July 11, 2025 | "Irreverent, but never irrelevant" | | | John Lothian Publisher John Lothian News | |
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Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Since I returned home from the museum opening on Friday, I have been under the weather, with fevers as high as 103 degrees. This is the first time I have been ill in a long time, and it is a simple virus. It is not a summer cold. It is not COVID. It is not fun. This has set me back in terms of publishing IDX videos, producing opinion pieces, and other sundry tasks. Thus, I will leave hits & takes in an abbreviated state today. The World Alliance of International Financial Centers (WAIFC) Financial Center News / 11 July 2025 is out. Here are the headlines from in front of FOW's paywall from some recent stories: Trade body calls on UK government to scrap VAT on carbon credits, Basel highlights four key risks from growth of non-bank firms and ANALYSIS: US copper tariff could expedite 'normal trade patterns' - analyst. Have a great day and stay safe and treat people the same way you want to be treated: with respect, equality, and justice.~JJL ***** Today in exchange news, Nasdaq announced the appointment of Christian Sjoberg as President of Nasdaq Clearing AB. He now has an expanded role as head of post-trade strategy in Europe. He will lead Nasdaq's central counterparty clearing house (CCP). Congratulations to Mr. Sjoberg on the new role.~SR Also, the Jane Street dispute with SEBI is having ramifications for India's derivatives market, sparking worries it may hurt business at the National Stock Exchange of India, which handles more than 90% of the equity derivatives space. Shares of the exchange have fallen almost 10% from their recent highs in the private market after SEBI imposed a temporary ban on Jane Street trading in India.~SR Our most-read stories from our previous edition of JLN Options were: - Trading firms Virtu and Citadel Securities clash over new options exchange from the Financial Times. - Trading giant Virtu backs plan for IEX's proposed options exchange from Reuters. - India's ban on Jane Street hits options volumes; rebound expected in coming weeks from Reuters. ~JB Subscribe to the JLN Options Newsletter HERE (it's free). ++++ Eurex CEO Robbert Booij Discusses EMIR, Restructuring, and Innovation at FIA IDX JohnLothianNews.com In an interview with John Lothian News at FIA IDX, Eurex CEO Robbert Booij outlined the exchange's response to new EMIR requirements, recent organizational changes, and ongoing innovation in product development and digital assets. Watch the Robbert Booij Video » Alun Green - Trading Technologies (TT) Watch the Alun Green Video » Michael Haigh - Societe Generale Watch the Michael Haigh Video » ++++ Trump administration backs away from abolishing FEMA; As the president heads to Texas to see the impact of last week's deadly flash floods, the White House has backed away from plans to abolish the agency, officials said. Natalie Allison - The Washington Post For months, President Donald Trump and his homeland security secretary have said the Federal Emergency Management Agency could be eliminated. But as the president heads to Texas to view the impact of last week's deadly floods, administration officials say abolishing the agency outright is not on the agenda. A senior White House official told The Washington Post that no official action is being taken to wind down FEMA, and that changes in the agency will probably amount to a "rebranding" that will emphasize state leaders' roles in disaster response. /jlne.ws/44rUnlP ***** This was an inevitable decision.~JJL ++++ Private auctions on the rise as wealthy art collectors shun publicity; Invitation-only format gains popularity as public sales attract fewer bidders Josh Spero - Financial Times Invitation-only private auctions, where select groups of billionaires are approached to bid for high-priced works, are becoming an attractive format for collectors who want to avoid the spotlight while disposing of artworks. Private auctions have been an innovation of the past five years, say industry figures, as the public auction market has become a less profitable forum with a reduced pool of bidders, especially from Asia, for top works. Last month, a bust by Alberto Giacometti estimated to be valued at more than $70mn failed to sell at Sotheby's. /jlne.ws/3GIa1jH ***** This reminds me of the economic game where three people keep selling a pencil to each other and each boosts the price. Eventually you have a $0.05 pencil worth $100,000. Neat trick. ~JB ++++ Billionaire Ferrero Clan Joins Rival Mars in Looking Beyond Chocolate Devon Pendleton and Benjamin Stupples - Bloomberg The fictional candy tycoon Willy Wonka dismissed cereal as "disgusting" and made of pencil shavings. But for Ferrero International SA - whose late owner was frequently compared to the character - the breakfast food marks a key step in diversifying a chocolate dynasty. The Nutella maker's $3.1 billion acquisition of WK Kellogg Co. would mark the biggest purchase for the Italian candy giant in its 79-year history. It also signals a shift for the Ferrero family's $50.4 billion fortune, which is overwhelmingly tied to sugary treats, from its signature cocoa-hazelnut spread to Tic Tacs and Kinder bars. /jlne.ws/4nJ1b5S ***** If they make a river of chocolate and have boat rides on it, I think that'll solve their problems (says seven-year-old me). ~JB ++++ Children limiting own smartphone use to manage mental health, survey finds; Teenagers increasingly taking breaks as they control own use of devices rather than relying on parents to enforce limits, experts say Rachel Hall - The Guardian Children are increasingly taking breaks from their smartphones to better manage their mental health, personal safety and concentration spans, research has revealed. They are reacting to growing concerns that spending too much time online can be harmful by taking control of their own social media and smartphone use rather than relying on parents to enforce limits, according to experts. ***** It is not just children who need to take a break from cellphones.~JJL ++++ Thursday's Top Three Our top clicked item Thursday was the story from WGN-TV about the opening of the Chicago Board of Trade Museum posted by John Lothian on LinkedIn. Second was Understanding #Langer vs. #CME: What This Case Is Really About, a post by MrTopStep on X. Third was Index Industry Launches Continuing Education Program with CFP Board Approved Course, a press release from the Index Industry Association (IIA). ++++
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Lead Stories | Trading firms Virtu and Citadel Securities clash over new options exchange; Virtu lends its support to IEX after Ken Griffin's firm criticised planned exchange's ability to cancel and reprice trades George Steer - Financial Times Virtu Financial has come out against rival Citadel Securities' attempts to block the opening of a new US options exchange, as the high-speed trading giant wades into a dispute over market structure that has sucked in some of Wall Street's biggest names. The disagreement hinges on the implementation of a 350-microsecond so-called "speed bump" that US exchange operator IEX - made famous by the Michael Lewis's bestseller Flash Boys - hopes will protect traders on its proposed exchange from buying and selling options at stale prices. This mechanism will allow IEX to cancel and reprice a small proportion of orders, but critics of the plan, including billionaire Ken Griffin's Citadel Securities, say it would end up harming ordinary investors while enriching IEX's shareholders and market makers. /jlne.ws/46GztAC Binance Aided Trump Crypto Firm Before Founder CZ Sought Pardon; The exchange has been a coder, a promoter and an early adopter for World Liberty Financial's stablecoin, people familiar with the matter say. Critics say the relationship poses a conflict of interest for President Trump. Zeke Faux, Muyao Shen, and Anthony Cormier - Bloomberg One of the Trump family's crypto ventures has received key behind-the-scenes help from the world's largest digital-asset exchange, whose founder is a convicted felon now seeking a presidential pardon. Binance wrote the basic code to power USD1, a stablecoin launched by the Trumps' World Liberty Financial Inc., according to three people familiar with the matter. They asked not to be named because the arrangement was private. Later, Binance's founder and