| December 12, 2022 | "Irreverent, but never irrelevant" | | | | John Lothian
Publisher
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Hits & Takes
John Lothian & JLN Staff
Axios published an exclusive story on Friday that shocked the crypto markets and beyond as it emerged that the crypto native publication The Block had been surreptitiously financed by Sam Bankman-Fried and his Alameda Research trading arm since 2021. This caused Michael McCaffrey, The Block's CEO, to resign and The Block to acknowledge this story, though no one besides the CEO knew of this funding arrangement. Frank Chaparro, The Block's editor at large, tweeted "I'm absolutely gutted by this news, which was briefed to the company this afternoon."
Needless to say, this came as a shock to a lot of people. More and more shocking news is coming from the FTX black hole, which keeps sucking more and more entities and players into its vortex.
My NY Post-esque headline on LInkedIn when posting The Block/FTX story was: "BLOCK HEADS?"
Condolences to John and Bill Hagerty on the passing of their mother, Virginia Hagerty, 88, who passed away on December 3. She was the widow of William D. Hagerty, Jr., the owner of Hagerty Grain, at one time one of the longest tenured members of the Chicago Board of Trade. Hagerty Grain at one time was a brokerage client of mine.
HKEX Foundation announced that 14 community projects run by local Hong Kong charities secured funding from HKEX Foundation's Charity Partnership Programme this year.
How time flies. The SEC Historical Society shared on LinkedIn that "This week in 2008, Bernard Madoff was arrested, charged with operating the largest Ponzi scheme in American history. The collapse of Madoff's firm injured 37,000 investors and led to an overhaul of the #SEC examinations and enforcement arms, which had missed warning signs."
Robin Ross shared on LinkedIn that "The USTA/MTEF Parker Ross Memorial Junior Tennis Grant launching in 2023!"
Citadel shared on LinkedIn that it "celebrated Citadel's 30th anniversary at an incredible event at Disney World and Universal Studios."
Another list for the end of the year, and just in time for Christmas, Bloomberg has published a story titled "The 50 Best Wines Under $50 Right Now, From Alto Adige to New Zealand; Of the 2,481 wines our columnist tasted this year, these are the best value."
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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The Empirical Management Conference - 8th Edition is taking place at the International Finance Corporation (IFC) Auditorium December 14-15, 2022, in Washington, D.C. Hosted in collaboration with the World Bank, Cornell Dyson, Harvard Business School, the Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics (LSE), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Stanford University, the two-day conference seeks to link expert insights related to management to an outcome of sustainable economic growth. You can learn more and register here. ~SAED
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Exegy is Integrating, Growing and Ready for More; Chief Revenue Officer Craig Schachter Interviewed by JLN at FIA EXPO 2022
JohnLothianNews.com
Exegy has been hard at work putting its company together after buying Vela in May of 2021. Exegy went out and bought Enyx almost one year to the day it bought Vela, Craig Schachter, chief revenue officer of Exegy, told John Lothian News at FIA EXPO 2022.
Watch the video »
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Sam Bankman-Fried's Alameda Research Secretly Funded Crypto Media Site The Block and Its CEO
Nelson Wang - CoinDesk
Crypto media site The Block was secretly funded over the last two years by Sam Bankman-Fried's Alameda Research, The Block confirmed on Friday. The Block's CEO, Michael McCaffrey, immediately resigned after the loans came to light, and will also step down from The Block's board. The company said no one at the company had any knowledge of the loans except for McCaffrey.
/jlne.ws/3Bq1hcd
****** Not exactly bootstrapping. According to some reports, The Block has $20 million in revenues and is losing money.~JJL
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FTX collapse shakes up Chicago crypto market, where its US trading platform was going to be the next big thing
Robert Channick - Chicago Tribune
When the FTX.US headquarters opened in a gleaming new Fulton Market tower in May, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and her retinue stopped by to officially welcome the cryptocurrency exchange to Chicago, a city positioning itself as a financial center for the booming digital assets. It was supposed to be the start of something big.
/jlne.ws/3hjmb60
****** A classic take on localizing a global story, via The Chicago Tribune. Nicely done.~JJL
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Griffin Strikes Deal for Potential New Citadel NYC Skyscraper; Agreement gives Griffin options for how to proceed on a building that can house all of his Citadel and Citadel Securities employees in the New York area.
Natalie Wong and Amanda L Gordon - Bloomberg
Citadel's Ken Griffin is gearing up to develop a giant new office building in the heart of Manhattan that will serve as the headquarters for his businesses in New York. Griffin plans to acquire and build a 1.7 million-square-foot office skyscraper that would replace three adjacent properties in Midtown, at 350 Park Avenue, 40 East 52nd Street and 39 East 51st Street, according to a statement Friday. Griffin has two options to pursue this, starting in October 2024 and lasting through June 2030: either by taking a 60% interest in a joint venture with landlords Vornado Realty Trust and Rudin Management Co., which values the site at $1.2 billion, or buying the site outright for $1.4 billion.
/jlne.ws/3uGK0aT
****** Ken Griffin real estate news, but this time in New York.~JJL
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Cash crops: Dutch use Bitcoin mining to grow tulips
The Straits Times
Tulips and Bitcoin have both been associated with financial bubbles in their time, but in a giant greenhouse near Amsterdam the Dutch are trying to make them work together. Engineer Bert de Groot inspects the six Bitcoin miners as they perform complex sums to earn cryptocurrency, filling the air with a noisy whine along with a blast of warmth. That warmth is now heating the hothouse where rows of tulips grow, cutting the farmers' reliance on gas whose price has soared since Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
/jlne.ws/3hj2HOV
******* Will they be using bitcoin to blow bubbles in the South Sea next?~JJL
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Friday's Top Three
Our most-read story Friday was The Wall Street Journal's Three New Yorkers Ordered Cocaine From the Same Delivery Service. All Died From Fentanyl. Second was 14 mystery books to savor during the long nights of winter, from The Washington Post. Third was a tie between The High Price of Bad Business: Corporate America's Biggest Settlements from Bloomberg and Best in Biz Awards Honors OCC Corporate Communications as 'PR Department of the Year' from the OCC.
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| All MarketsWiki Sponsors» | | | | | | | John Lothian News (JLN) is the news division of John J. Lothian & Company, Inc. (JJLCO). The online media and financial services firm is staffed by derivatives industry, journalism and technology professionals. | | | | | | | John Lothian News Editorial Staff: | | | John Lothian
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| Lead Stories | Microsoft to Buy 4% of London Stock Exchange Group on Cloud Deal; A 4% stake in LSEG was valued at around $2 billion on Friday; Bourse to spend minimum of $2.8 billion on cloud services
William Shaw and Amy Thomson - Bloomberg
Microsoft Corp. agreed to buy a 4% stake in London Stock Exchange Group Plc in a $2.8 billion cloud-computing deal that pushes big tech further into financial markets. As part of the agreement, LSEG said it will spend at least that amount on cloud services with Microsoft over the next 10 years. The partnership will speed up the migration of its markets to the cloud and allow it to develop new products and services, it said Monday.
/jlne.ws/3FmJUtT
****** Here is the Financial Times version of this story.~JJL
Exclusive: SBF secretly funded crypto news site
Sara Fischer - Axios
The Block, a media company that says it covers crypto news independently, has been secretly funded for over a year with money funneled to The Block's CEO from the disgraced Sam Bankman-Fried's cryptocurrency trading firm, sources told Axios. The payments, which employees of The Block were previously unaware of, could undermine the news company's credibility and cast doubt on its coverage of Bankman-Fried, the now-bankrupt FTX and Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried's trading firm.
/jlne.ws/3iTsC0a
We haven't reduced financial risk, just transformed it; Stresses over liquidity now loom larger than counterparty concerns in many areas
Brooke Masters - Financial Times
When Citigroup chief executive Jane Fraser was asked earlier this week what risks she was most concerned about, market liquidity topped her list. The Bank for International Settlements is worried about "fragility" in the market for mortgage-backed securities. And volatility has soared in US Treasury markets this autumn due to poor liquidity. With the world poised to plunge into recession, stresses are to be expected. But there is growing evidence that the post-crisis reforms, while aimed at shoring up financial stability may have, in important areas, simply traded counterparty risk for liquidity risk.
/jlne.ws/3Y9JKyV
Investors withdraw record levels of coins from crypto exchanges; Traders rush for exits alarmed at safety of their assets after FTX filed for bankruptcy
Nikou Asgari - Financial Times
Investors are pulling record levels of bitcoin from crypto exchanges as the collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX stirs fears over the safety of their assets. FTX, once the darling of the crypto industry, filed for bankruptcy protection in mid-November after an $8bn hole emerged in its balance sheet. New chief executive John Ray described a lack of basic risk management and Bankman-Fried has admitted to poor internal controls. Its rapid descent has alarmed investors who keep and trade their assets on other centralised crypto exchanges, leading to record levels of withdrawals of bitcoin, the most widely-traded crypto token. FTX failed last month with potentially more than 1mn creditors, including many who had left assets on the exchange.
/jlne.ws/3UQfmqr
Ex-Wall Street Trader Convicted of Fraud in Precious Metals Spoofing Scheme
Department of Justice
A federal jury in the Northern District of Illinois convicted a former trader at JPMorgan Chase and Credit Suisse today of fraud in connection with a spoofing scheme in the gold and silver futures markets. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Christopher Jordan, 51, of Mountainside, New Jersey, was an executive director and trader on JPMorgan's precious metals desk in New York from 2006 to 2009, and on Credit Suisse's precious metals desk in New York in 2010. Between 2008 and 2010, Jordan placed thousands of spoof orders, i.e., orders that he intended to cancel before execution, to drive prices in a direction more favorable to orders he intended to execute on the opposite side of the market.
/jlne.ws/3UPPquZ
US Probes FTX Founder for Fraud, Examines Cash Flows to Bahamas; Scope of inquiry includes transfers around time of bankruptcy; It's part of broad effort by prosecutors to track client funds
David Voreacos, Neil Weinberg, and Ava Benny-Morrison - Bloomberg
US prosecutors, laying the groundwork for a potential fraud case against Sam Bankman-Fried and others involved in the collapse of cryptocurrency giant FTX, are scrutinizing how funds held by the exchange operator moved outside the US as it was hurtling toward bankruptcy, according to a person familiar with the matter. Prosecutors are closely examining whether hundreds of millions of dollars were improperly transferred to the Bahamas around the time of FTX's Nov. 11 bankruptcy filing in Delaware, the person said, asking not to be named without authorization to discuss the case publicly.
/jlne.ws/3Bshyxv
How CoinDesk Lit the Fuse That Blew Up Crypto-and Might Singe Its Owner Next
Abram Brown - The Information
Michael Casey, chief content officer of the crypto news site CoinDesk, was at his Westchester County, N.Y., home on Monday, recovering from a trip to Miami the previous week. Though the crypto industry was in Lehman levels of distress, Casey had managed to attend several straight days of parties connected to the Art Basel festival. "It was surprisingly upbeat," Casey said. "But it felt like it was in a bubble, like the reality of what was happening around it was not quite apparent in the conversations."
/jlne.ws/3VNyOVP
Elon Musk says Sam Bankman-Fried should go to prison, while Binance's boss calls him a 'master manipulator.' 8 top figures weigh in on the disgraced FTX founder.
Zahra Tayeb - Markets Insider
Once seen as crypto's white knight, disgraced former FTX boss Sam Bankman-Fried is now racking up the critics after the shocking collapse of the digital-asset exchange he founded. FTX's implosion in November has opened a Pandora's box of issues at the company. That's led to serious allegations of fraud highlighted by federal authorities - including questions about how it handled $10 billion of user funds.
