| May 07, 2025 | "Irreverent, but never irrelevant" | | | | John Lothian
Publisher
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Hits & Takes
John Lothian & JLN Staff
If you are a big Donald Trump fan, you are probably looking at today's lead story and thinking, "There John goes again." The story is titled "Who's the Greatest Grifter of Them All?" from Thomas B. Edsall in The New York Times. It is an exhaustive examination of the President and his family's cryptocurrency dealings and how that is a problem in several different ways, including for cryptocurrency proponents. The story addresses several important risk management topics for the industry and nation, so we featured it today.
Today, we have the first part of a John Lothian Profiles interview with Robert Blackwell, Jr., a former CME Trader and IBM salesman. He is the chairman of Quant16, the firm where Ray McKenzie works. He also owns Killerspin, one of the leading table tennis manufacturing firms in the world, which many proprietary and principal trading firms probably have in their offices. You can view part one of the interview HERE.
Suppose you are a risk manager who wants to be a jet pilot. In that case, you will enjoy our interview with KRM22 CEO Dan Carter from FIA Boca50, where he envisions risk management as piloting a high-tech cockpit, empowering chief risk and compliance officers with real-time, data-driven dashboards. You can watch that video HERE.
The editorial staff of Traders Magazine covered the State of the Industry panel at the Options Conference yesterday in a story titled "'Remarkable' US Options Growth Assessed," and Henry Schwartz of Cboe Global Markets highlighted the extraordinary growth in U.S. options trading, noting that after decades of slow development, the 2020s have brought annual double-digit volume increases and a dramatic rise in both the number of users and average trade size. Panelists attributed this surge to improved mobile technology making options more accessible to retail investors, as well as the influence of sports betting culture during the pandemic, and rapid advancements in trading technology. Notably, short-dated options have transformed the landscape, now accounting for two-thirds of the market compared to just one-third eight years ago - a shift that took off in 2022 as exchanges and brokerages capitalized on the trend.
Eagle Seven stepped up and contributed to the Mission (Im)possible Kilt Challenge in a big way, contributing $10,000 yesterday. That brought the total raised for Goldman Sachs' Alicia Crighton and ICE's Chris Edmonds' Kilt Challenge campaign up to 88,126 GBP.
Here are the headlines from in front of FOW's paywall from some recent stories: ANALYSIS: Euronext lays out bid to be at the centre of Europe's defence expansion, Market 'cautiously optimistic' most volatile tariff trading period is over - Tradeweb, EEX volumes rise in April, on power and natural gas growth and MIH volumes up 34% in April on heightened tariff trading.
Have a great day and stay safe and treat people the same way you want to be treated: with respect, equality, and justice.~JJL
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Our most read stories from our previous edition of JLN Options were:
- This zero-day options craze could finally be coming to popular stocks like Nvidia and Tesla. Here's what to know. from MarketWatch.
- The Stock Market's Fear Gauge Is Misunderstood from Bloomberg.
- Farmer sentiment improves as long-term optimism outweighs tariff concerns from CME Group. ~JB
Subscribe to the JLN Options Newsletter HERE (it's free).
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From Gum Sales to Gamma Trades: Robert Blackwell, Jr.'s Unlikely Path from Wichita to the Chicago Trading Pits
JohnLothianNews.com
ELMHURST, IL - (JLN) - May 7, 2025 - Many classmates choose lunch breaks to leave school to buy candy over recess, but a young Robert Blackwell, Jr., seized the schoolyard profit margins instead. "If you got back late from the candy store, you'd get hit with paddles by teachers," he recalled. "So I bought a bunch of gum and started selling it at school when I was eight. I kind of liked being in control of my own destiny." That knack for spotting opportunity and turning adversity into enterprise carried the future chairman of Quant16 from humble beginnings in Wichita to the rough-and-tumble world of Chicago's trading floors.