principal owner, Changpeng Zhao, said publicly that he had applied for a pardon. CZ, as he's known, pleaded guilty in 2023 to failing to maintain an effective anti-money-laundering program. /jlne.ws/4nIc8Vt Citadel Securities buys Morgan Stanley's electronic options market making unit; Deal highlights the growing dominance of high-frequency trading groups on Wall Street Joshua Franklin - Financial Times Ken Griffin's Citadel Securities has bought Morgan Stanley's electronic options market making business, underscoring how high-frequency trading firms now dominate an industry once ruled by Wall Street banks. Citadel purchased both the underlying business from Morgan Stanley and a large options position, said a person familiar with the matter. /jlne.ws/4eIcqrr Trump is sowing confusion in the markets; While the behaviour of bonds suggests a downturn, American stocks are at record highs Gillian Tett - Financial Times There are many reasons to feel confused by current American policy. US President Donald Trump keeps issuing "final" tariff threats - then backing down. The White House wants to create industrial jobs - but is gutting the Inflation Reduction Act that was doing just that, mostly in red states. Scott Bessent, Treasury secretary, wants dollar dominance, but has presided over a 10 per cent fall in its value. And so on. However, if you want to feel more baffled, look at markets. This month the one-year swaps market is pricing modest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve, which normally implies lower growth and inflation. /jlne.ws/3U7Yqxs The Danger of a Market Melt-Up; Traders have repeatedly shrugged off President Trump's disruptive tariff wars and fiscal policy, pushing U.S. stock prices back into expensive territory, our columnist says. Jeff Sommer - The New York Times Market meltdowns have been a big worry lately, and for good reason. With President Trump imposing the highest tariffs since the Great Depression and enacting myriad other disruptive policies, the threat of another market crash can't be ignored. Yet despite an 18.9 percent downturn in the S&P 500 earlier this year, the stock market has rebounded. It has continually shrugged off shocks that, in previous years, may have set off a prolonged bear market. /jlne.ws/3GtzEEZ India on track for record IPO year; Value of primary listings hits highest year-to-date level on back of interest rate cuts and domestic demand for stocks Chris Kay and William Sandlund - Financial Times India is on track for a record year in initial public offerings after the value of primary listings reached their highest year-to-date level on the back of interest rate cuts and strong domestic demand for equities. The amount raised in primary public flotations this year has hit $6.7bn, compared with $5.4bn over the same period last year, making India the world's biggest IPO market outside the US, according to Dealogic data. Several highly anticipated listings, including Tata Capital's expected $2bn flotation, could propel India past last year's $21bn raised. /jlne.ws/3IgViwP Commodity traders poised for $300mn windfall from US copper rush; Trafigura, Mercuria, Glencore and IXM set for bumper profits from metal shipped into America ahead of tariffs Leslie Hook - Financial Times Trafigura, Mercuria, Glencore and IXM could reap bumper profits of more than $300mn after shipping record amounts of copper into the US ahead of tariffs on the metal. The commodity traders are at the forefront of a trend in which huge quantities of copper are being brought to the US, where a widening price gap with the international benchmark has created a lucrative arbitrage opportunity. /jlne.ws/40AnQaX Trump's Tariffs Blow Up the Copper Market; U.S. firms will pay 50% more while waiting years for more U.S. production. The Editorial Board - The Wall Street Journal President Trump likes tariffs for their own sake, and the latest evidence is his bewildering decision to slap a 50% tax on copper imports. How this will help the U.S. economy is a mystery, even as it has sent the copper market into turmoil, with chaotic results for American manufacturers that use the vital metal. Copper prices are typically an economic benchmark because the metal is widely used in construction and industrial manufacturing. But prices this year have been rising despite slowing economic growth. Mr. Trump's February order for a Section 232 national-security investigation into copper imports prompted businesses and traders to stockpile inventory. /jlne.ws/44qjdCA The secret giant of finance; In India, Jane Street fights accusations of market manipulation FT Podcast - Unhedged Podcast Jane Street is one of the biggest traders in the world, and they have become embroiled in accusations of market manipulation in India. Today on the show, Katie Martin and special guest Robin Wigglesworth, from the FT's Alphaville newsletter, try to explain how Jane Street got so big and why it matters. Also they go short bed bugs and short Strategy's strategy. /jlne.ws/4604Shi Crypto Renaissance Means It's Time to Protect Banks; Enthusiasts of digital assets should heed the lessons of the last banking calamity. The Editorial Board - Bloomberg With the price of digital assets testing the boundaries of plausibility, and Congress promising legislation to boost the industry further, now might be a good time for bank regulators to take notice. Why worry about banks? It wasn't so long ago - less than three years - that banks catering to the cryptocurrency industry failed after prices tumbled and a raft of companies went bankrupt. Regulators had to take emergency steps to prevent a wider loss of confidence and promised reforms to make the industry more resilient. /jlne.ws/4eSTgPG The Dollar's in Trouble, but Not for the Reason You Think Josh Lipsky - The New York Times (opinion) Mr. Lipsky is the chair of international economics at the Atlantic Council. In the three months since President Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs, and the days since his first wave of post-Independence Day trade letters, a question has been bouncing around the world's financial capitals: Is the dollar still healthy? The answer is no, but the reason has little to do with the tariffs. What the debate about America's currency misses is that the dollar is being actively undermined - and has been for the better part of a decade. Instead of watching the slow-moving traditional macroeconomic indicators of dollar strength, like how many dollars other central banks hold and how often the currency is used in global trade, we need to start paying more attention to the rapidly changing way countries are working around the dollar through new payment systems. /jlne.ws/4eMD3vp Citadel Securities Buys Morgan Stanley's Options Market Maker Katherine Doherty - Bloomberg Citadel Securities bought Morgan Stanley's unit focused on electronic market-making for US equity options, expanding the firm's already dominant role in the popular derivatives, according to people familiar with the matter.The trading firm founded by billionaire Ken Griffin acquired Morgan Stanley's on-exchange options business and took on a large portfolio of equity options positions, the people said. The deal includes specialist posts on venues including Cboe, Nasdaq, NYSE and MIAX, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private information. /jlne.ws/40b9ddP The SEC opened the 'floodgates' for crypto ETFs, experts say, marking a new era for the industry Nino Paoli - Fortune The Securities and Exchange Commission's latest guidance bangs the door wide open for an influx of funds exposed to cryptocurrencies like Solana, Ripple's XRP, and potentially even President Donald Trump's memecoin, experts told Fortune. The new Trump-appointed SEC chairman Paul Atkins is one step closer to his vision of a decentralized finance movement after the SEC released new guidance this month giving asset managers more details on getting exchange-traded products tied to cryptocurrencies approved by the commission. The move invites an anticipated gush of funds exposed to cryptocurrencies like Solana, Ripple's XRP, and potentially even Trump's memecoin, experts told Fortune. /jlne.ws/4kzT890 Trump's $100 million crypto mystery man Tom Wilson, Lawrence Delevingne and David Gauthier-Villars - Reuters Of all the riddles wrapped in the digital wallets sending funds to President Donald Trump's World Liberty Financial crypto business, a little-known entity last month became the biggest. A venture calling itself Aqua 1 Foundation and saying it is based in the United Arab Emirates announced in late June it had bought $100 million worth of World Liberty's crypto tokens, becoming the largest publicly known investor in the business. Yet a review by Reuters of corporate registries, Aqua 1's digital profile and other public information reveal almost nothing about the source of its capital or the person it named as its founding partner, Dave Lee. /jlne.ws/4nzoW0e Why 24/7 Digital Markets Will Power Development in Frontier Economies Davis Richardson - CoinDesk Goodbye to vague notions of "soft power" and "impact investing." Hello to benchmarking, concrete KPIs, and sovereign capital deployed with precision. In the 20th century, Bretton Woods and the Marshall Plan set the financial blueprint for postwar recovery. While the stakes today are just as high, the tools are different. From Ukraine to sub-Saharan Africa, frontier markets are fighting for financial credibility in a trust-scarce world. Traditional aid models, plagued by opacity and inefficiency, have been further dismantled by the Trump Administration's DOGE initiative, which is moving to replace aid with measurable, tech-enabled delivery systems. /jlne.ws/4lnlTqt