/jlne.ws/3uEQLdt
Russia Is Feeling the Pain of Europe's Oil Embargo; The world has been well able to cope with the diversion of Russian crude from Europe to Asia, and that's hitting the Kremlin hard.
Julian Lee - Bloomberg
A near-total ban on imports of Russian crude into the European Union is finally hitting Russia's oil revenue. Concerns that it would provide the Kremlin with a windfall to fund its war in Ukraine have been confounded - for now.
/jlne.ws/3BsIg8V
Price Controls Won't Help Europe Keep the Gas On; There are better ways to support consumers and encourage renewables - without undermining the market.
The Editors - Bloomberg
The European Union has yet again found itself at an impasse. With Russia withholding gas supplies, governments must find ways to mitigate the shock of high prices, protect the vulnerable, discourage consumption, and speed the switch to alternative energy. Unfortunately, EU officials are toying with an idea that's all too likely to make things worse: a price cap.
/jlne.ws/3FlEpvN
Binance suspends trader's account after complaints on Twitter; Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said the firm doesn't want to service "unreasonable" clients.
Ana Paula Pereira - CoinTelegraph
Crypto exchange Binance closed a trader account on Dec. 9 after a user complained about the exchange's response for alleged funds theft. Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao said the firm does not want to service "unreasonable" clients. A user by the name of CoinMamba on Twitter started complaining about the lost funds on Dec. 8, claiming that a leaked API key tied to crypto trading firm 3Commas was used "to make trades on low cap coins to push up the price to make profit."
/jlne.ws/3PiSBtS
Big Oil Betting Billions on Global 'Climate Catastrophe'; Industry poured $58 billion into projects over past 2 years; Projects would put climate goals out of reach, says think tank
Kevin Crowley - Bloomberg
The world's biggest oil producers are spending billions of dollars on fossil fuel projects that will only be needed if the world misses key climate goals, according to Carbon Tracker, a nonprofit think tank.
/jlne.ws/3VOrRnn
Credit Suisse accepted suspicious invoices for $140mn Greensill loan; Companies listed on bills tell the FT they did not do the stated business
Robert Smith, Cynthia O'Murchu and Owen Walker and Kana Inagaki - Financial Times
Credit Suisse provided an emergency $140mn loan to Greensill Capital based partly on invoices to companies who deny ever doing the business stated on the documents. The Swiss bank provided the loan in October 2020, less than five months before the collapse of Greensill, a supply chain finance firm that counted former UK prime minister David Cameron as a senior adviser.
/jlne.ws/3HoVHux
Credit Suisse First Boston 2.0: what could possibly go right? The bottom-of-the-cycle timing might be right for an independent investment bank
Jonathan Guthrie - Financial Times
Credit Suisse has secured rights to the name "First Boston" in its push to spin off its investment bank. Can the new CS First Boston recapture the glories of the original? Wall Street financier Michael Klein, who will lead the unit, aims to reboot a brand that was once big on Wall Street and in the City of London.
/jlne.ws/3Ydq8K1
Coffee Consumption Seen Rising Only Modestly in Next Few Years; Group now has a more 'conservative' view on global demand; Coffee-growing countries need to boost domestic consumption
Mai Ngoc Chau and Jamille Tran - Bloomberg
Global consumption of coffee is likely to climb by 1% to 2% a year through the end of the decade, according to International Coffee Organization Executive Director Vanusia Nogueira, who estimated about 25 million more 60-kilo bags will be needed over the next eight years. "We are more conservative now for a short-term projection," Nogueira said during a conference in Hanoi held by the Vietnam Coffee-Cocoa Association, referring to all the events the world is facing, including high inflation in Europe and the war in Ukraine. The group's earlier forecasts for consumption growth averaging 3.3% a year over the long term were too "optimistic," she added.
/jlne.ws/3Bp1axK
Did Stimulus Checks Contribute to the Crypto Crash? That's One Theory (Podcast); An influx of payouts during the pandemic contributed to the collapse of crypto exchange FTX, says Bloomberg Opinion's Robert Burgess.
Stacy-Marie Ishmael - Bloomberg
What do pandemic stimulus funds have to do with the recent collapse of crypto prices and entities like FTX? According to Bloomberg Opinion writer Robert Burgess, the answer is basically everything.
/jlne.ws/3V5hbQt
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| Ukraine Invasion | | News about the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and its military, economic, political and humanitarian impact | Russian Nobel Peace laureate slams Putin's 'insane and criminal war' on Ukraine
Allegra Goodwin - CNN
Russian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Yan Rachinsky blasted President Vladimir Putin's "insane and criminal" war on Ukraine in his acceptance speech in the Norwegian capital Oslo on Saturday. Rachinsky, from Russia's human rights organization Memorial, claimed resistance to Russia is known as "fascism" under Putin, adding this has become "the ideological justification for the insane and criminal war of aggression against Ukraine."
/jlne.ws/3UQIH3Z
At Nobel Ceremony, Russian Crimes and 'Imperialism' Take Center Stage
Marc Santora - The New York Times
In an impassioned speech upon receiving the Nobel Peace Prize on Saturday, the laureate from Ukraine seized the moment to make an incongruous but powerful point: At this moment in history, she said, the only way to secure democracy, human rights and a lasting peace in Ukraine is to fight. "People of Ukraine want peace more than anyone else in the world," said Oleksandra Matviychuk, who accepted the prize on behalf of the Center for Civil Liberties in Ukraine, which she heads. "But peace cannot be reached by a country under attack laying down its arms. This would not be peace, but occupation."
/jlne.ws/3iVfQ19
Fierce claims to Crimea highlight slim chance of Russia-Ukraine peace deal
Francesca Ebel - The Washington Post
After nine months of death and destruction, the key to Russia's war against Ukraine lies in the craggy, sea-swept peninsula of Crimea - with its limestone plateaus and rows of poplar trees - which Russia illegally annexed in 2014. It was in Crimea in February 2014, not February 2022, that Russia's invasion and occupation of Ukraine began. And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky insists that only by retaking Crimea will the war end, with Ukraine defeating its Russian invaders.
/jlne.ws/3HtpbHQ
In the 'Bakhmut meat grinder', deadlocked enemy forces slog it out
Peter Beaumont - The Guardian
In a smothering fog cloaking the woods of the Donbas, the sound of artillery takes on a spooky, disconnected quality. Guns crack nearby, invisible among the skeletal branches. Shells whicker in the gloom towards the Russian lines around the key city of Bakhmut, distant thuds marking when they hit their targets. When the Russian guns fire back, it's with a different sound, the crump of incoming fire.
/jlne.ws/3iTIYpB
Many of Ukraine's Western Weapons Await Repairs Far From the Front Line; Artillery pieces must be taken hundreds of miles from battlefield to be serviced on NATO territory
Bojan Pancevski and Alistair MacDonald - The Wall Street Journal
Some of the most powerful weapons that the West gave to Ukraine have been languishing away from the battlefield for prolonged periods because of complex maintenance procedures and quarrels among European allies. The unavailability of these weapons for extensive periods poses a considerable challenge for Ukraine, which has been battling Russian forces that invaded the country in late February.
/jlne.ws/3UUiql3
Russia Launches New Drone Attacks as Partnership With Iran Deepens; White House says Russia and Iran are considering joint drone production
Thomas Grove - The Wall Street Journal
Russia launched fresh attacks with Iranian-made drones early Saturday over Ukraine, where the country's southern command said it shot down 10 of the unmanned aerial systems, an indication that Moscow has replenished its supply of the drones as the two countries move toward what the U.S. has called a full defense partnership. Ukraine's southern command said it shot down four Shahed-136 drones in the Kherson region, four more in the Mykolaiv region and two in the Odessa region.
/jlne.ws/3Ph26dc
Ukraine Can Win the War. But the Cost May Be Too High for the West.; Western military officials offer sobering assessment of what would be needed
Daniel Michaels - The Wall Street Journal
Ukrainian leaders have vowed to retake all territory occupied by Russia, prompting a debate over what would be necessary for Ukraine to win and evict Moscow's forces. The answer is primarily military because Russia is only going to abandon its hard-won gains if its troops suffer catastrophic losses, military strategists say. Behind those talks about weapons and ammunition is a deeper political question as Ukraine's battlefield fortunes rely heavily on the willingness of Western governments to continue their multibillion-dollar military assistance to Kyiv.
/jlne.ws/3VRdzT5
Russia drones smash power network in Odesa
Nick Starkov - Reuters
All non-critical infrastructure in the Ukrainian port of Odesa was without power after Russia used Iranian-made drones to hit two energy facilities, leaving 1.5 million people without power, officials said on Saturday. "The situation in the Odesa region is very difficult," President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address. "Unfortunately, the hits were critical, so it takes more than just time to restore electricity... It doesn't take hours, but a few days, unfortunately."
/jlne.ws/3W8c96r
Erdogan discusses Black Sea grain deal with Putin, Zelenskiy
Reuters
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan discussed the Black Sea grain export agreement on Sunday with the leaders of Russia and Ukraine, as both sides seek changes that would boost their exports. Turkey has acted as mediator alongside the United Nations in the grain deal, which opened up Ukrainian ports for exports after a six-month de facto Russian blockade. Moscow is seeking better guarantees for its own food and fertiliser exports, while Kyiv wants the deal expanded to increase the number of Ukrainian ports it opens for shipping.
/jlne.ws/3Pn2iHJ
Putin has to escalate to survive. There can be no lasting peace until he falls
Simon Tisdall - The Guardian
Vladimir Putin should expect more Ukrainian strikes deep inside Russian territory, such as those on two military airbases last week. US attempts to dissuade Kyiv's leaders from taking the war to Russia in retaliation for Putin's merciless missile and drone attacks on their people and cities were bound to fail eventually. It was asking too much. The strikes by newly developed, homemade, long-range drones, one of them only 150 miles from Moscow, are of a different order from previous attacks in Crimea and other Russian-occupied areas. They take the war to a more expansive, dangerous level - and represent the escalation that Nato allies fear most.
/jlne.ws/3Y9OSmF
Ukraine Latest: Yellen, Biden Affirm Commitment to Aid Ukraine
Bloomberg
President Joe Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Sunday affirmed US support for Ukraine as the Eastern European country battles Russia's invasion and missile attacks. The US has promised $38 billion in military aid and delivered $13 billion in direct aid to Ukraine already. When asked in an interview with CBS's "60 Minutes" how long American support can carry on, Yellen responded, "As long as it takes."
/jlne.ws/3hjqC0w
Dimon says Ukraine war should be "turning point" for U.S. on global stage
Richard Escobedo - CBS News
Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan Chase, America's largest bank, said the ongoing war in Ukraine should serve as a "turning point" that lulls U.S. leaders out of a "false sense of security." "Ukraine is a turning point where, you know, maybe all this sort of self-illusion that we had, that somehow the world's at peace, and everything would be fine - that should have been shattered," Dimon told "Face the Nation" moderator Margaret Brennan in an exclusive interview that aired Sunday. "And therefore we should be thinking about, how can America do great in the next 100 years? What policies should we have?"
/jlne.ws/3UQfJ4j
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| Exchanges, OTC & Clearing | | Top news from exchanges, clearing, settlement and trade execution facilities | LSEG to spend £2.3 billion on Microsoft cloud partnership as part of expansive 10-year deal with tech giant; Microsoft takes 4% stake in exchange group as part of deal which will see it architect LSEG's data infrastructure and build intuitive next-generation data and analytics and modelling solutions.