Watch the video »
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The Flight Deck for Risk: Dan Carter's Vision for Trading Surveillance at KRM22 JohnLothianNews.com ELMHURST, IL - (JLN) - May 7, 2025 - For Dan Carter, chief executive officer of the risk management software company KRM22, controlling risk isn't just about drawing boundaries; it's about flying the plane from the cockpit, with every gauge, dial, and alert at your fingertips. "Our vision for the cockpit was the 'fly in the plane' type dashboard," Carter explained in a recent video interview, "so a chief risk officer or compliance officer can have a single, data-driven place that gives them warnings around risk." Watch the Dan Carter Video » Fred Schoenhut - NYBOT Watch the Fred Schoenhut Video » Fred Schoenhut - NYBOT Watch the Fred Schoenhut Video »
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The Vatican Financial Mess Pope Francis Couldn't Fix; The next pope will inherit a soaring deficit and culture of financial malpractice that Francis tried and failed to solve even through his final weeks
Drew Hinshaw, Joe Parkinson and Stacy Meichtry - The Wall Street Journal
The ailing pope was short of breath, sitting beneath a cherished painting of Mary, Untier of Knots, as he worked through a last-ditch plan to disentangle the finances of one of the world's most opaque bureaucracies. For over a decade, Francis had struggled to bring some transparency to the Vatican's shadowy balance sheet. Now, in the final weeks of his life, advisers were filtering in and out of his austere reception room, presenting the details of a microstate awash in priceless treasures but tumbling deeper into debt. The budget deficit had tripled since the Argentine took office, and the pension fund faced up to 2 billion euros in liabilities it wouldn't be able to fund.
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***** If only the Pope had sold his own cryptocurrency.~JJL
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U.S. intelligence agencies contradict Trump's Tren de Aragua claims; A declassified memo says Venezuela's government isn't orchestrating the gang's operations in the U.S., undercutting Trump's rationale for deporting immigrants to El Salvador.
Dan De Luce - NBC News
A declassified memo drafted by U.S. intelligence agencies contradicts President Donald Trump's claims that Venezuela's government controls the Tren de Aragua gang, an argument he has used to deport immigrants to an El Salvador prison. The National Intelligence Council memo states that the Venezuelan regime of Nicolas Maduro allows criminal gangs to operate in its territory but that it is not orchestrating Tren de Aragua's operations in the United States.
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***** The use of the 1798 Alien Act is based on the involvement of a foreign government. If this is not the case, then the use of the law falls apart.~JJL
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Tuesday's Top Three
Our top clicked story Tuesday was RIP Skype (2003-2025), survived by multiple versions of Microsoft Teams, from Ars Technica. Second was the Financial Times' Traders made $100mn from buying Melania Trump memecoin before launch. And third was Roundtable Entitled: American Innovation and the Future of Digital Assets: A Blueprint for the 21st Century, a video from the House Committee on Financial Services.
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| Lead Stories | Who's the Greatest Grifter of Them All?
Thomas B. Edsall - The New York Times (Guest Essay)
On Sept. 9, 2024, the F.B.I.'s criminal investigative division reported that "as the use of cryptocurrency in the global financial system continues to grow, so too does its use by criminal actors." The exploitation of cryptocurrency, according to the F.B.I., "was most pervasive in investment scams, where losses accounted for almost 71 percent of all losses related to cryptocurrency." Seven days later, Donald Trump declared on X: "Crypto is one of those things we have to do. Whether we like it or not, I have to do it." In the same post, a month and a half before the election, he promoted his new venture World Liberty Financial Inc.
/jlne.ws/4jIUUot
Lutnick's Plan to Rival CME With Futures Exchange Faces Delays
Bernard Goyder and Katherine Doherty - Bloomberg
A futures exchange that Howard Lutnick helped found, back when he was the chief executive officer of Cantor Fitzgerald LP, is struggling to launch its flagship product due to problems at its clearing house LCH Group, according to people familiar with the matter. The FMX Futures Exchange, which was created by Lutnick's brokerage, BGC Group Inc., is attempting to debut US Treasury futures - its most high profile offering to date.
/jlne.ws/4d5QghP
Trading Technologies Readies Options Expansion
Editorial Staff - Traders Magazine
This week's Options Industry Conference in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida may be the last one without Trading Technologies representation. The SaaS provider to the capital markets industry, long a stalwart in futures, options on futures, and non-US options, plans to roll out support for US equity options as soon as this month. US equity options has become an increasingly attractive market, with strong growth over the past five years and a steady drumbeat of record volumes reported by market operators. Average daily volume was 25.9 million contracts in 2024, up from 17.5 million in 2019.
/jlne.ws/4k6Z6Ov
Growing Need for Operational and Cyber Resilience Dominates Concerns Among Financial Services Industry; Outdated legacy systems leaving firms vulnerable to mounting cyber risks, according to Broadridge
Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc.
Growing concerns over operational and cyber resilience were the major theme of the SIFMA Ops 2025 conference, a gathering of top operations and technology leaders from across the capital markets ecosystem. The threat landscape is only becoming increasingly more sophisticated with artificial intelligence and other new tools to automate attacks. With high-profile data breaches, ransomware attacks, and system failures happening more frequently the importance of being prepared and protected against these growing risks has never been more important.