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Trade War and Tariffs | A roundup of today's trade war and tariff news and the global economic ripple effects shaping markets, industries, and investment strategies. | Trump Escalates Canada Trade Fight With 35% Tariff Threat Josh Wingrove and Catherine Lucey - Bloomberg President Donald Trump threatened a 35% tariff on some Canadian goods and raised the prospect of increasing levies on most other countries, ramping up his trade rhetoric in comments that weighed on stocks and boosted the US dollar. The tariff level on Canada would take effect from Aug. 1, the president said. The announced rate is an increase from the current 25% tariff that's imposed on US imports from Canada that aren't shipped under the terms of the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement. /jlne.ws/4lhOOw9 Trump's Copper Tariffs Set to Include Products for Power Grids, Data Centers Julian Luk, Joe Deaux, and Catherine Lucey - Bloomberg US President Donald Trump's plans to impose 50% import tariffs on copper imports are set to include the kinds of materials used for power grids, the military and data centers. Plans involve including semi-finished products, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named as discussions are private. That comes as few details of Trump's plans for copper tariffs have been revealed so far. The tariff measures haven't yet been formalized and they could change. /jlne.ws/3TAALpo Markets So Unfazed By Tariffs That It's Making Trump Bolder Allegra Catelli, Michael Msika and Richard Henderson - Bloomberg To Donald Trump, the rallying stock market is evidence that Wall Street likes tariffs. But investors say they're just counting on the US president to back down. With the S&P 500 notching records despite promises that more tariffs are coming to everyone from Canada to Brazil to Algeria, Trump told NBC in an interview: "I think the tariffs have been very well-received. The stock market hit a new high today." /jlne.ws/4lPsjyx Cost of Hedging for Declines in Rand, Real Soars on Tariff Peril Mpho Hlakudi - Bloomberg The gyrations of South Africa's rand and Brazil's real illustrate the complexities traders face in evaluating the potential impact of US tariffs. The two currencies fluctuated wildly this week, and volatility measures suggest more price swings are in store in the run-up to the Aug. 1 deadline for the tariffs to take effect. The cost of hedging against declines in both currencies has soared. /jlne.ws/4nEAP5f The Tariff Damage in Profile: Energy Edition; The multiple ways the new taxes on imports will harm U.S. oil and gas production. The Editorial Board - The Wall Street Journal President Trump keeps firing his tariff gun, and Tuesday's salvo was 50% on copper imports. This is a tax on the industries that use copper, such as housing and especially energy; copper prices hit an all-time high. The copper levy highlights how tariffs harm some industries more than others, and energy will be one of the hardest hit. The folks at Rystad Energy have examined the impact, and it isn't pretty. Tariffs and their uncertainty "will certainly decrease expected investment activity in the energy sector," says the new report. More than $50 billion of offshore investment this year has been deferred "with operators looking to wait out current market uncertainty before making significant final investment decisions," Rystad notes. /jlne.ws/46EbLFb
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World Conflicts | News about various conflicts and their military, economic, political and humanitarian impact. | Ukraine Invasion The Drone Factories Fueling Russia's Unprecedented Assaults on Ukraine; The latest assault included more drones in a single night than Russia used in an entire month last year Matthew Luxmoore and Jane Lytvynenko - The Wall Street Journal Russia's factories have begun churning out vast quantities of attack drones over the past year, producing a deadly fleet that is now taking to Ukrainian skies in record numbers almost daily. An assault Wednesday was the largest yet, according to Ukrainian officials. In the early morning hours, Russia launched 728 drones and decoy munitions at cities in western Ukraine. The attacks came just hours after President Trump blasted Russia for dragging its feet over peace talks to end the war, saying the U.S. gets "a lot of bulls-" from Russian President Vladimir Putin. /jlne.ws/4ePlSta Russia pounds Kyiv for another sleepless night as Zelensky asks for help; Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed "disappointment and frustration" with the lack of progress in Ukraine peace talks after meeting with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov. David L. Stern, Adam Taylor and Anastacia Galouchka - The Washington Post Russian forces pounded Ukraine overnight with hundreds of drones and missiles, targeting in particular the capital, Kyiv, in an attack that followed President Donald Trump's increasingly sharp criticism of Russian President Vladimir Putin and promise to restore arms deliveries to Ukraine. /jlne.ws/40d9hK8 Rosenberg: Putin determined to press on despite threat of tougher sanctions BBC News video Despite sanctions and pressure from the West, Russia continues to push on with its war effort in Ukraine. Tough language by the US President Donald Trump has had little effect on the outlook of the Russian president, who is intensifying attacks on land and in the air. The BBC's Russian Editor Steve Rosenberg reports on the mood in the country. /jlne.ws/3TCjLPs Britain to police Ukraine's skies if Russia agrees to ceasefire; UK to work in partnership with French military under post-war proposal Joe Barnes - The Telegraph Britain and France will police Ukraine's skies and seas in the event of a ceasefire deal being signed with Russia. The two nations will also help train Kyiv's troops under scaled-back proposals for a new "Multinational Force Ukraine". Announcing the plans, Sir Keir Starmer said the mission would be headquartered in Paris for the first year of operations, before being rotated to London. The measures are a step down from the original plans tabled for the "Coalition of the Willing" of nations, which would have seen tens of thousands of European troops deployed to protect Ukraine's cities, critical infrastructure and nuclear power plants. /jlne.ws/4lPrRjU Donald Trump offers to send more arms to Ukraine via Nato allies; US president appears to cool on Vladimir Putin and welcomes move for further sanctions against Russia Lauren Fedor, Christopher Miller and Philip Georgiadis - Financial Times Donald Trump has said he plans to make a "major statement" on Russia next week, as he signalled the US would sell more weapons to allies to send to Ukraine, including Patriot missile systems. The US president renewed his criticism of his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in an interview with NBC News, and said the new weapons deliveries would be sent through other members of the Nato alliance, rather than directly from the US. /jlne.ws/4kBMgbd Russia is digging in for the long haul in Ukraine; Kyiv's western allies need to recognise that Putin has made the war central to his legitimacy Sylvie Kauffmann - Financial Times