Annabel Smith - The Trade
The London Stock Exchange Group has launched a landmark 10-year cloud partnership with Microsoft which will see it spend a minimum of £2.3 billion on upgrades including new data and analytics products and services. As part of the deal the tech giant has also agreed to purchase a 4% stake in LSEG.
/jlne.ws/3Wck6HK
Sarah Miller to join NZX as Future Director
NZX via Mondo Visione
The NZX Board is pleased to announce the appointment of Sarah Miller as its next Future Director, effective 1 January 2023. Ms Miller is General Counsel and Company Secretary at Serko Limited. She is also a member of the New Zealand Markets Disciplinary Tribunal, an Executive Member (and former Chair) of the Listed Companies Association, and a member of the NZX Corporate Governance Institute. Ms Miller's previous experience includes being General Counsel Corporate and Group Company Secretary at Telecom New Zealand and a Member of the Regulatory Taskforce of Capital Markets 2029. Ms Miller was also Director and Principal at Black Letter Consulting, which provided specialist governance and investor relations advisory services to NZX/ASX listed companies.
/jlne.ws/3VS7dD9
SZSE Launches "Growth Connect" to Support Sustained and Healthy Development of Listed Companies with High-quality Services
Shenzhen Stock Exchange
The "Growth Connect" platform operated by SZSE's wholly-owned subsidiary Shenzhen Securities Information Co., Ltd. (SSIC) officially went live recently. It has become another important carrier of SZSE to serve the sustained and healthy development of listed companies. SZSE has been constantly improving the service experience of listed companies. In 2021, SZSE launched the Cloud Services for Listed Companies. It provides one-stop handling of services like information disclosure, online voting, Easy IR and Cloud Interview as well as intelligent functions such as data statistics, auxiliary Q&A and online entry of on-the-spot votes.
/jlne.ws/3BrnExZ
Bursa Malaysia Launches A Voluntary Carbon Market Exchange; First Shariah Compliant Carbon Exchange
Bursa Malaysia
Bursa Malaysia Berhad ("Bursa Malaysia" or the "Exchange") today announced the launch of Malaysia's pioneer voluntary carbon market with the introduction of the Bursa Carbon Exchange ("BCX" or "Carbon Exchange") at an event officiated by the Minister of Natural Resources, Environment & Climate Change, YB Tuan Nik Nazmi Nik Ahmad. The BCX is the first Shariah-compliant carbon exchange in the world, diversifying the product universe for ESG and Shariah compliant products.
/jlne.ws/3VOrvxh
CCP Default Auctions Best Practices
CCP12
Category 2 Issue: Client Participation
/jlne.ws/3iQcMTT
CCP Default Auctions Best Practices
CCP12
Category 2 Issues: CCP Governance and Default Management Groups. Paper written by CCP associations
/jlne.ws/3Fl40oC
Exchange Council paves the way for product bundle on EEX power and natural gas markets
EEX
The Exchange Council of the European Energy Exchange (EEX) held its last meeting of the year, chaired by Dr. Bernhard Walter, Head of Market Design and Regulatory Affairs at EnBW AG, on 8 December 2022. The main topics were the expansion of EEX's product portfolio on the Power and Gas Derivatives Markets, the harmonised settlement window and the current debate on a price cap for gas. New members of the Exchange Council are the representatives of Eni Global Energy Markets S.p.A., Philip Van De Wouwer, Flow Traders B.V., Erik-Jan Nieboer, and Roderick Timmer for Cross Options B.V.. All other current members remain on the Council.
/jlne.ws/3WduO0T
SGX Group reports market statistics for November 2022; Derivatives activity grows, led by record FX volume; Securities market turnover increases
SGX
Singapore Exchange (SGX Group) today released its market statistics for November 2022. Record foreign exchange (FX) trading activity drove derivatives volume, amid optimism on Asian economies and signs that the U.S. Federal Reserve will slow its pace of interest-rate hikes.
/jlne.ws/3USgdXv
Taiwan Futures Exchange Newsletter
TAIFEX
News and Events; Trading in TAIEX and US Equity Index Products Continues to Grow. Taiwan Futures Exchange (TAIFEX) reported a total volume of 34,835,976 contracts with an average daily volume (ADV) of 1,583,453 contracts traded in November, an increase of 20.99% year-over-year (YoY). The two flagship products with newly-added bi-weekly contracts, MiniTAIEX Futures and TAIEX Options, grew 42.91% YoY to 6,758,828 contracts and 38.56% YoY to 19,834,814 contracts in their respective monthly volumes, while TAIEX Futures increased 29.52% YoY to 3,561,292 contracts.
/jlne.ws/3UOdtKQ
MIAX Exchange Group - Options Markets - Series Made Non-Tradeable Effective for Monday, December 12, 2022
MIAX
The following series in EQT Corporation (EQT) and Marathon Digital Holdings, Inc. (MARA) have been made non-tradeable on the MIAX Options Exchange, MIAX PEARL Options Exchange and MIAX Emerald Options Exchanges effective for today, Monday, December 12, 2022.
/jlne.ws/3VOyhTO
Annual Changes to the Nasdaq-100 Index
Nasdaq
Nasdaq (Nasdaq: NDAQ) today announced the results of the annual reconstitution of the Nasdaq-100 Index® (Nasdaq: NDX), which will become effective prior to market open on Monday, December 19, 2022. The following six companies will be added to the Index: CoStar Group, Inc. (Nasdaq: CSGP), Rivian Automotive, Inc. (Nasdaq: RIVN), Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (Nasdaq: WBD), GlobalFoundries Inc. (Nasdaq: GFS), Baker Hughes Company (Nasdaq: BKR), and Diamondback Energy, Inc. (Nasdaq: FANG).
/jlne.ws/3fwIEva
NSE Indices launches Nifty SDL Jul 2026 Index; NSE's index services subsidiary, NSE Indices Limited today launched a new target maturity index Nifty SDL
NSE
The Nifty SDL Jul 2026 Index follows a target maturity structure with maturity date of July 31, 2026. It includes State Development Loans maturing six month ending July 31, 2026.
/jlne.ws/3HqHcWX
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| Fintech | | A roundup of today's market tech news and a look at tomorrow's disruptors | Aeris and Ericsson Join Together to Create IoT Leader
Aeris
Aeris Communications, a leading Internet of Things (IoT) solutions provider based in San Jose, California, and Ericsson (NASDAQ: ERIC) have signed an agreement for the transfer of Ericsson's IoT Accelerator and Connected Vehicle Cloud businesses. The combination of Aeris and Ericsson's IoT platforms will connect over 100 million IoT devices worldwide, covering 190 countries, and provide IoT connectivity, software and solutions to thousands of enterprises. The new Aeris will be able to offer an extensive IoT technology stack, brought to the market through a strong ecosystem of channel partners, communications service providers (CSPs) and our direct sales organizations.
/jlne.ws/3iZ36q0
Deutsche Bank Partners with NVIDIA for AI
The Markets
Deutsche Bank announced a multi-year innovation partnership with NVIDIA to accelerate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in the financial services sector. Combining Deutsche Bank's financial industry expertise with NVIDIA's leadership in AI and accelerated computing will hasten the development of a broad range of regulatory-compliant AI-powered services. The partnership will support Deutsche Bank's cloud transformation journey, for example by using AI and ML to simplify and accelerate cloud migration decisions.
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Wirecard Trial Should Be Halted, Ex-CEO's Lawyer Demands; Attorney says the case suffers from 'grave violations'; Prosecutors only just disclosed piles of documents to defense
Karin Matussek - Bloomberg
Days into the sprawling trial over the collapse of Wirecard AG, the lawyer for the payment firm's former boss Markus Braun demanded a halt to proceedings, saying prosecutors must re-examine key parts of their case.
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***** Here is the Financial Times version of this story.
Consolidated tape proposal receives significant boost from private equity investment; Capital markets tech firm Etrading Software has received a shot in the arm from Lloyds' private equity arm LDC, as it seeks to build out its proposition to provide a consolidated tape market data infrastructure for the UK and Europe.
Wesley Bray - The Trade
Headquartered in London, Etrading Software provides market and reference data used by international financial institutions. The latest investment from the private equity division of Lloyds Banking Group, LDC, highlights the growing urgency of consolidated tape provision in Europe.
/jlne.ws/3iJPmiT
LSEG to spend £2.3 billion on Microsoft cloud partnership as part of expansive 10-year deal with tech giant; Microsoft takes 4% stake in exchange group as part of deal which will see it architect LSEG's data infrastructure and build intuitive next-generation data and analytics and modelling solutions.
Annabel Smith - The Trade
The London Stock Exchange Group has launched a landmark 10-year cloud partnership with Microsoft which will see it spend a minimum of £2.3 billion on upgrades including new data and analytics products and services.
/jlne.ws/3Wck6HK
Goldman Sachs Is Trying to Make Blockchain Bonds Happen
George Kaloudis - CoinDesk
This week, David Solomon (DJ D-Sol if we're using stage names), chairman and CEO of investment bank Goldman Sachs, proved he's stuck in the past with a Wall Street Journal opinion piece he penned titled: "Blockchain Is Much More Than Crypto." The article was published on the heels of Goldman saying it's planning to spend "tens of millions" on discounted crypto investments. In the article, Solomon correctly points out that blockchain came in and disrupted heavily regulated industries like banks. Oddly, he goes on from there to claim that the deafening call for regulation means young "blockchain organizations" won't be able to keep up with regulatory requirements.
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Shares of Bitcoin Miner Argo Blockchain Suspended in UK and US
Nelson Wang - CoinDesk
Trading in shares of London-based Argo Blockchain (ARBK) was suspended in the U.K. and U.S. on Friday. The exact reason for the suspension was not disclosed, but it typically is due to the pending release of news. At the end of October, Argo said that a deal to raise $27 million from a strategic investor had fallen through, sending its shares tumbling more than 70%. "Should Argo be unsuccessful in completing any further financing, Argo would become cash flow negative in the near term and would need to curtail or cease operations," the company said at the time in a statement to the London Stock Exchange.
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| Cybersecurity | | Top stories for cybersecurity | Crypto Scammers Allegedly Lured Victims With Suitcases of Fake Cash; French scheme allegedly robbed victims of at least EUR2 million; Police seized assets including Porsches, Bentley, watch
Angelina Rascouet and Gaspard Sebag - Bloomberg
French authorities charged a pair of suspected fraudsters with taking part in a EUR2 million ($2.1 million) cryptocurrency scam to rob victims whom they tempted with suitcases full of fake bank notes or digital wallets loaded with funds. The two were the first to face formal charges for fraud and money-laundering offenses after raids in the Paris region, the ski resort of Megeve and the French Riviera city of Cannes, prosecutors said Friday.
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Cyber breach reporting to be required by law for better cyber defense
PwC
The Cyber Incident Reporting for Critical Infrastructure Act of 2022, nestled within the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2022, was signed into law by President Biden on March 15. It's a step forward from today's ad hoc, industry-specific guidance for voluntary disclosures by companies that have experienced cyber attacks. Cyber attackers often have an advantage: Because responders don't share all the necessary information, they can't act quickly and respond to attacks in concert. The reporting act aims to remove a piece of that advantage by requiring companies that are attacked to report significant cyber incidents and offering protections incentivizing them to report.
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Budget and momentum are key to cybersecurity automation maturity -- and CISOs are feeling left behind
Leon Ward - Betanews
As cyber threats intensify and the human and financial resources available to deal with them remain limited, there is a growing need for automation in cybersecurity. The intelligent automation of key cybersecurity processes can significantly improve an organization's posture and at the same time support under-pressure employees by reducing reliance on manual processes. But in what is a relatively new approach, how far have organizations progressed along the cybersecurity automation maturity curve and is everyone on the same journey?
