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| Wellness Exchange | | An Exchange of Health and Wellness Information | The Messy Afterlife of China's Covid Health Codes; Beijing has left local governments in charge of decisions about what to do with Covid-era systems of personal data collection.
Sarah Zheng - Bloomberg
In March the eastern Chinese city of Wuxi held a ceremony to mark the end of an era. Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, the city government had collected a huge amount of data about its 7.5 million inhabitants to adhere to China's strict Covid Zero rules. With the pandemic-era policy over, that potentially sensitive information-comprising 1 billion data points including names, ID numbers, phone numbers, addresses and personal health records-was no longer needed, so Wuxi was performatively scrubbing it from its cloud computing platforms
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How Bad Is a Second (or Third or Fourth) Case of Covid?; Reinfections are becoming more common. Experts are still unsure about how damaging they can be.
Dani Blum - The New York Times
Doctors and scientists who study Covid-19 agree that for most people, getting infected for a second - or third or fourth - time is basically inevitable. The longer the virus sticks around, the more common repeat infections have and will become, especially in light of the summer uptick and a new dominant variant. There is no risk-free Covid infection. But researchers are trying to untangle just how damaging repeated infections might be - whether symptoms tend to become more or less severe from one bout to the next, and whether one's risk of developing long Covid increases after multiple illnesses.
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They Live in Constant Pain, but Their Doctors Won't Help Them
Vishakha Darbha, Lucy King and Adam Westbrook - The New York Times (opinion)
How does it feel to suffer from debilitating pain but not be able to get your hands on the medication that could help? In the Opinion video above, we hear from Americans who have had to endure this nightmare. They are among the countless people with chronic pain who have been the unintended victims of the national crackdown on opioid prescribing. In response to the deadly opioid crisis, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidelines intended to limit opioid prescriptions. That advice soon became enshrined in state laws across the country. Suddenly, many pain patients lost the drugs that made their lives bearable. Some sought relief in suicide.
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| Regions | | Stories of local interest from the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions | Singapore Wrestles With the Constraints of Success; The world looks like a very different, more threatening place than in Lee Kuan Yew's era.
Daniel Moss - Bloomberg Opinion
How much talk about reinvention does one of the world's most successful, if tiny, economies have to listen to? Quite a bit, judging by a high-powered conference in Singapore this week. Convened to mark the centenary of founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew's birth and canvas ideas for at least part of the next 100 years, the Reinventing Destiny gathering was a mix of back-patting and must-do-better.
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Chinese asset manager eyes restructuring to ease liquidity crunch amid contagion fears
Jason Xue and Clare Jim - Reuters
Faced with a liquidity crisis, Zhongzhi Enterprise Group will conduct a debt restructuring, the Chinese asset manager has told investors, as a deepening property sector downturn raises fears about spillover risks to the broader financial sector.
/jlne.ws/3sd782S
China Told State Banks to Escalate Yuan Intervention; Onshore yuan fell toward lowest since 2007 amid weak sentiment; PBOC used strong fixings, rate cuts to support confidence
Bloomberg News
Chinese authorities told state-owned banks to step up intervention in the currency market this week, in a push to prevent a surge in yuan volatility, according to people familiar with the matter.
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Europe Is Embarking on a Mining Renaissance. Winning Over Locals Is Proving a Challenge.
Yusuf Khan - The Wall Street Journal
Tucked away in the mountains of northern Portugal, about two hours northeast from the country's second-largest city of Porto, sits this idyllic farming village. It is home to under 200 people, most over the age of 60, with the surrounding region most famous for its Barrosão cattle, a protected species prized for its meat.
/jlne.ws/47ysg3M
Iran grapples with unintended consequences of ultra-cheap petrol; Authorities under pressure to remove expensive subsidies that keep fuel prices as low as $0.03 a litre
Najmeh Bozorgmehr - Financial Times
As western governments struggle to keep a lid on fuel prices, the leadership of Iran faces a very different problem: its petrol is just too cheap. Heavy state subsidies ensure that Iranian prices start at just $0.03 a litre, a fraction of the $1.10 paid at US pumps or the $1.88 that motorists in the UK are charged to fill their cars.
/jlne.ws/3QIS1s5
Argentina's Milei Vows to Pay Country's Debt While Shuttering the Central Bank; Presidential candidate says fiscal plan will create financing; Sovereign bonds have sold off since unexpected result
Scott Squires, Manuela Tobias, and Ignacio Olivera Doll - Bloomberg
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| Miscellaneous | | Stories that don't quite fit under the other sections | The Ultimate College Survival Kit: 7 Tools Your Freshman Needs; All the gadgets that'll help new students stay organized, well-rested and hygienic
Rae Witte - The Wall Street Journal
Once, the essentials students needed for their first year of college were limited to extra-long jersey bed sheets, shower shoes, spiral notebooks and a few packs of pens. Thanks to abundant tech, however, the university experience has changed. In the age of Netflix and TikTok, a first year's back-to-school shopping needs an upgrade if they are to stay focused, manage new experiences, keep track of their responsibilities and, most important, stay awake in class.
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