Donald Trump may have impressed the Nato secretary-general, Mark Rutte, and his European partners with his abusive father act, but one leader seems immune to his tantrums: Vladimir Putin. "We get a lot of bullshit thrown at us by Putin," the US president warned on Tuesday, frustrated by the lack of progress in his effort to achieve a ceasefire in Ukraine. The Russian leader's response came loud and clear. Within hours, Moscow launched its largest drone attack on Ukraine, sending 728 drones and 13 missiles to strike cities around the country. /jlne.ws/46zvAxp Middle East Conflict Two Ships Desperately Tried to Fight Off Houthi Attacks. Help Never Arrived.; Iran-backed group carried out its most complex and violent attack yet on Red Sea shipping Benoit Faucon and Lara Seligman - The Wall Street Journal For more than 48 hours, two merchant ships in the Red Sea tried to fight off repeated attacks by Houthi fighters who used rocket-propelled grenades, missiles and drones to sink them both, kill at least three crew members and take others hostage. No U.S. or allied warship was around to help. An officer at Cosmoship Management, operator of the Eternity C, one of the vessels that was attacked, said he desperately tried to get assistance from the British navy and a European naval task force as the fight unfolded. He said he was told there were no ships in the area. /jlne.ws/46C34eB Israel, European Union reach deal on more aid, fuel deliveries to Gaza; Israel has agreed to allow in fuel for the first time since March; the E.U. will have a presence at border crossings. Miriam Berger, Ellen Francis and Claire Parker - The Washington Post The European Union and Israel have agreed on a deal to allow more food, fuel and other vital aid into the starvation-gripped Gaza Strip, with an E.U. presence at border crossings, European and Israeli officials said Thursday. "Today, we reached an agreement with Israel to expand humanitarian access to Gaza," European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas wrote on X. "This deal means more crossings open, aid and food trucks entering Gaza, repair of vital infrastructure and protection of aid workers." /jlne.ws/4lRgSGx How Netanyahu Prolonged the War in Gaza to Stay in Power; Secret meetings, altered records, ignored intelligence: the inside story of the prime minister's political calculations since Oct. 7. Patrick Kingsley, Ronen Bergman and Natan Odenheimer - The New York Times 'You no longer have a government' Six months into the war in the Gaza Strip, Benjamin Netanyahu was preparing to bring it to a halt. Negotiations were underway for an extended cease-fire with Hamas, and he was ready to agree to a compromise. He had dispatched an envoy to convey Israel's new position to the Egyptian mediators. Now, at a meeting at the Ministry of Defense in Tel Aviv, he needed to get his cabinet onboard. He had kept the plan off the meeting's written agenda. The idea was to reveal it suddenly, preventing resistant ministers from coordinating their response. /jlne.ws/46Ecgz3
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Exchanges, OTC & Clearing | Top news from exchanges, clearing, settlement and trade execution facilities | Jane Street Fallout Hits Top India Bourse's Pre-IPO Valuation Ashutosh Joshi - Bloomberg A temporary trading ban imposed by India's securities regulator on Jane Street Group LLC is fueling concerns that volumes in the nation's bustling derivatives market may drop, hurting business at the top exchange. Shares of National Stock Exchange of India Ltd., which commands over 90% of the equity derivatives space, have fallen almost 10% from their recent highs in the private market. They are changing hands at about 2,100 rupees to 2,150 rupees apiece, according to Umesh Chandra Paliwal, co-founder of trading platform UnlistedZone. /jlne.ws/3IoR4TK Nasdaq Appoints Christian Sjoberg As President Of Nasdaq Clearing AB Mondovisione Nasdaq (Nasdaq: NDAQ) today announced the appointment of Christian Sjoberg as President of Nasdaq Clearing AB, with an expanded role that include added responsibility as Head of Post-Trade Strategy in Europe. In this role, Christian will lead Nasdaq's central counterparty clearing house (CCP) and oversee the strategic development of post-trade services across Europe. Nasdaq Clearing AB is a leading European central counterparty (CCP), providing clearing services across derivatives, fixed income, and commodities markets. With a strong foundation in the Nordic region, it plays a vital role in safeguarding financial stability by managing counterparty risk and ensuring the integrity of cleared markets. /jlne.ws/3U6tihS Deutsche Borse Group Plans to Use Improved European Regulatory Environment to Reduce Regulatory Complexity Deutsche Borse Group Following recent regulatory developments, Deutsche Borse Group currently evaluates and prepares steps to reduce regulatory complexity and increase efficiency. This concerns specifically the re-evaluation of the banking licenses of Eurex Clearing AG and Clearstream Banking AG. Therefore, Deutsche Börse Group welcomes the related announcement by the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) on 30 April 2025 to remove the discretionary activation for Central Counterparty (CCP) access to overnight credit under the Target guideline. /jlne.ws/3GH0mKj Re-Emerging Markets: The European Giant Awakens Eurex Europe's economic outlook is getting significantly brighter, as shown by both economic data and the optimistic expectations of companies and consumers. After several years of economic challenges, marked by the pandemic, supply chain disruptions, the energy crisis, and geopolitical tensions, signs of an economic recovery are emerging in Europe, a continent with 450 million consumers. But what are the reasons for this new optimism? Euronext deploys its solutions to enhance the financing of European aerospace and defence companies Euronext Euronext today announced the successful deployment of its tailored solutions to enhance the financing of European aerospace and defence companies, reinforcing Europe's strategic autonomy. On 7 and 8 July 2025, Euronext successfully organised the first European aerospace and defence funding days. To complement the launch of its European defence bonds segment in May 2025, Euronext also created a European Defence Bond Label, enabling fast-track admission process for the issuance of European defence bonds on Euronext. Both initiatives are designed to accelerate access to capital and to finance the growing needs of European aerospace and defence companies. /jlne.ws/4f3rEYh Nasdaq Announces End-of-Month Open Short Interest Positions in Nasdaq Stocks as of Settlement Date June 30, 2025 Nasdaq At the end of the settlement date of June 30, 2025, short interest in 3,257 Nasdaq Global MarketSM securities totaled 14,138,758,851 shares compared with 13,689,191,607 shares in 3,207 Global Market issues reported for the prior settlement date of June 13, 2025. The mid-June short interest represents 2.59 days compared with 2.32 days for the prior reporting period. Short interest in 1,636 securities on The Nasdaq Capital MarketSM totaled 2,790,159,938 shares at the end of the settlement date of June 30, 2025, compared with 2,687,331,325 shares in 1,642 securities for the previous reporting period. This represents a 1.00 day average daily volume; the previous reporting period's figure was 1.00. /jlne.ws/4loB0jF
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Fintech | A roundup of today's market tech news and a look at tomorrow's disruptors | Artificial Intelligence Robinhood CEO's AI Math Startup Valued at Nearly $900 Million Kate Clark - Bloomberg Harmonic AI, an artificial intelligence startup co-founded by Robinhood Markets Inc. Chief Executive Officer Vlad Tenev, has raised $100 million in funding to tackle a problem that has sometimes confounded AI models: math. The Series B funding round was led by Kleiner Perkins, with participation from Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures and Paradigm. The deal values the AI startup at $875 million, said Tenev, who serves as the company's executive chairman, a non-operating role. Harmonic's CEO is Tudor Achim, who previously led autonomous driving startup Helm.ai. /jlne.ws/4kzI7EG Coinbase partners with Perplexity AI to deliver real-time market data Anushka Basu - TheStreet Coinbase Global (Nasdaq: COIN), the largest crypto exchange in the U.S., has teamed up with Perplexity AI to provide real-time data on the crypto market. The exchange's co-founder and CEO, Brian Armstrong, said the first phase of the partnership starts today on July 10. /jlne.ws/44VOWeS Cloud Computing Google to agree cloud discount as US government squeezes Big Tech; Amazon and Microsoft are also under pressure to cut prices after Oracle struck a deal to reduce costs Joe Miller and Rafe Uddin and Stephen Morris - Financial Times Google will heavily discount cloud computing services for the US government, as the Trump administration pressures technology groups to slash prices on long-standing, lucrative contracts. The agreement comes after Oracle last week cut a deal with the government, including a 75 per cent discount on some software contracts for a limited period and "substantial discounts" on its wider cloud computing contracts. /jlne.ws/3Gkumf3