/jlne.ws/3hcwDwg
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| Cryptocurrencies | | Top stories for cryptocurrencies | Sam Bankman-Fried's Alameda Research Secretly Funded Crypto Media Site The Block and Its CEO
Nelson Wang - CoinDesk
Crypto media site The Block was secretly funded over the last two years by Sam Bankman-Fried's Alameda Research, The Block confirmed on Friday. The Block's CEO, Michael McCaffrey, immediately resigned after the loans came to light, and will also step down from The Block's board. The company said no one at the company had any knowledge of the loans except for McCaffrey. According to The Block, McCaffrey received three loans for a total of $43 million from 2021 through this year. The first loan was for $12 million in 2021 to buy out other investors in the media company, at which time McCaffrey took over as CEO. The second was for $15 million in January to fund day-to-day operations, and the third was for $16 million earlier this year for McCaffrey to purchase personal real estate in the Bahamas, according to The Block.
/jlne.ws/3FjkTQo
The Cryptocurrency Adventures of Mark Zuckerberg and SBF; One sought to comply with law and regulation, the other bought off everyone in sight.
Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. - The Wall Street Journal
Back in 2019, Facebook wanted to promote a new digital currency, Libra, to customers around the globe, many of them young people entering the cash economy for the first time through their smartphones. It seemed then a promising innovation and still does now. The proposal sadly landed at a moment when the tech giants were coming under political assault. A spirit of "let's stop trying new things" was invading both political parties. CEO Mark Zuckerberg quickly retreated when he might have put Libra out there in defiance of the politicians to let a global public decide if it was useful.
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News organizations seek to unmask anonymous FTX creditors
MK Manoylov - The Block
The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and Bloomberg have filed a suit seeking to unseal who the creditors of the collapsed crypto exchange FTX are. The news organizations want at least the creditors' names. On Nov. 22, a federal judge moved to keep the FTX creditors anonymous in bankruptcy case. The lawsuit seeks to reveal the more than 100,000 creditors, and potentially who of the top 50 are owed $3.1 billion from FTX.
/jlne.ws/3W3QI6u
When Crypto Scammers Stole $23 Million, This Victim Found Them; Michael Terpin is targeting a bigger, wealthier third party now
Margi Murphy - Bloomberg
On Nov. 20, Ellis Pinsky described in a deposition how he convinced an AT&T employee to give him control of a phone number belonging to a wealthy cryptocurrency investor. That investor, Michael Terpin, was watching the deposition in a civil lawsuit via Zoom, eager to learn more about how he'd been hacked. Pinsky and his crew, Terpin told me, were a group of teenagers who used his phone number to steal $23.8 million worth of cryptocurrency from his account in a kind of fraud called SIM swapping. Pinsky was never charged with a crime.
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Caroline Ellison Hires SEC's Former Top Crypto Cop for FTX probe; Former NY federal prosecutor also on ex-Alameda CEO's case; Avakian also oversaw case against blockchain firm Ripple Labs
Ava Benny-Morrison - Bloomberg
Ex-Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison has hired a former SEC official who oversaw many of the regulator's biggest crypto cases as her lawyer in the federal probe into cryptocurrency exchange FTX's calamitous collapse. Stephanie Avakian, former enforcement division chief at the Securities and Exchange Commission, is representing Ellison along with other lawyers at her firm, WilmerHale, according to people familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for the law firm declined to comment.
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***Insider's coverage of the story is here.
Bankman-Fried 'would give anything' to start new business to repay FTX users; Former boss of collapsed crypto-exchange says he has duty to try to recoup investors' lost money
Tobi Thomas - The Guardian
Sam Bankman-Fried, the former boss of the failed crypto-exchange FTX, has said he hopes to start a new business to help pay back the victims of his old firm's collapse. Speaking to the BBC from the Bahamas, he said he would "give anything" to be able to begin a new venture in order to recoup his users' lost investments. "I'm going to be thinking about how we can help the world, and if users haven't gotten much back, I'm going to be thinking about what I can do for them," Bankman-Fried told the BBC. "And I think at the very least I have a duty to FTX users to do right by them as best as I can."
/jlne.ws/3FJuRMp
Crypto's Amber to End Chelsea Sponsorship, Axe Over 40% of Jobs in FTX Fallout; Darling of former crypto boom will also scrap retail operation; Digital-asset outlook withering after collapse of FTX exchange
Hannah Miller - Bloomberg
Amber Group, one of Asia's leading crypto trading and lending platforms, is cutting jobs, scrapping retail operations and terminating a sponsorship deal with Chelsea FC in the latest retrenchment to hit the digital-asset sector. The decisions are part of a major cost-cutting strategy, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. The Singapore-based crypto firm, whose backers include Temasek Holdings Pte and Sequoia China, will slash its workforce to less than 400 from about 700 currently, the person said, adding staff numbers earlier peaked at some 1,100.
/jlne.ws/3hojBvr
Crypto Brokerage FalconX Discloses It Has Funds Stuck on FTX
Stacy Elliott - Yahoo!Finance
Institutional crypto trading platform FalconX disclosed in a company blog post today that 18% of its "unencumbered cash equivalents" remain locked on FTX. In the event of a worst case scenario, where none of the money can be recovered, FalconX said it has "decades of runway," meaning that it has enough capital on hand to continue operating. The company has previously been reluctant to say whether it had any assets locked on FTX.
/jlne.ws/3iTLBaX
Top economist Mohamed El-Erian says crypto is a canary in the coal mine for an era of 'irresponsible risk taking'-and the fallout could lead to 'financial accidents'
Will Daniel - Fortune
Crypto investors have collectively lost $2 trillion since November of last year, and the list of casualties in the ongoing Crypto Winter continues to grow. The downturn was only compounded by the collapse of the world's second largest crypto exchange, FTX, which went bust last month, leading to accusations that its former CEO was running a "Ponzi scheme"-which he has denied. Now, Mohamed El-Erian, president of Queens' College at the University of Cambridge, is warning that the lack of risk management seen in the crypto space might be a canary in the coal mine that has broader economic implications.
/jlne.ws/3WaCvoA
Sam Bankman-Fried secretly invested in crypto news site The Block by funneling money to its CEO: report
Travis Clark - Business Insider
Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of bankrupt crypto firm FTX and its trading arm Alameda Research, secretly invested in a crypto news site, Axios reported Friday. Axios said the the news site, The Block, has been funded by payments from Alameda to the site's now-former CEO, Michael McCaffrey. Employees were previously unaware of the investment, Axios reported, but the revelation could raise conflict-of-interest concerns. The site hadn't ever disclosed the connections, Axios reported.
/jlne.ws/3Yce3Vw
Binance Is Trying to Calm Investors, but Its Finances Remain a Mystery; Crypto exchange has begun releasing data to shore up confidence following collapse of FTX
Jonathan Weil - The Wall Street Journal
Binance recently made a commitment to transparency, but it has a long way to go before it discloses enough meaningful information to give investors confidence in its future, accounting and financial specialists say. The world's largest cryptocurrency exchange is seeking to reassure customers about the safety of their holdings after the collapse of FTX. Binance's position means its success or failure will weigh heavily on the entire crypto market.
/jlne.ws/3W9fbYd
XTX Plans Crypto Expansion Despite Its Founder's Dislike for Digital Assets
Eva Szalay - Bloomberg
XTX Markets has become the last major global market maker to take the plunge into crypto despite its founder's dislike for the digital asset space. Chief Executive Officer Alex Gerko tweeted on Friday that the company has filled one of the four crypto positions advertised in October. The roles are on the operations team and trading desk, and based in London and Singapore. The company began trading crypto in recent months, according to a person familiar with the matter, who declined to be identified because the information isn't public.
/jlne.ws/3VR2ZLT
Public Companies with Exposure to Crypto Markets After FTX Collapse: To Disclose or Not to Disclose - You Better Disclose if Material, Says SEC Staff
Gary DeWaalDan and Davis Danette Edwards - Katten
The recent collapse of FTX and other companies transacting in cryptoassets prompted staff of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to advise public reporting companies to double-check that they are adequately disclosing to investors any potential material adverse exposure they may have as a result of bankruptcy events and financial distress involving crypto intermediaries; recent cryptoasset price volatility, and other enumerated matters related to cryptoassets and cryptoasset business activities generally.
/jlne.ws/3PkIgOb
Rivals Worried Sam Bankman-Fried Tried to Destabilize Crypto on Eve of FTX Collapse; 'Stop trying to depeg stablecoins,' Binance's Changpeng Zhao wrote in a chat to the FTX founder
Patricia Kowsmann, Alexander Osipovich and Caitlin Ostroff - The Wall Street Journal
A Tether official and the head of the world's largest crypto exchange grew alarmed that Sam Bankman-Fried was trying to destabilize the stablecoin and with it the broader crypto market last month in a last-ditch attempt to save FTX, according to messages seen by The Wall Street Journal and people familiar with the situation. In a Signal group chat called "Exchange coordination," Changpeng Zhao, the chief executive of crypto exchange giant Binance, confronted Mr. Bankman-Fried on Nov. 10.
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Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong Says Regulation Could Boost USD Coin Usage
Vicky Ge Huang - The Wall Street Journal
Coinbase Global Inc. Chief Executive Brian Armstrong believes that regulation will help fuel the rise of a stablecoin backed by his exchange. USD Coin will become "the de facto central bank digital currency" of the U.S., he said in a Friday interview. "If we can get regulatory clarity, I think it will sort of shepherd in or grandfather in some of these stablecoins that have been following best practices around being audited and regulated," he said.
/jlne.ws/3hc1Nnv
Coinbase to Waive Fees for Converting Tether Stablecoins to USDC; Coinbase cites 'flight to safety' after collapse of FTX; USDC's circulation has fallen after Binance September move
Emily Nicolle - Bloomberg
Coinbase Global Inc. waived fees for converting Tether Holdings Ltd.'s stablecoin USDT for the token Coinbase backs, as competition heats up among the three biggest issuers of such digital assets. In a blog post on Friday, Coinbase sought to portray stablecoin USDC as a safer asset amid the turmoil unleashed by the collapse of crypto exchange FTX a month ago. USDC, which Coinbase co-founded together with Circle Internet Financial Plc in 2018, has seen its circulation drop by almost $10 billion since early September, data from CoinGecko show.
/jlne.ws/3WaZcbY
Bahamian attorneys pursue access to FTX data of international customers
Arijit Sarkar - CoinTelegraph
Authorities across the globe are fighting against time to bring justice to the millions of people impacted by the financial frauds committed by FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried. As part of the ongoing investigations, attorneys representing the Securities Commission of the Bahamas seek access to FTX's database with international customer information.
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Coinbase takes a swipe at Tether, tells customers to switch to USDC stablecoin
Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez - FORTUNE
Crypto exchange Coinbase has soured on Tether's USDT, and it's telling its customers to instead switch to the stablecoin it cofounded-with no fees. In a reference to FTX's financial implosion last month, the company wrote in a Thursday blog post that the fallout has "put some stablecoins to the test." USDT briefly lost its 1-to-1 peg to the U.S. dollar after FTX collapsed, but regained it days later.
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Former SEC Regulator: Binance's Proof of Reserves Audit 'How I Define Red Flag'
Will McCurdy - Decrypt
John Reed Stark, a former U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulator, said that Binance's recent "proof of reserves" report is how he defines a "red flag." Stark alleged that the recent report "doesn't address the effectiveness of internal financial controls" nor "express an opinion or assurance conclusion," adding that it fails to "vouch for the numbers."
/jlne.ws/3uFU3gs
Yuga Labs, Moonpay faces lawsuit over celebrities NFT promotion; Over 40 people and companies are named as defendants in the lawsuit, including Paris Hilton, Snoop Dog, Jimmy Fallon, Justin Bieber, Madonna.
Ana Paula Pereira - CoinTelegraph
Yuga Labs, creators of Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and crypto fintech Moonpay are facing a class-action lawsuit for allegedly using celebrities to misleadingly promote and sell nonfungible tokens (NFTs). Over 40 people and companies are named as defendants in the lawsuit, including Paris Hilton, Snoop Dog, Jimmy Fallon, Justin Bieber, Madonna, Serena Williams, Post Malone, and Diplo.
/jlne.ws/3VQNunk
Kevin Hart, Jimmy Fallon, Madonna Named in Class-Action Suit Alleging Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT Fraud 'Scheme'
Shirley Halperin - Variety
A class-action lawsuit contends that stakeholders in Yuga Labs, the parent company of NFT series Bored Ape Yacht Club and its affiliated digital products, engaged in a conspiracy with celebrities to defraud potential investors. In the complaint, filed Dec. 8 in federal district court in L.A., Yuga partners - including veteran music manager Guy Oseary - are named among the 37 defendants, who include Kevin Hart, Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna, Justin Bieber, Serena Williams, Jimmy Fallon, Paris Hilton, Snoop Dogg, The Weeknd, Post Malone and NBA star Steph Curry. Also named is Amy Wu, who recently exited troubled cyptocurrency exchange FTX and served as a consultant and board member of the ApeDAO.
/jlne.ws/3UOpJLa
Infinite Reality Nears Merger With Newbury Street SPAC
Gillian Tan - Bloomberg
Infinite Reality Inc., a company that helps build metaverse experiences, is in advanced talks to go public through a merger with Newbury Street Acquisition Corp., according to people with knowledge of the matter. A transaction, which has yet to be finalized, could be announced as soon as next week as long as talks don't fall apart at the last minute, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information. Terms couldn't immediately be learned.
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| Politics | | An overview of politics as it relates to the financial markets | Oil Market Takes Russian Price Cap in Stride; The sanctions haven't sparked a price surge, though it is too soon to say if they will curb Russian oil revenue
Joe Wallace - The Wall Street Journal
The harshest sanctions yet hit Russia's energy industry this week. The oil market's response was to shrug. The absence of a price surge is an early win for U.S. officials who strove to water down European sanctions they feared would snarl up global crude trading. Instead of soaring prices, Brent-crude futures slid almost 11% to their lowest levels in a year. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. marker, dropped to its lowest level since December 2021, sliding 0.6% Friday to $71.02 a barrel.
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How Washington Persuaded Europe to Put a Price Cap on Russian Oil; Last-minute intervention with Poland preserved the strategy that seeks to punish Putin and control inflation
Andrew Duehren and Laurence Norman - The Wall Street Journal
Seventy-two hours before they hoped to launch an unprecedented new plan to set a cap on the price of Russian oil, Biden administration officials faced a problem: Poland hadn't yet signed off on the final design. With support from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Poland had pushed for setting the cap as low as $30 a barrel, an attempt to deeply cut the Kremlin's oil revenues. But the U.S. and other Group of Seven advanced democracies sought a deal at $60 a barrel to hedge against the risk of sending global crude prices soaring.
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Biden adviser calls Wall Street opposition to shale drilling 'un-American'; Amos Hochstein's comments come as US tries to stem Russia's oil income while restraining petrol prices
Derek Brower - Financial Times
The White House's chief energy adviser has described as "un-American" the refusal of US shale investors to ramp up drilling, even as Moscow's invasion of Ukraine causes havoc on global oil and gas markets.
/jlne.ws/3iV66UB
Sam Bankman-Fried Set to Testify to Congress About FTX Collapse; House Financial Services Committee has scheduled hearing for Tuesday
Paul Kiernan and Caitlin Ostroff - The Wall Street Journal
FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried said he would testify next week before Congress, setting up a high-profile discussion with lawmakers he sought to court before his crypto exchange collapsed into bankruptcy. Mr. Bankman-Fried said on Twitter he would appear before the House Committee on Financial Services. The committee has a hearing scheduled for Tuesday at 10 a.m. ET to investigate the collapse of FTX. Mr. Bankman-Fried will most likely testify remotely, according to a person familiar with the matter.
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New Senate bill aims to stop hedge funds from squeezing out families trying to buy a home
Samantha Manning, CMG Washington News Bureau - FOX23 News
It's a tough time to be on the market for a new home as families face rising costs and increased competition from large corporations. Now a new Senate bill is aimed at stopping hedge funds from squeezing out every day Americans looking to buy a home. "The American dream is being deeply damaged," said Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), the sponsor of the bill. "We need to get the hedge funds out of the business of single-family housing."
/jlne.ws/3HsWElv
US DOJ reportedly investigating FTX CEO for siphoning funds out of the US
Arijit Sarkar - CoinTelegraph
While many crypto fraudsters were able to slip through the cracks in the past, the same does not hold for FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF). Running parallel to the ongoing scrutiny related to FTX frauds, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) is reportedly investigating a potential fraud that involves SBF siphoning funds offshore just days before FTX filed for bankruptcy.
/jlne.ws/3BoZEf2
Sinema widens gap between Democrats and Wall Street
Ben Winck - Reuters
Big finance has lost an ally in the U.S. Democratic Party. Senator Kyrsten Sinema is changing her party registration from Democrat to independent, capping a years-long ideological shift by the Arizona senator away from liberals and toward the political center. It may accelerate Wall Street's own shift to the right. Sinema was an outlier in her support for investors and fund managers. She has raised nearly $2.7 million from the securities and investing sector since 2017, according to OpenSecrets data, and broke with Democrats last year when they pushed to raise taxes on the wealthiest U.S. households.
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U.S. energy envoy Hochstein calls investor hostility to shale drilling "un-American," Financial Times reports
Reuters
U.S. energy envoy Amos Hochstein described the refusal of the country's shale investors to ramp up drilling as "un-American" in an interview with the Financial Times on Sunday. "I think that the idea that financiers would tell companies in the United States not to increase production and to buy back shares and increase dividends when the profits are at all-time highs is outrageous," the White House's chief energy adviser told the FT, adding, "It is not only un-American, it is so unfair to the American public".
/jlne.ws/3Fmti5K
Biden Cements Trump-Era Steel, Aluminum Tariffs in WTO Snub; Refusal to remove tariffs seen as nod to US steelworkers; US mulling similar move against China over climate concerns
Joe Deaux - Bloomberg
If there were any hope President Joe Biden would undo his predecessor's divisive trade tariffs that caused upheaval in the global steel and aluminum markets, it all but evaporated Friday. The US Trade Representative issued a strong rebuke of the World Trade Organization's decision that former President Donald Trump's 25% tariffs on steel imports and 10% duty on aluminum violates international rules. It's the strongest statement yet from the White House that Biden has no intention to remove the duties, which would potentially alienate one of his most important bases of support: steelworkers.
/jlne.ws/3FJZXnd
Sinema Misses the Point About Party Politics; The partisan system actually makes lawmaking easier, and voters benefit when they can distinguish between Republicans and Democrats.
Jonathan Bernstein - Bloomberg
Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema declared herself a Marxist on Friday. Not Karl; Groucho. As in, "I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member." She felt compelled to leave the Democrats, she explained, because of the "broken partisan system" and said that she had "joined the growing numbers of Arizonans who reject party politics."
/jlne.ws/3Fkg2yy
Sam Bankman-Fried's Admission About Secret GOP Donations Provoke An FEC Complaint
Molly Redden - HuffPost
Sam Bankman-Fried testifies on May 12, 2022 before the House Agriculture Committee. A campaign finance watchdog has accused Sam Bankman-Fried, the ex-CEO of FTX, of flouting federal election law by using dark money groups to conceal millions in campaign donations to Republicans during the 2022 primary campaign. Bankman-Fried was the CEO of the massive cryptocurrency exchange FTX until November when the company abruptly imploded and filed for bankruptcy. Multiple U.S. regulatory agencies are now investigating Bankman-Fried, 30, who presented himself as a grown-up in the unregulated cryptocurrency world, and the claims that his companies misused billions in customers' money.
/jlne.ws/3ULtWiJ
Jamie Dimon Says It's Good Both Parties' 'Wing Nuts' Weren't Elected; JPMorgan CEO warns that energy-price squeeze could get worse; Dimon says 'we'll be fine' in either soft or harsh recession
Hannah Levitt - Bloomberg
JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon praised the results of last month's US midterm elections, saying cooperation in Congress may be more likely since both parties' "wing nuts didn't get elected." "I think there's a good chance they will get some good things done," Dimon said in an interview with CBS's "Face the Nation" broadcast on Sunday, citing accomplishments of divided Congresses under presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
/jlne.ws/3Pktjvl
Turkey Is Strengthening Its Energy Ties With Russia; As Moscow seeks new customers for oil, gas and coal, Ankara is a willing buyer as it promotes plans as a regional trading hub.
Patricia Cohen - The New York Times
As European nations opposed to the invasion of Ukraine have moved to reduce their dependence on Russian oil and gas, enduring soaring price increases and possible shortages, Turkey has deepened its energy ties to Russia. Since the war started, Turkey's imports of Russian crude oil and coal have climbed sharply. The presidents of both countries have talked about how to turn Turkey into a regional trading center for Russian gas. And Turkey has suggested building a second nuclear power plant designed and financed by Russia in addition to the one already scheduled to come online next year.
/jlne.ws/3FJr2Xz
Hong Kong pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai sentenced to 69 months in prison on fraud charge
Wayne Chang, Rhea Mogul and Jessie Yeung - CNN
A Hong Kong court on Saturday sentenced jailed media mogul Jimmy Lai to five years and nine months in prison for fraud, in the latest legal challenge against the pro-democracy tycoon. Lai was found to have breached the terms of lease for the headquarters of his now defunct Apple Daily newspaper after concealing the operation of a consultancy that provided corporate secretarial services to private firms Lai controlled. Along with the jail sentence, Lai was also fined 2 million Hong Kong dollars ($257,000) and disqualified as a company director for eight years.
/jlne.ws/3UPSmYn
Japan's climate policy 'failed to build on the legacy of Kyoto'
Justin McCurry and Fiona Harvey - The Guardian
Apart from the distant buzz of a gardener's strimmer, all is quiet at the Kyoto International Conference Center, its grey concrete walls matched by the sky on an afternoon in early December. Autumn leaves still cling to branches in the nearby forest, where groups of hikers plot their course in light trousers and T-shirts, as if to remind passersby of why Japan's ancient capital became synonymous with the climate crisis.
/jlne.ws/3FJ1YQk
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| Regulation & Enforcement | | Stories about regulation and the law. | Canada's Bank Watchdog Rebuffs Calls to Scrap Mortgage Stress Test
Kevin Orland - Bloomberg
Canada's banking regulator said the country's mortgage stress test has helped prevent widespread defaults as interest rates rose this year, rebuffing calls to weaken or eliminate the measure amid a surge in homebuying costs. The Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions requires banks to ensure that borrowers can still qualify for their mortgages at a rate two percentage points higher than what the lender is offering, or 5.25% - whichever rate is higher at the time. After the Bank of Canada's latest hike earlier this week, that minimum qualifying rate may soon top 8%.