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Cybersecurity | Top stories for cybersecurity | Louis Vuitton UK Says Hackers Have Stolen Some Customer Data Jennifer Creery - Bloomberg Louis Vuitton UK said hackers have stolen some customer data as the luxury brand becomes the latest target in a string of cyberattacks against retailers. On July 2, an unauthorized third party accessed the systems of the British unit of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE's flagship brand and took information such as names, contact details and purchase history. No financial data like bank details were accessed, the company said in an email to customers on Friday. /jlne.ws/4lO9P1k
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Cryptocurrencies | Top stories for cryptocurrencies | Crypto Scammer Gets 12 Years Prison, Up From 18 Months Bob Van Voris and Anika Arora Seth - Bloomberg A man who got 18 months in prison for his part in a scheme to steal $22 million in cryptocurrency saw his sentence increased to 12 years after failing to pay back his victim as he had promised. Nicholas Truglia received the stiff new sentence Thursday, after US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein found he had willfully failed to honor his agreement to pay nearly $20.4 million in restitution. /jlne.ws/3GJQak6 Binance Founders' $10 Billion Fund Backs US Crypto Listing Bid Suvashree Ghosh - Bloomberg YZi Labs, the family office of Binance co-founders Changpeng Zhao and Yi He, will back investment firm 10X Capital's plan to set up a publicly traded company in the US to invest in BNB, a token linked to the crypto exchange the pair started. YZi Labs, which oversees about $10 billion in assets, will "support" 10X Capital in establishing the BNB treasury company, 10X Capital said in a statement, without giving further details on the arrangement. YZi Labs said in an email that details on the size of the fundraising "are not available for disclosure at this time," while 10X Capital didn't respond to a request for comment. /jlne.ws/4nOJYIC Robinhood's Crypto Trading Promotions Probed by Florida AG Kirk Ogunrinde - Bloomberg Robinhood Markets Inc.'s cryptocurrency operations are the subject of an investigation in Florida, accusing the popular fintech platform of using deceptive practices to mislead consumers about costs. The Menlo Park, California-based firm is "falsely promoting" its trading platform as the "least expensive way to purchase crypto," the state Attorney General's office alleged in a press release. As part of the investigation, the AG's office issued a subpoena to Robinhood, demanding marketing materials and other internal documents related to its crypto services and pricing structure. /jlne.ws/408Mxek Bitcoin's new record lifts industry stocks ahead of 'Crypto Week' in Washington Niket Nishant and Manya Saini - Reuters U.S.-listed crypto stocks jumped on Friday as bitcoin surged to a record high in the run-up to a landmark week that could cement policy wins for the crypto industry. Starting July 14, the House of Representatives will debate three major crypto bills that are likely to provide the industry the regulatory framework in the U.S. that it has long demanded. The lawmakers will discuss the Genius Act, the Clarity Act and the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act during the "Crypto Week", amid growing bets that the industry's strained ties with Washington is beginning to thaw. /jlne.ws/4ll93Jb Stablecoins Exclusive: Stablecoin startup Agora raises $50 million Series A led by crypto VC giant Paradigm Leo Schwartz - Fortune On Thursday, Agora became the latest stablecoin company to attract the attention of deep-pocketed venture investors, as the crypto startup announced a $50 million investment led by the blockchain-focused VC firm Paradigm. Cofounded by Nick van Eck-son of the prominent investment management CEO Jan van Eck-along with crypto veterans Drake Evans and Joe McGrady, Agora is competing in an increasingly crowded space dominated by rivals including Circle and Tether. /jlne.ws/44LXa8k Ripple CEO predicts trillions will flow into exploding stablecoin market Anand Sinha - TheStreet Ripple, the San Francisco-headquartered blockchain tech and crypto payments company, has been making waves of late. The firm applied for a national banking license and a Federal Reserve master account, it announced in early July. It also entered into a partnership with the Bank of New York (BNY), as per which America's oldest bank will act as the primary custodian for the reserves supporting Ripple's stablecoin, RLUSD. /jlne.ws/4lorJYR
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Politics | An overview of politics as it relates to the financial markets | U.S. Administration Trump Loves ICE. Its Workforce Has Never Been So Miserable.; A "mission impossible" deportation campaign has left many employees burned out and morally conflicted. Nick Miroff - The Atlantic ICE occupies an exalted place in President Donald Trump's hierarchy of law enforcement. He praises the bravery and fortitude of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers-"the toughest people you'll ever meet," he says-and depicts them as heroes in the central plot of his presidency, helping him rescue the country from an invasion of gang members and mental patients. The 20,000 ICE employees are the unflinching men and women who will restore order. They're the Untouchables in his MAGA crime drama. /jlne.ws/4lREL0P America Has Never Seen Corruption Like This; Trump's Qatari jet was just the beginning. Casey Michel - The Atlantic The White House has seen its share of shady deals. Ulysses S. Grant's brother-in-law used his family ties to engineer an insider-trading scheme that tanked the gold market. Warren Harding's secretary of the interior secretly leased land to oil barons, who paid a fortune for his troubles. To bankroll Richard Nixon's reelection, corporate executives sneaked suitcases full of cash into the capital. But Americans have never witnessed anything like the corruption that President Donald Trump and his inner circle have perpetrated in recent months. Its brazenness, volume, and variety defy historical comparison, even in a country with a centuries-long history of graft-including, notably, Trump's first four years in office. Indeed, his second term makes the financial scandals of his first-foreign regimes staying at Trump's hotel in Washington, D.C.; the (aborted) plan to host the G7 at Trump's hotel in Florida-seem quaint. /jlne.ws/4kunLfN Pentagon ramps up drone production amid fears enemies have 'head start'; Pete Hegseth says his department's 'bureaucratic gloves are coming off' Benedict Smith - The Telegraph Pete Hegseth is ramping up the US military's drone capabilities after warning America's enemies had a "head start" in the technology. The US defence secretary claimed his department's "bureaucratic gloves are coming off" as he ordered drone production to be fast-tracked. Commanders will be allowed to procure and test drones - including 3D-printed prototypes - independently without requiring prior approval, according to memos obtained by Fox News. /jlne.ws/4lRoTLK U.S. Congress Josh Hawley Doesn't Know What a Monopoly Is; He criticizes four competing beef companies and champions Big Labor. Mark Mix - The Wall Street Journal (opinion) Antitrust laws such as the 1890 Sherman Act and the 1914 Clayton Act have a clear purpose, according to the Justice Department: They "prohibit anticompetitive conduct and mergers that deprive American consumers, taxpayers, and workers of the benefits of competition." This means that domination of the market for a particular