/jlne.ws/3WaDx3S
Reform Group Lobs Ethics Complaint At CFTC's Pham
Emilie Ruscoe - LAW360
A financial markets public interest group has called for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission's internal watchdog to investigate Commissioner Caroline D. Pham over claims that she disclosed "highly confidential" information about a startup's pending application before the agency - a contention Pham vehemently pushed back against Friday.
/jlne.ws/3Hy3iqR
Court Enters Final Judgment Against Microcap Company and Orders Penalty for Fraudulent Press Releases
SEC
On November 2, 2022, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York entered a final judgment against In Ovations Holdings, Inc. (OTC: "INOH"), a Colorado corporation headquartered in Wabbaseka, Arkansas.
/jlne.ws/3PjVJFW
SEC Charges CEO and His Venture Capital Firm in $6 Million Fraudulent Offering
SEC
The Securities and Exchange Commission charged CEO George Iakovou and his venture capital firm, Vika Ventures LLC, with fraudulently offering and selling more than $6 million of securities to at least 46 individual investors in multiple states including California, Georgia, and New York. The SEC also announced settled charges against Penelope Zbravos for her role in Vika Ventures.
/jlne.ws/3UR6Fw3
Gensler's approach toward crypto appears skewed as criticisms mount
Shiraz Jagati - CoinTelegraph
Since taking over at the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), chairman Gary Gensler has repeatedly been referred to as the "bad cop" of the digital asset industry. To this point, over the past 18 months, Gensler has taken an extremely hard-nosed approach toward the crypto market, handing out numerous fines and enforcing stringent policies to make industry players comply with regulations.
/jlne.ws/3UOpjV6
Former Statewide Super executives charged with dishonesty offences
ASIC
Two former senior Statewide Superannuation Pty Ltd executives have appeared before the Adelaide Magistrates' Court charged with dishonesty offences related to their procurement of services between February 2019 and December 2019.
/jlne.ws/3HtN6H5
FCA fines Metro Bank PLC £10 million and publishes Decision Notices for two of its former executive directors
FCA
The FCA has fined Metro Bank PLC £10,002,300 for breaching the Listing Rules by publishing incorrect information to investors.
/jlne.ws/3Yhd2LJ
FCA fines Santander UK £107.7 million for repeated anti-money laundering failures
Financial Conduct Authority
Between 31 December 2012 and 18 October 2017, Santander failed to properly oversee and manage its AML systems, which significantly impacted the account oversight of more than 560,000 business customers. Santander had ineffective systems to adequately verify the information provided by customers about the business they would be doing. The firm also failed to properly monitor the money customers had told them would be going through their accounts compared with what actually was being deposited.
/jlne.ws/3hfZ6kH
SFC to launch investor identification regime in March 2023
Securities & Futures Commission of Hong Kong
The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) today announced that the investor identification regime for the securities market in Hong Kong (HKIDR) (Note 1) will be launched on 20 March 2023.
/jlne.ws/3iQiKEh
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| Investing & Trading | | Today's top stories from equities, indices and FICC (fixed income, currencies and commodities) | Blackstone CEO says financially distressed investors driving REIT redemptions
Chibuike Oguh - Reuters
Blackstone Inc Chief Executive Stephen Schwarzman said on Wednesday that redemptions in his firm's $69 billion non-traded real estate income trust (REIT) were driven by investors roiled by market volatility rather than dissatisfaction with the fund. Blackstone shares have lost 15% of their value since Dec. 1, when the New York-based firm disclosed it had for the first time limited redemptions from the REIT, which is marketed to high net-worth investors rather than institutional clients like pension funds and insurance firms. Blackstone relies on the REIT for about 17% of its earnings.
/jlne.ws/3UUeZuF
Mars convinces emerging market consumers to eat more chocolate; World's largest confectionery maker on track to double the value of sales in developing countries in five years
Judith Evans - Financial Times
Mars has embarked on a drive to convince developing country consumers to eat more chocolate, claiming it is on track to double the value of its confectionery sales in emerging markets in the five years to 2024.
/jlne.ws/3Yd6Kgi
You Bought a Hot Fund. Now It's on Ice.; Investors who piled into an unconventional Blackstone real-estate fund now can't get more than a sliver of their money out
Jason Zweig - The Wall Street Journal
Anyone who invested in Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, a private fund, has earned towering returns since it launched in early 2017. It has been one of the hottest of all so-called alternative investments, those assets relentlessly flogged by Wall Street as counterweights to stocks and bonds. It's also a reminder that investors accustomed to conventional investments can be taken by surprise when they venture into the unconventional.
/jlne.ws/3WayyjG
What is a Meme Stock? (A Guide for the Curious Investor)
Ben Walker - FinanceBuzz
Meme stocks are stocks that become popular on social media. This popularity may lead to an increase in the value of a stock, but typically not in a predictable or lasting way. The value also tends to have little to do with the actual success of a company. Although meme stocks might sound simple, there is more to how they work and why they're generally considered riskier than your average stock.
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Investors Call Time on FAANG Stock Dominance After Nasdaq's Rout; Investors scale back bets on megacap stocks as growth softens; Profitability is key priority for investors as economy slows
Kit Rees - Bloomberg
For some investors, this year's rout in high-flying technology stocks is more than a bear market: It's the end of an era for a handful of giant companies such as Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. Those companies - known along with Apple Inc., Netflix Inc. and Google parent Alphabet Inc. as the FAANGs - led the move to a digital world and helped power a 13-year bull run.
/jlne.ws/3hjoZjq
Crop Merchants Andersons, LDC Poised to Expand in Romania; Dreyfus launches local venture while Andersons grows in Europe; Romania is one of the European Union's largest crop shippers
Megan Durisin, Archie Hunter, Aine Quinn, and Tarso Veloso Ribeiro - Bloomberg
More crop traders are gaining a presence in Romania, one of Europe's major grains hubs. The Andersons, Inc. plans to open a local office to deal in grains and oilseeds, with aims to start operating in time for next season, according to people familiar with the matter. It has begun making local hires, they said. The move would extend the recent international push by Andersons, one of the largest US crop merchants. The company set up a Swiss trading desk last year and has hired several former Ameropa traders.
/jlne.ws/3WblQ40
Carvana Founder's Fortune Plunges 98% as Firm Burns Through Cash; Ernie Garcia III has seen his fortune fall $6.7 billion this year to $119 million, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a percentage decline topped only by Sam Bankman-Fried.
Amanda Albright - Bloomberg
Things have gotten so bad for Ernie Garcia III, founder of Carvana Co., that his share of wealth lost this year is second only to Sam Bankman-Fried. The fortune of Garcia III has tumbled by $6.7 billion this year to $119 million, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. It tumbled $87 million, or 42%, on Wednesday alone as shares of the Arizona-based online car seller plummeted after its largest creditors signed a deal to act together in potential debt-restructuring negotiations.
/jlne.ws/3FFUfCF
The $80tn "hidden debt" and what it really means; BISantine accounting
Daniel Davies - Financial Times
Every publication of financial statistics ought to have the same picture on the cover - Goya's "The Sleep Of Reason Produces Monsters". It would help to deter the tidy-minded truth seekers who are reliably driven mad by the crazy world of financial accounting.
/jlne.ws/3Yf3qBi
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| Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance | | Stories about environmental, social and governance investing | 'I Didn't Have the Right Face': Tech CEO Says He Was Forced Out for Acting Like a Tech CEO Despite Not Being White
Maxwell Strachan - VICE
Last year, when the high-flying Silicon Valley enterprise startup Iterable fired its co-founder and CEO, the company claimed that it was doing so for two reasons. One was that the CEO, Justin Zhu, had been speaking with a reporter at Bloomberg News about unapproved matters. The other was that, two years prior, in an attempt to cope with anxiety and depression, he had taken what he thought was a microdose of LSD ahead of a meeting with a potential investor.
/jlne.ws/3FGkHfx
Rebel Farmers Are Pushing Back on Climate Action. This is Why
April Roach, Tracy Withers, Jen Skerritt, and Agnieszka de Sousa - Bloomberg
It took an existential threat to turn a fifth-generation dairy farmer into an anti-government protester. Bart Kooijman raises 120 cows on 50 hectares in western Holland. If authorities push ahead with plans to halve nitrogen emissions from agriculture by 2030, his could be among thousands of farms that will have to shrink or close. In an attempt to quell a summer of fury, which saw farmers setting hay bales ablaze and dumping manure on motorways, the government said in November it would buy out as many as 3,000 of the biggest emitters in a voluntary one-time offer, setting aside €24.3 billion ($25.6 billion) to fund the transition. Those who refuse will be forced out of business.
/jlne.ws/3PgFxVX
Fund Managers Brace for ESG Correction With $4 Trillion at Stake; After well over $125 billion of ESG fund downgrades, asset managers are likely facing a new round of upheaval.
Frances Schwartzkopff - Bloomberg
Asset managers are trying to digest new regulatory proposals that have the potential to upend Europe's biggest ESG fund category. A plan by Europe's markets watchdog, ESMA, to set quantifiable ESG and sustainable investing standards is forcing portfolio managers to rethink how they design and market an ESG fund class known as Article 8. Morningstar Inc. estimates that only 18% of Article 8 funds, which hold about $4 trillion of assets, currently meet the watchdog's proposed threshold for sustainable investments.
/jlne.ws/3W7LJBR
Dimon Highlights Need For More Oil And Gas Investment As Vanguard Bails On ESG Group
David Blackmon - Forbes
J.P. Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon probably summed up this week's energy-related events best when he noted that "we need cheap, reliable, safe, secure energy, of which 80% comes from oil and gas" during an interview on CNBC. It was a week in which other major players, notably including management at Vanguard, appeared to acknowledge that reality.
/jlne.ws/3iWSqbs
ESG Policies Help to Drive Ship Equip Decisions
Maritime Reporter TV
As environmental pressures to clean up operations grow, maritime operators must examine their Environmental, Social and Governance policies. Stergios Stamopoulous, Manager, Global Sustainability Center, ABS, discusses the challenges that shipowners face.
/jlne.ws/3FHsN7w
A trading app bets on sustainable investing; CEO of Fennel talks about the company's potential, and ESG Out Loud reviews the new DOL rule
ESG Clarity
ESG Out Loud US talks with the founder of a new retail trading app, Fennel, which incorporates ESG data. Company CEO Daniel Naim says that proxy voting, sustainability and shareholder engagement will pull more people into the investing world. Naim talks about how he made a major career trajectory change, leaving a physics PhD program to start the broker-dealer Fennel Financials as well as Fennel Markets, which includes the new trading app. Emile and Paul also discuss the Department of Labor's final rule for ESG in retirement plans, and they catch up with ESG Clarity's own Natasha Turner about her coverage of COP27.
/jlne.ws/3VPsTzJ
Sparse" Data a Key Driver of Nature Action 100
Chris Hall - ESG Investor
Founding members of nature-focused investor collaboration hope engagement will achieve new insights and business model change. Institutional investors said collaborative engagement was needed to extract decision-useful data on nature risks from corporates at the 'soft launch' of Nature Action 100 at COP15 yesterday. "Engagement is a critical piece because data is so sparse," said Peter van der Werf, Senior Manager of Engagement at Dutch asset manager Robeco, adding that the information derived from engagement activities would help investors allocate capital in ways that protect and restore nature.