product or service by one or a handful of firms should be of no particular concern to the government. Only when a business dominates because of anticompetitive practices, or uses its power to prevent competitors from emerging, should the government get involved. /jlne.ws/465lN1Z Other U.S. Politics Dimon Blasts 'Idiots' in Democratic Party Focused on Ideology Olivia Fletcher - Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said the Democratic Party went too far in its focus on diversity, equity and inclusion, prioritizing ideology over practical solutions. "I have a lot of friends who are Democrats, and they're idiots," Dimon said Thursday at a foreign-ministry event in Dublin. "I always say they have big hearts and little brains. They do not understand how the real world works. Almost every single policy rolled out failed." /jlne.ws/40IVrPK Former FBI, CIA directors under investigation, DOJ indicates in statement; Both men are under scrutiny for their roles in the Russia collusion probe, Fox News reported. Jeremy Roebuck, Perry Stein and Ellen Nakashima - The Washington Post The Justice Department acknowledged Wednesday that it had opened criminal probes into former FBI director James B. Comey and former CIA director John Brennan - two frequent targets of President Donald Trump who played roles in the investigation into his 2016 campaign's ties to Russia. /jlne.ws/4nJrCIO European Union Europe is lurching towards tyranny; Pundits claim Donald Trump is crushing democracy, while ignoring the real threat to freedom emerging across the Atlantic Douglas Carswell - The Telegraph America, we are repeatedly warned, teeters on the edge of tyranny under Donald Trump. Commentators point to the 47th president's populist rhetoric, plans to purge the civil service, reliance on executive orders, and supposed defiance of judicial authority as existential threats to the American Republic. Scholars like Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, authors of How Democracies Die and Tyranny of the Minority, argue that US democracy is sliding into authoritarianism. Academic David Driesen recently told The Guardian that Trump is attempting to turn the US into a dictatorship. The Left would like us to believe that Trump's attacks on "fake news", and his particular disdain for the progressive media, signal the unravelling of free speech. The truth is that the American system is functioning well and as the Founders intended. /jlne.ws/3TU9tul
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Regulation & Enforcement | Stories about regulation and the law. | Florida AG probes Robinhood Crypto over claims of low-cost trading Reuters Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier on Thursday launched an investigation into Robinhood (HOOD) Crypto, alleging that the platform may have misled customers by promoting itself as the least expensive way to buy cryptocurrencies. The AG's office said in a statement that it issued a subpoena to the unit of Robinhood Markets to obtain internal documents as part of the probe into possible violations of Florida's Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. /jlne.ws/3GBZab9 Banker accused in $140 million Ponzi scheme bought a Patek Philippe watch, jaunts to Kennebunkport, and put millions on his credit cards, SEC says Amanda Gerut - Fortune The Securities and Exchange Commission has accused Edwin Brant Frost IV and his private lending company First Liberty Building & Loan with allegedly presiding over a sophisticated $140 million Ponzi scheme, according to a civil complaint filed on Thursday in federal court in Atlanta. Authorities claim Frost, 67, specifically targeted Republican activists and conservative Christian investors through a network of right-wing media outlets. The Georgia financial firm's now-defunct website calls out its advertisements "as heard on" conservative media including Erick Erickson, Hugh Hewitt, and Charlie Kirk's shows. First Liberty abruptly shut down late last month posting a note to clients on its website stating that its investments, payments, and programs were "indefinitely suspended." /jlne.ws/3IkJMAj In big shift, Shanghai regulator mulls policy responses to stablecoins and cryptocurrencies Summer Zhen - Reuters A Shanghai regulator said it held a meeting this week for local government officials to consider strategic responses to stablecoins and digital currencies - a marked shift in tone for China where crypto trading is banned. The Thursday meeting was organised by the Shanghai State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission and follows calls by experts and major companies in China to develop a yuan-pegged stablecoin. /jlne.ws/44XmoBK SEC Sues Chicago RIA, Alleging It 'Deceptively' Charged Unauthorized Fees; Regulators allege that P/E Capital Investment Management Partners circumvented its broker-dealer's authentication requirements to inflate advisory fees by $2.4 million. Kenneth Corbin - Barron's The Securities and Exchange Commission is suing a Chicago registered investment advisory firm, alleging that it charged clients more than $2.4 million in undisclosed and unauthorized fees. The commission claims that from February 2019 through July 2023, P/E Capital Investment Management Partners and its CEO, Eliseo Prisno, "deceptively circumvented" their brokerage firm's rules regarding fee authorization. The SEC contends that P/E Capital used its clients' login credentials to authorize additional fees without their consent. /jlne.ws/40NsYZ9 Stablecoin Growth Presents New Risks for Regulators, BIS Says Emily Nicolle - Bloomberg The Bank for International Settlements warned that the rapid expansion of stablecoins - digital tokens usually pegged to fiat currencies - is creating new policy challenges for financial authorities, potentially placing monetary sovereignty in key markets under threat. Growth in both circulation and integration with traditional finance warrant closer regulatory scrutiny, the BIS said in a bulletin on Friday. It cited a doubling in stablecoins' overall market value to about $255 billion since 2023, with more than 90% of that value concentrated in two US dollar-pegged tokens. "Stablecoins' rising market capitalisation and increasing interconnections with the traditional financial system have reached a stage where potential spillovers to that system can no longer be ruled out," BIS staff said in the bulletin. /jlne.ws/4kzbp6k SEC Charges Georgia-based First Liberty Building & Loan and its Owner for Operating a $140 Million Ponzi Scheme SEC The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that it filed charges seeking an asset freeze and other emergency relief against Newnan, Georgia-based First Liberty Building & Loan, LLC and its founder and owner Edwin Brant Frost IV in connection with a Ponzi scheme that defrauded approximately 300 investors of at least $140 million. SEC Charges Public Company CEOs and Disbarred Attorney in Penny-Stock Fraud Scheme On July 1, 2025, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged William A. Justice, Brian D. Shibley, and Randell R. Torno, each a former Chief Executive Officer ("CEO") of a penny-stock public company, and Keith A. Rosenbaum, a disbarred California attorney, for their roles in an alleged $112 million pump-and-dump scheme orchestrated by Texas resident Philip Verges. The SEC previously filed charges against Verges and others on September 26, 2023, for their roles in the alleged scheme. /jlne.ws/46AtpcW ASIC successfully defends Cigno Australia and BSF Solutions' Full Federal Court appeal ASIC The Full Federal Court today unanimously dismissed an appeal by Cigno Australia Pty Ltd and BSF Solutions Pty Ltd and their respective directors. The Full Court has upheld the Federal Court's judgment of 24 May 2024 that found Cigno Australia and BSF Solutions engaged in credit activity without an Australian Credit Licence and charged consumers prohibited fees. The Court also found that Cigno Australia director Mark Swanepoel and BSF Solutions director Brenton Harrison were involved in those contraventions. /jlne.ws/44Aj27T ESMA identifies future and potential data contributors for the equity CTP ESMA The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU's financial markets regulator and supervisor, has published today the list of data contributors to the equity Consolidated Tape Provider (CTP), based on the transaction reporting data collected. The list also includes trading venues that can choose to transmit data to the equity CTP and opt-in to the mandatory data contribution regime. As specified in the Market in Financial Instruments Regulation (MiFIR) the trading venues opting-in will need to contribute data to the CTP within 30 days from the notification to ESMA. /jlne.ws/44nJ5im Almost 90% of buy-siders predict at least half of all research budgets to become client-funded in the next two years, report finds; Sentiment change has been spurred by clarifications from the FCA which address previous barriers to the shift, says a report by Substantive Research. Claudia Preece - The Trade The next two years is set to see 'most' buy-side firms move back towards CSA-funded research, according to the latest report from Substantive Research, with 87% of respondents predicting that at least half of all research budgets will become client-funded within the next two years. This includes an 'overwhelming majority' of European firms in particular, the report highlighted. Just over half of respondents (52%) believe that within two years the majority of research budgets will move to client-funded. In addition, another 35% expect half of budgets to have moved within the same timeframe. /jlne.ws/3GC5aAF Monetary Authority of Singapore and People's Bank of China Deepen Cooperation in Green and Transition Finance at the 3rd Singapore-China Green Finance Taskforce MAS The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the People's Bank of China (PBC) reaffirmed their commitment to advance cooperation in green and transition finance between Singapore and China at the 3rd Singapore-China Green Finance Taskforce (GFTF) meeting yesterday. /jlne.ws/4nIsqxF SFC obtains disqualification orders of up to 10 years against former directors of Superb Summit International Group Limited SFC The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) has obtained disqualification orders in the Court of First Instance against four former executive directors, Mr Lee Chi Kong, Mr Lam Ping Kei, Ms Wong Choi Fung and Mr Yeung Kwong Lun, and a former independent non-executive director, Mr Wong Yun Kuen, of Superb Summit International Group Limited (Superb Summit) (Notes 1 to 3). /jlne.ws/44J2zwS Usman Asif charged with fraud and contravening an Ontario Securities Commission order Ontario Securities Commission The Ontario Securities Commission (OSC) announces that Mr. Usman Asif has been charged with fraud, contrary to s. 126.1(1)(b) of the Securities Act, as well as breaching a cease trade order. The charges announced relate to Lendle Corporation where Mr. Asif was a director. The OSC alleges that Mr. Asif, through his company, Lendle Corporation, issued a security in the form of a promissory note to All Ships Investors Incorporated ("All Ships") while subject to a cease trade order. The OSC alleges that the transaction was part of a fraudulent scheme to issue and securitize consumer loans through an online lending platform. It is further alleged that Mr. Asif repeatedly deceived All Ships before and after accepting a $315,000 investment from them, which he spent primarily on personal expenses, including a Lamborghini. /jlne.ws/3Il9KDX
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Investing & Trading | Today's top stories from equities, indices and FICC (fixed income, currencies and commodities) | Barclays names APAC head of high touch sales trading; Individual joins from HSBC and is set to help drive the growth of the firm's APAC equities. Natasha Cocksedge - The Trade Barclays has appointed Joseph Lee as head of high touch sales trading, Asia Pacific, as part of the firm's efforts to bolster and diversify its APAC equities business. Lee will be based out of Hong Kong in the role, where he is expected to support the firm's expansion into high-touch execution and lead high-touch cash trading efforts across the region. In his new position, he will functionally report to Peter Ramsey, global head of cash equities, and to Christian Truer, head of equities distribution, Asia Pacific regionally. /jlne.ws/44Mlas1 How Do You Build a Copper Industry Overnight? In this week's episode of Everybody's Business, we discuss Trump's latest tariff threat, pessimistic consumers and a honey bee mystery. Magnus Henriksson - Bloomberg On Tuesday, seemingly off the cuff, US President Donald Trump suddenly threatened a 50% tariff on copper. The reaction from markets was predictably strong, leaving metal distributors scrambling to get deliveries across the border. In this week's episode of Everybody's Business, Bloomberg economics reporter Joe Deaux joins hosts Max Chafkin and Stacey Vanek Smith to discuss Trump's latest musings, how complicated a rewiring of the copper supply chain might be and the stark challenges of bringing manufacturing back to the US. (As in, it takes about 10-20 years to get a mine up and running at commercial scale.) /jlne.ws/4kBKXIZ How Index-Fund Investing Turned Into an Extreme Sport; Exchange-traded funds are becoming far more concentrated, amplifying risks Jason Zweig - The Wall Street Journal Peter Lynch, the former portfolio manager of Fidelity Magellan Fund, has long warned investors against what he calls diworsification: cluttering a portfolio with too many investments. I think many investors should worry instead about deversification. That's the opposite of diversification. Rather than spreading your bets, you concentrate them-and that can be dangerous. /jlne.ws/4nOUbVs
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Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance | Stories about environmental, social and governance investing | HSBC Exits Banks' Climate Coalition Abandoned by Wall Street Alastair Marsh - Bloomberg HSBC Holdings Plc has left the world's biggest climate alliance for banks, which was rocked over the past eight months by an exodus of the biggest US lenders. HSBC said in a statement on Friday that the Net-Zero Banking Alliance played an important role in helping banks develop frameworks for setting emissions-reduction targets. "With this foundation in place, and as we work towards updating and implementing our Net Zero Transition Plan later in 2025, we, like many of our global peers, have decided to withdraw from the NZBA," the London-based bank said. /jlne.ws/4lO9uvu Texans Keep Paying the Price for Oil and Gas Handouts; Climate change played a role in the devastating floods, and Texas is a national leader in subsidizing the fossils fuels that cause it. Mark Gongloff - Bloomberg Texas is one of the nation's leading providers of welfare for the fossil-fuel industry. The trade-off is rising physical risk and economic hardship for all the rest of us - especially Texans. By now we know a changing climate played at least a small role in the devastating July 4 floods in central Texas that killed at least 119 people. We also know that burning fossil fuels is the primary source of the greenhouse gases cooking the climate and making such disasters more likely and destructive. And we know Texas leads the nation in producing those fossil fuels. /jlne.ws/3U4myB5 Trump's Unsung Economic Booster: Deregulation; Nuclear power exemplifies how revamping dated and onerous rules could kick-start investment and innovation Greg Ip - The Wall Street Journal What level of radiation may a U.S. nuclear power plant emit? "As low as reasonably achievable," the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has long declared. It bases this on the assumption that there is no safe level of exposure to radiation. This assumption-called "linear no-threshold" or LNT-isn't rigorously supported by science. There is little consensus that radiation at extremely low levels is harmful. /jlne.ws/3U5H5Fr Gazprom, CNPC discuss future Russian gas supplies to China Reuters The heads of Russia's Gazprom and China's energy company CNPC discussed future Russian gas supplies to China during talks in Beijing, Gazprom said on Friday, as Moscow seeks stronger ties with the world's biggest energy consumer. Russia, the holder of world's largest gas reserves, has diverted oil supplies from Europe to India and China since the start of the conflict in Ukraine in February 2022. /jlne.ws/4lHVZNW