/jlne.ws/3uG3XPa
ESG Investing's Real Problem Is a Lack of Data, Fixed-Income Pros Say; Consensus in a new report is that strategy more than a fad; Data quality, access seen as obstacles to meeting ESG goals
Allison Nicole Smith - Bloomberg
As the debate heats up over ESG investing, fixed-income professionals say they need more data than what's currently out there. A survey of 111 senior buy-side fixed-income investors, conducted by analytics firm Coalition Greenwich, found that 90% believe the popular strategy, which prices in environmental, social and governance risks, is important to decision making. Yet only about a third of investors have fully integrated ESG into their risk-analysis. The reason? Not enough data.
/jlne.ws/3FlpOAl
Hong Kong and Singapore Spar for Green Finance Supremacy in Asia; Singapore has early edge with carbon trading, finance push; Hong Kong looks to leverage close ties with China in ESG drive
Sheryl Tian Tong Lee, Rebecca Choong Wilkins, and Kiuyan Wong - Bloomberg
Hong Kong and Singapore have long squared off to be the preeminent finance hub for Asia. That battleground is now shifting to the ESG space, with potentially trillions of dollars at stake. From green bonds to carbon trading and asset management, both cities are angling to be the regional base for sustainable finance as governments and companies ramp up investments to fight climate change. Combined ESG assets could soar to $53 trillion by 2025, with Asia sparking the next leg of growth, according to Bloomberg Intelligence.
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Asia's richest man wants India to lead a green energy revolution
Murali Krishnan - Radio France Internationale
With six coal-fired power plants, Adani, 60, is India's largest private player in power. He invested after India liberalized its economy in the early 1990s and kicked off an energy-intensive boom. Electricity demand in India continues to grow exponentially, and the government wants to boost renewable energy generation capacity to partly meet the increasing demand.
/jlne.ws/3HtkhKQ
The Chauffeur, the Leaked Tape and a Half-Billion Loss on Solar; Local English authority needs a bailout after investments sour; Legal dispute turns spotlight on green-energy financier
Sabah Meddings - Bloomberg
When a hard-pressed local authority in southern England was looking to boost its finances, it turned to a novel idea: leveraged bets worth hundreds of millions of pounds on solar energy. For Thurrock Council in the county of Essex, it sounded like a surefire winner. Instead, the gamble backfired spectacularly.
/jlne.ws/3UXEtrq
North Carolina Treasurer Is Latest to Call for BlackRock CEO Larry Fink's Ouster Over ESG Stance
Joe Woelfel - Barron's
North Carolina's state treasurer is the latest to call for the ouster of BlackRock CEO Larry Fink over the asset manager's stance on environmental, social, and governance investing. Dale R. Folwell, in a letter to the board of BlackRock (ticker: BLK), wrote that Fink's "focus on ESG is not a focus on returns."
/jlne.ws/3uNQ6WV
BlackRock Facing More Blowback Over ESG as GOP Pressure Mounts
Nic Querolo - Bloomberg
It's been a tough couple weeks for BlackRock Inc., the world's largest money manager, which endured fresh blows from Republican officials sharply critical of ESG. On Wednesday, Texas said one of its Senate committees had issued a subpoena requesting documents about BlackRock's environmental, social and governance practices, and asked for at least one of six executives, including Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink, to attend a Dec. 15 hearing. On the same day, Vanguard Group Inc., one of BlackRock's main rivals, withdrew from the world's largest climate-finance coalition, creating a potential selling point to anti-ESG clients.
/jlne.ws/3FKMknu
Vanguard Defends Strategy as Critics Pile In After Net-Zero Exit; Al Gore and others have called the decision shortsighted; Vanguard intends to keep providing regular climate reports
Alastair Marsh and Frances Schwartzkopff - Bloomberg
Vanguard Group Inc. is under pressure to reassure stakeholders that it still cares about the climate, after becoming the target of fierce criticism from high-profile environmental advocates including Al Gore. The former US vice president, who now chairs Generation Investment Management, called Vanguard's decision to quit the world's biggest climate-finance alliance "irresponsible and shortsighted." Gore also suggested the asset manager, which oversees $7.1 trillion in client funds, was out of step with the Zeitgeist.
/jlne.ws/3HtrDxL
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| Banks, Brokers & Managed Funds | | The latest from banks, brokers, hedge funds and managed futures | Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Among Winners From UK Finance Reforms; Raising ring-fence threshold would benefit Wall Street firms; EU-era short-selling rules to be reviewed in boost for London
Katherine Griffiths - Bloomberg
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are likely to be among the beneficiaries of the government's financial services reforms through a proposed relaxation of ring-fencing capital rules that will boost their UK savings arms. The government said it intends to consult next year on the possibility of increasing the threshold above which lenders must ring-fence their retail operations to £35 billion ($43 billion), up £10 billion. A review by businessman Keith Skeoch earlier this year didn't recommend raising the threshold, but the government said that it would consider it as the total amount of sterling deposits has grown since the level was set in 2015.
/jlne.ws/3Hq6Efp
Goldman Moves More Bankers to Dubai in Middle East Money Push; Banker relocates from London, another from Hong Kong; Middle East is attracting wealthy individuals from Russia
Benjamin Stupples and Nicolas Parasie - Bloomberg
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is moving more senior private bankers to Dubai as it builds up its presence in the Middle East territory that's increasingly becoming a destination for the world's rich. Charles der Kinderen moved in recent months to the emirate from London and Simon Martyn relocated from Hong Kong in September, according to a spokesperson for the US bank. Kinderen joined the New York-based firm in 2019 to cover single-family offices from the English capital while Martyn has handled Goldman's wealthy Asian clients for almost a decade.
/jlne.ws/3WbTOpk
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon is mulling staff cuts and has rolled out a massive reorganization. Here's who is gaining power-and who is losing it
Luis Beltran - Fortune
It's a tense time to be a staffer at Goldman Sachs. The bank's infamously tough yearly performance reviews are looming. CEO David Solomon has publicly mused about the size of the storied firm's staffing "footprint." The huge reorganization that Solomon unveiled earlier this fall will be implemented later this month. And Solomon is still fighting to force employees back to their desks. Speaking at a Goldman financial services conference on Dec. 6, Solomon said the U.S. could face a recession in 2023 and that job cuts shouldn't be a surprise. "Naturally compensation will be lower...We will pay people based on the overall performance of the firm," Solomon said.
/jlne.ws/3Yi1BDC
An Obscure Bank Found Its Key to Success. Then FTX Collapsed; Lawmakers question Silvergate, bank to FTX, Alameda Research; Crypto offered a source of low-cost deposits for Silvergate
Max Reyes - Bloomberg
Silvergate Capital Corp. was dealing with the same problem many small US banks face: How do you differentiate yourself when larger competitors do everything you do, only better? The solution it found was to focus on a sector other banks didn't want to touch: cryptocurrency. Over the course of a decade, the La Jolla, California-based company transformed itself from a bank catering to small businesses into a publicly traded firm known for providing banking services to major crypto clients such as Coinbase Global Inc. and Gemini Trust Co. - as well as Sam Bankman-Fried's FTX and Alameda Research.
/jlne.ws/3VQPCv5
Turkish watchdog cuts banks' forex to capital ratio limit
Reuters
Turkey's BDDK banking watchdog has set the foreign currency net position to standard capital ratio for banks at a maximum 5% according to a regulation published in the country's official gazette on Saturday. The amendment takes effect on January 9, it said.
/jlne.ws/3uHoZgh
Hedge Funds Lure Oil Traders With Seven-Figure Signing Bonuses; Hiring in energy markets up 15% versus a year ago, data show
Devika Krishna Kumar - Bloomberg
The oil market's rollercoaster volatility is translating into multimillion-dollar signing bonuses for some of the traders who can stomach it. This year, one oil trader scored a $5 million signing bonus after joining a multi-strategy hedge fund. It's far from the only massive number. Signing bonuses in the $1 million to $5 million range are becoming more common, though higher payouts are seen only in exceptional cases.
/jlne.ws/3YeaKNC
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan talks strategy for reducing headcount
Charlotte Business Journal
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, who has struck an upbeat tone on the economy in recent interviews, recently discussed the Charlotte-based bank's strategy for adjusting its headcount, which it is currently looking to do. "We don't lay off people, but we have an ability to reshape our headcount pretty quickly just by the turnover that occurs," Moynihan said Dec. 6 during the Goldman Sachs 2022 U.S. Financial Services Conference, when speaking about his current approach to managing the bank's workforce numbers.
/jlne.ws/3Pg6Hwd
Turkey Orders Banks to Limit Foreign Currency Holdings
Kerim Karakaya - Bloomberg
Turkey's banking regulator changed a rule to push commercial lenders to hold less foreign currency for their needs following a warning letter last week. The net foreign currency position cannot be more than 5% of equity, according to the new rule published in the Official Gazette on Friday. The limit was 20% previously.
/jlne.ws/3FnQ6lq
Lunch With Billionaire Investor Bill Ackman Will Cost You at Least $25,000; This is the fifth time the Pershing Square CEO is raising money for charity by auctioning off a lunch.
Paulina Cachero - Bloomberg
Bids have started rolling in for the chance to eat alongside billionaire investor Bill Ackman, an annual charity auction that emulates Warren Buffett's popular philanthropic lunch. So far, more than a dozen bids have been received to dine with the chief executive officer of Pershing Square Capital Management, and the price had risen to $25,500 as of 10:22 a.m. Thursday in New York. The auction, which started Dec. 6 at $15,000, closes on Monday. The winning bidder can invite a guest, but the location of the lunch has not yet been determined.
/jlne.ws/3BrdqOi
The $115 Billion Thematic ETF Boom Lives On Even as Losses Mount; Investors want assets that tell a story, fund veteran says; More than half of thematic funds trading below launch price
Isabelle Lee - Bloomberg
Thematic investing can be traced as far back as 1948 when a mutual fund named the Television Fund was launched. And if it's lasted this long, it can survive the ravages of an inflation-lashed year - at least as far as proponents like Kenneth Lamont are concerned. Aggressive rate hikes by central banks as they battle surging prices have been brutal for thematic ETFs, a cohort of funds that target investments based on trends like robotics or electric cars. Rising borrowing costs have been hammering these riskier, speculative bets.
/jlne.ws/3YqrAZQ
Credit Suisse Loses Senior Executives in Asia, Europe Departures; Carsten Stoehr to leave Credit Suisse after rejoining in 2016; Jefferies is said to hire Swiss bank's Italy CEO Donzelli
Cathy Chan and Daniele Lepido - Bloomberg
Credit Suisse Group AG lost two senior executives in China and Italy, adding to a string of departures as the troubled Swiss lender embarks on a comprehensive restructuring. Carsten Stoehr, chief executive officer of Greater China, is leaving Credit Suisse effective Dec. 15, according to an internal memo that was confirmed by a Hong Kong-based spokeswoman. He had rejoined the firm in 2016 and led its expansion across investment banking, wealth and asset management in the region.
/jlne.ws/3FiRh5D
Australian ETF market is maturing despite 'gimmicks', study says; Five crypto exchange traded funds stopped trading in November
Sandra Heistruvers - Financial Times
Australia's exchange traded fund market "is becoming more entrenched and diversified", though the large number of ETFs available may mean the priority "will now be consolidation of assets in existing products", according to a new report from Cerulli Associates.
/jlne.ws/3uLugnb
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| Wellness Exchange | | An Exchange of Health and Wellness Information | It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Another COVID Surge; Once again, our pandemic numbers are creeping in the wrong direction
Yasmin Tayag - The Atlantic
When I called the epidemiologist Denis Nash this week to discuss the country's worsening COVID numbers, he was about to take a rapid test. "I came in on the subway to work this morning, and I got a text from home," Nash, a professor at the City University of New York, told me. "My daughter tested positive for COVID." Here we go again.