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Banks, Brokers & Managed Funds | The latest from banks, brokers, hedge funds and managed futures | Upstart Money Managers Lure Retail-Trader Billions With High-Risk ETFs; Matthew Tuttle is one of the leading architects of leveraged single-stock ETFs, which now command about $22 billion and counting. Emily Graffeo and Vildana Hajric - Bloomberg At Matthew Tuttle's home office in Greenwich, Connecticut, the big money isn't made in his trading software - it's made in the two extra screens he has rigged up next to it. "This is a Discord, that's a Discord, this is a Discord," the 56-year-old says, pointing to multiple windows on each display where the online messaging platform is running. These screens are the secret behind the success of this unorthodox money manager, who oversees $4.5 billion with a team working entirely from home. They're also key to a boom that's testing the limits of America's $11.7 trillion market for exchange-traded funds. /jlne.ws/4lMGSTk Hedge Funds Man Group Says Agentic AI Is Now Devising Quant Trading Signals Justina Lee - Bloomberg Man Group's quant equity unit says it has begun using a new artificial-intelligence system that can generate, code and backtest trading ideas - marking the arrival of agentic AI at the world's largest listed hedge fund. Boston-based Man Numeric says it built the tool - known internally as AlphaGPT - to mimic how its researchers develop new investment signals. It digs into data for ideas, writes the code for potential strategies and then tests them on historic data. Such a system that can autonomously perform multi-step tasks is known as agentic AI, one of the hottest trends right now in Silicon Valley. /jlne.ws/4kudpMX Private Markets Private Credit Lures the Ultra-Rich Sitting on $3.1 Trillion Kat Hidalgo - Bloomberg At a private markets conference focused on the ultra-rich in London this week, the typically discreet sector was notably candid about its growing interest in private credit. "We like selective parts of alternative credit," said Harinder Hundle, managing partner of multi-family office Hundle, on a panel at the London Private Markets Meeting. "We can see it generates yield and income for investors and that's great in the current environment." /jlne.ws/3U4LLLF Private Equity Big Banks Are Tired of Losing Recruits to Private Equity Jayna Rohslau and Hannah Levitt - Bloomberg JPMorgan Chase & Co. bosses grew curious last summer as they clocked an unusual number of absences at the training sessions that kicked off their ultra-competitive junior analyst program. The reason, they discovered: new recruits had skipped the mandatory onboarding to interview at private equity firms for their second jobs - even though they were just days into their first. /jlne.ws/46511j6
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Work & Management | Stories impacting work and more about management ideas, practices and trends. | Your Prize for Saving Time at Work With AI: More Work; We're accomplishing more, in less time, with artificial intelligence, but that creates a new conflict on the job Callum Borchers - The Wall Street Journal We're past the point of imagining how artificial intelligence could help us work more efficiently. The question now is whether we can keep the hours we save, or whether the reward for working faster is ... more work. Breezing through the tedious items on our to-do lists is supposed to make us see AI as an ally, instead of a threat. But unless finishing early comes with extra downtime or other gains, the real beneficiaries are likely to be businesses looking to squeeze more productivity out of their teams. /jlne.ws/4eFZouk State Department to Soon Begin Mass Layoffs; Secretary of State Marco Rubio's plan to downsize a "bloated" department had been on hold after a court ruling. Michael Crowley - The New York Times The State Department formally notified employees on Thursday that it was about to begin layoffs as part of a consolidation plan that department officials say will reduce bureaucratic bloat but that critics call a shortsighted blow to American diplomacy. In an internal message sent to State Department workers on Thursday, Michael J. Rigas, the deputy secretary of state for management and resources, said the department would "soon" begin notifying U.S. employees who are losing their jobs. /jlne.ws/44ozuYD
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Wellness Exchange | An Exchange of Health and Wellness Information | Why 22 million people may see 'sharp' increase in health insurance premiums in 2026 Greg Iacurci - CNBC Republicans gave a roughly $4 trillion tax cut to Americans in the so-called "big beautiful bill" that President Donald Trump signed into law last week, extending several tax provisions slated to expire next year. However, there was a notable omission: an extension of enhanced premium tax credits, according to health policy experts. The enhanced credits, in place since 2021, have lowered the cost of health insurance premiums for those who buy coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplace. (Enrollees can use these to lower their premium costs upfront or claim the credits at tax time.) They're slated to expire after 2025. /jlne.ws/44G7QoJ Health Insurers Are Becoming Chronically Uninvestable; Companies like UnitedHealth, Centene and Humana are getting squeezed between rising costs and a stingier government David Wainer - The Wall Street Journal Health insurance has never been a flashy, high-growth business. But for many years it offered something nearly as good: steady, dependable returns, fueled by the expansion of government programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and the Obamacare exchanges. Lately, though, Wall Street has a problem with America's health insurers: They keep missing their numbers. What began as trouble in Medicare Advantage has now spread across nearly all government-backed plans, signaling deeper issues in the model itself. /jlne.ws/4lrq9p4 'The Headache' Review: Of Migraines and Mystery; Billions of people worldwide suffer from headache disorders. Medical science continues to struggle with the difficulty of diagnosing their causes-and relieving the suffering. Brandy Schillace - The Wall Street Journal That Sunday dawned bright and clear, a "bluebird spring day" in Boston, with winter-weary residents crowding the Common. Pam Erwin was visiting her son, Will, and had just stepped out to run an errand. She returned to yellow police tape. Will had leapt from the 19-story building where he was staying, landing in front of Tremont Temple Baptist Church. Witnesses who saw him fall thought it must be a prank, "a dummy," perhaps, "thrown out the window by college kids." There were gawkers, but more jarring was "the bustle of Boston carrying on with its business" as though nothing awful had happened, even as firefighters hosed off the bloody sidewalk. /jlne.ws/4nJVx3E Coca-Cola Lawsuit Could Impact the Entire Wellness Industry Rachel Dillin - MSN Coca-Cola is under fire for allegedly misleading consumers with health claims on one of its best-known sports drinks, and the fallout could ripple across the entire wellness industry. A newly filed class-action lawsuit targets Powerade's Mountain Berry Blast, accusing Coca-Cola of using exaggerated marketing to sell the product. At the center of the dispute is the bold claim printed on the bottle: "50% more electrolytes than the leading sports drink." /jlne.ws/4eGYhKR
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Regions | Stories of local interest from the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions | Ethiopia Debuts Stock Trade Six Months After Opening Market Fasika Tadesse - Bloomberg Ethiopia's nascent exchange commenced equities trading with two listed lenders, Wegagen Bank SC and Gadaa Bank SC, and some government securities. Both stocks were selling at 1,000 birr ($7.30) each, valuing Wegagen at about $45.5 million and Gadaa at $9.02 million."Today marks another milestone for ESX and stakeholders that worked hard for the past few years to deepen the Ethiopian capital market," Chief Executive Officer Tilahun Kassahun said. /jlne.ws/44GfiAb Trump's Trade War Pushes Some Canadians to Turn Sour on US Stocks Geoffrey Morgan and Stephanie Hughes - Bloomberg Canadians have been shunning US products as a result of President Donald Trump's trade war. Now there's evidence some also want to see fewer US stocks in their retirement accounts and pensions funds. Almost half of Canadians - 47% - believe pension managers should be reducing their holdings of American assets, according to a new poll by Nanos Research for Bloomberg News. Just 9% said they think funds should increase their allocations to the US. /jlne.ws/3U3KPau
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