/jlne.ws/3FnP60y
What Old Age Might Be Like for Today's 30-Year-Olds; As the country ages, economists and others expect life will be very different for tomorrow's seniors
Anne Tergesen - The Wall Street Journal
Get ready for a new old age. With the U.S. fertility rate in a decadelong slump and the life expectancy of 65-year-old Americans approaching roughly 85, our aging nation is likely to grow older by midcentury, as the ratio of young to old continues to decline. The trend is likely to upend how our society is organized, making life very different for today's 30-year-olds when they reach their 60s compared with life for 60-year-olds now.
/jlne.ws/3FKKMKc
Authorities are urging indoor masking in major cities as the 'tripledemic' rages
Juliana Kim - NPR
Public health officials are revisiting the topic of indoor masking, as three highly contagious respiratory viruses take hold during the holiday season. Over the past few weeks, a surge in cases of COVID, the flu and respiratory syncytial virus - known as RSV - has been sickening millions of Americans, overwhelming emergency rooms and even causing a cold medicine shortage. The triple threat has been called a "tripledemic" by some health experts.
/jlne.ws/3iSlyAM
Can I Find Out If I Had a Past Case of Covid?
Kristen V Brown - Bloomberg
One of the few certainties about Covid-19 is that it impacts different people, well, differently. One person might be hospitalized and another might not show symptoms at all. It's not always clear why. Researchers are starting to understand that the asymptomatic group is sizeable. A study out this month in the Lancet focused on Covid's seroprevalence, a measure of how widespread a pathogen is using data from blood samples. Between October 2020 and February 2022, the seroprevalence of the virus was much higher than official CDC case counts, the authors found.
/jlne.ws/3YcKjYB
China's Top Medical Adviser Says Omicron's Risks Same as Flu; Death rate from omicron variant of Covid 0.1%, Zhong says; Adviser's comment follows new government line on coronavirus
Bloomberg
Chinese officials continued to downplay the risks of Covid-19 as restrictions are eased, with a top medical adviser saying the fatality rate from the omicron variant of the virus is in line with influenza. The death rate from omicron is around 0.1%, similar to the common flu, and the infection rarely reaches the lungs, Zhong Nanshan was quoted in an interview with state news agency Xinhua. Most people recover from the variant within seven to 10 days, he said.
/jlne.ws/3PlnjT2
China to allow German expats to use German COVID-19 vaccines
Reuters
The Chinese foreign ministry said China and Germany had reached an agreement on providing "German vaccines" to German nationals in China, after the German Chancellor recently said that BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine would be used by German expatriates. Relevant arrangements will be discussed and determined by the two sides through diplomatic channels, Mao Ning, a spokeswoman at the Chinese foreign ministry told reporters on Friday at a regular press conference.
/jlne.ws/3hkgZii
China tackles medical-supply snags, price gouging amid COVID fears
Reuters
China said on Saturday it would stop checking truck drivers and ship crew transporting goods domestically for COVID-19, removing a key bottleneck from its supply chain network as a dismantling of the country's zero-COVID policy gathers speed. The country this week made a dramatic pivot toward economic reopening, loosening key parts of the COVID policy in a shift that has been welcomed by a weary public but also is now stoking concerns that infections could spike and cause further disruptions.
/jlne.ws/3FlsqhD
More women than men suffer strokes, but many don't realize the risk; Strokes kill more than 85,000 women each year. And Black women are particularly at risk.
Marlene Cimons - The Washington Post
When Tracy Madsen talks casually to other women about their health worries, whether patients, friends or family, she is sometimes surprised to hear how frightened they are about getting breast cancer, while they rarely mention stroke. "Though breast cancer is, of course, a valid concern," said Madsen, associate professor of emergency medicine and epidemiology at Brown University, "I don't think many women are aware that stroke is the third leading cause of death of women in the United States, and that it causes about twice as many deaths in women every year than breast cancer."
/jlne.ws/3BtWK8F
This Flu Season Is So Bad It Is Crowding Out Covid; The pandemic hasn't ended, but a more diverse set of viral threats have begun.
Brooke Sample - Bloomberg
There are three types of people in the world right now: those who were sick with the flu this season, those who are sick with it right now and those who are dreading getting sick with it. Exaggeration? Maybe. But flu, RSV, colds, strep and a multitude of other gross - and dangerous - things are ravaging populations and wreaking havoc on health-care systems, just as we reach the three-year mark of the Covid-19 pandemic.
/jlne.ws/3Y8INqx
It's Still Worth Fighting Anti-Covid Vaccine Misinformation; Unvaccinated or unboosted people continue to make up too many pandemic deaths.
Sarah Green Carmichael and Faye Flam - Bloomberg
Medical misinformation has never contributed to as many deaths as in the last 18 months. Recently released statistics show thousands of "excess" deaths concentrated among the US states and counties with the lowest uptake of Covid-19 vaccines - though the vaccines were free and available to everyone. Uptake has been suppressed in those areas because a significant chunk of the public has remained intensely skeptical of the Covid vaccines - especially those using mRNA technology, which has been in development for decades but never used until now. Among the rumors: that the vaccines change your DNA; cause infertility; or even kill you. None of these are based in fact.
/jlne.ws/3VRg1ZN
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| Regions | | Stories of local interest from the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions | Vietnam Harvests 40% of 2022-23 Coffee Crop Amid Prolonged Rains
Mai Ngoc Chau - Bloomberg
Coffee farmers in Vietnam, the world's biggest grower of the robusta variety, collected about 40% of the 2022-23 crop as of early December amid concerns about bean quality due to prolonged rains, according to Nguyen Nam Hai, head of the nation's coffee association. Extensive rains hit major coffee-producing provinces of Dak Lak, Gia Lai and Kon Tum this month while farmers' bean-drying capacity is still limited, Hai said during a meeting attended by agriculture ministry officials, coffee producers and traders on Saturday.
/jlne.ws/3FL8xCe
A Black Market for Dollars Emerges in Crisis-Stricken Pakistan; US currency is no longer available at money-changing firms; Dollars are selling for 10% premium in parallel market
Faseeh Mangi and Karl Lester M Yap - Bloomberg
In the money-changing businesses of Karachi, the exchange rate for buying dollars is still on display. But attempt to purchase the currency and operators will say they don't have any left. Investigate a little more and a different story emerges. There are still ways to get the greenback, several money changers say, but it costs about 10% more than the advertised rate.
/jlne.ws/3uFGU6X
Booming Chinese family offices recruit top bankers in Singapore; Financial institutions expect to lose 'whole teams' to private funds that will increasingly resemble hedge funds
Mercedes Ruehl and Leo Lewis - Financial Times
A boom in mainland Chinese family offices setting up in Singapore is drawing in thousands of financial professionals, including from global investment banks, creating what some finance heads are calling a new "hedge fund" industry in the city-state.
/jlne.ws/3iJMRNx
UK Power Surges to Record as Sub-Zero Chill Sends Demand Surging
Rachel Morison - Bloomberg
UK power prices for Monday jumped to record levels as freezing temperatures are set to cause a surge in demand, just as a drop in wind generation causes a supply crunch. The day-ahead price settled at a record £674.78 a megawatt-hour on the Epex Spot SE exchange with the price for 5-6 p.m. clearing at an all-time high of £2585.80 a megawatt-hour. The Met Office has yellow weather warnings for snow and ice in place throughout the UK through Thursday.
/jlne.ws/3YfJy0T
NIMBYs Warm to Renewables in Europe's Most Polluting Economy; Energy crisis has raised acceptance for green power projects; Community reluctance, bureaucracy have held back transition
Petra Sorge - Bloomberg
The Bavarian town of Niederaichbach long opposed a high-voltage line crucial for transport of Germany's renewable energy. It took a war and nationwide blackout warnings for the residents' resistance to soften. SuedOstLink is one of two big electricity highways that will bring offshore-wind power from Germany's northern coasts to its industrial heartlands. Niederaichbach - just a few kilometers from BMW AG's largest German car factory - will mark the grid's southern-most point.
/jlne.ws/3hiyD66
Saudi energy minister sees no clear results yet from Russia price cap
Aziz El Yaakoubi - Reuters
Saudi energy minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman said on Sunday the impact of European sanctions on Russian crude oil and price cap measures "did not bring clear results yet" and its implementation was still unclear. The Group of 7 price cap on Russian seaborne oil came into effect Dec. 5 as the West tries to limit Moscow's ability to finance its war in the Ukraine. Russia has said it would not abide by the measure even if it has to cut its production.
/jlne.ws/3VR9oGS
Oil Tanker Sails Through Bosphorus in Sign Insurance Spat Easing
Alaric Nightingale - Bloomberg
Turkish authorities allowed an oil tanker to pass through country's vital Bosphorus shipping strait, suggesting an impasse relating to sanctions on Russia might be set to ease. The vessel in question was flying the Turkish flag and its insurer provided a letter proving it had appropriate insurance, a local port agent reported, translating a statement by the country's Directorate of General Maritime Affairs.
/jlne.ws/3VPgagt
Florida's Hurricane-Hit Orange Crop Means Juice Shortage to Worsen; Orange crop in Florida shrinks 51%, most in data going to 1913; State is biggest orange juice producer, major grower
Marvin G Perez and Dominic Carey - Bloomberg
America's top orange juice maker is set for a record decline in the crop this season, signaling that a global shortage of the breakfast beverage will only get worse. Florida will likely produce 20 million boxes of oranges in the season that runs Oct. 2022 to Sept. 2023, down 51% from the year-ago period - the biggest drop in data going back to 1913, according to the US Department of Agriculture's monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand report, or WASDE. That would also be the smallest output since 1937. A box weighs 90 pounds (41 kilograms).
/jlne.ws/3v0yfwp
'Firmageddon': Researchers find 1.1 million acres of dead trees in Oregon
Evan Bush - NBC News
Drought-stricken Oregon saw a historic die-off of fir trees in 2022 that left hillsides once lush with green conifers dotted with patches of red, dead trees. The damage to fir trees was so significant researchers took to calling the blighted areas "firmageddon" as they flew overhead during aerial surveys that estimated the die-off's extent. The surveyors ultimately tallied about 1.1 million acres of Oregon forest with dead firs, the most damage recorded in a single season since surveys began 75 years ago.
/jlne.ws/3uHsByR
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| Miscellaneous | | Stories that don't quite fit under the other sections | The 50 Best Wines Under $50 Right Now, From Alto Adige to New Zealand; Of the 2,481 wines our columnist tasted this year, these are the best value.
Elin McCoy - Bloomberg
My idea of a yearend report means scrolling through all my tasting notes for the wines I would be happy to drink again-and that deliver quality at a seriously reasonable price. This year, I found more good-value vino than ever while sampling 2,481-yes, I double-checked-red, white, rosé, orange and sparkling examples from Armenia to Uruguay. So where to seek the best buys of 2022?
/jlne.ws/3uERewf
Bridgewater's Ray Dalio invests in submarines for the ultra-rich; Billionaire joins 'Avatar' film-maker James Cameron to make submersibles for exploration-minded yacht owner
Ortenca Aliaj - Financial Times
Ray Dalio and Hollywood film-maker James Cameron have bought an equity stake in a submarine maker that allows the ultra-wealthy yachting class to explore the remotest parts of the planet. The billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, is now part-owner of Triton Submarines, a Florida-based company that specialises in submersibles for the super-rich.
/jlne.ws/3v1oGxf
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