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Chicago CFTC employees sidelined in fallout from My Forex Funds case
Nicola M White and Lydia Beyoud - Bloomberg
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission has put four lawyers and an investigator, all based in Chicago, on administrative leave amid allegations of employee misconduct in a fraud case against an online trading platform, according to people familiar with the matter. The employees were sidelined following the issuance of a still-sealed report from a special judge investigating alleged agency misconduct in a case against Traders Global Group Inc., a proprietary trading firm known as My Forex Funds.
/jlne.ws/42K1HZ5
Abaxx Announces First Carbon Futures Delivery on Abaxx Exchange
Abaxx
Abaxx Technologies Inc. (CBOE:ABXX)(OTCQX:ABXXF) ("Abaxx" or the "Company"), a financial software and market infrastructure company, majority shareholder of Abaxx Singapore Pte Ltd., the owner of Abaxx Commodity Exchange and Clearinghouse (individually, "Abaxx Exchange" and "Abaxx Clearing"), and producer of the SmarterMarkets™ Podcast, today announced the successful first delivery under a carbon futures contract on Abaxx Exchange.
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The resilient coffee discovery that could save our morning brew; As climate change puts pressure on supply, new varieties are coming to the fore
Anjana Ahuja - Financial Times
It was the yellowing label on an ancient jar of coffee beans tucked away in a herbarium that caught the eye of Aaron Davis, a botanist at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. The label noted that the beans had been cultivated in the lowlands of Sierra Leone. That stood out: coffee is usually a highland crop, favouring cool, moist conditions. The beans, labelled as coming from the species coffea stenophylla, physically resembled arabica beans, which account for about 60 per cent of the coffee drunk worldwide (the rest is mostly robusta, a less flavoursome species that is resistant to coffee leaf rust and used mostly for instant coffee).
/jlne.ws/4k55aHp
Disgraced Ex-Goldman Partner Sought by Malaysia for Extradition in 1MDB Scandal; Tim Leissner is awaiting sentencing in U.S. after pleading guilty in 2018 for his role in the bribery scandal
AnnaMaria Andriotis - The Wall Street Journal
Malaysia is seeking to extradite former Goldman Sachs partner Tim Leissner, a sign that the fallout from the more-than 10-year-old 1MDB scandal isn't over for the Wall Street giant. Malaysia's government submitted an extradition request for Leissner to the U.S. Justice Department last August, according to people familiar with the matter and a document reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
/jlne.ws/4iSSrXw
Short-Dated Options, 24-Hour Trading Win Qualified Support From SEC
Editorial Staff - Traders Magazine
Trading options with shorter times until expiration has been a significant driver of growth in the options market in recent years. Keeping options markets open overnight may be a big driver of future growth. The US Securities and Exchange Commission is broadly constructive on both trends, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce signaled on Tuesday. Speaking Tuesday afternoon in a 'fireside chat' at the Options Industry Conference in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, Peirce said same-day options, commonly known as 0DTEs, have been a positive addition to the marketplace, but there are caveats. "Retail investors should be entering with eyes wide open," and concurrently the options industry needs to continue to provide education about the relatively new contracts.
/jlne.ws/4m3a1un
Global energy product exports slow as trade worries mount
Gavin Maguire - Reuters
Shipments of most widely-traded energy products are slowing in sync with the global economy, which has been stunned by the tough new tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump so far this year. Exports of crude oil, gasoline, diesel and thermal coal all contracted during the January to April window from the same months in 2024, as the economies of importer nations drop down a gear in response to heightened trade uncertainty.
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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. | Businesses have found strange but legal ways to avoid Trump's tariffs
Elisabeth Buchwald - CNN
A few months ago, the words "bonded warehouse" and "harmonized system codes" might not have been on the minds of many American business owners. Now they're in a massive spotlight. After President Donald Trump slapped a whopping 145% minimum tariff on most goods coming from China, 25% tariffs on cars, auto parts, aluminum and steel and a 10% tariff on almost every country's imports, US businesses are desperate for ways to lower their import costs.
/jlne.ws/43fd6Ah
India Offers Zero-for-Zero Tariffs on Auto Parts, Steel From US
Shruti Srivastava and Mihir Mishra - Bloomberg
India has proposed zero tariffs on steel, auto components and pharmaceuticals on a reciprocal basis up to a certain quantity of imports in its trade negotiations with the US, people familiar with the matter said.
/jlne.ws/4jJQQob
Vietnam's shipments from China, to US reach record high amid trade fraud crackdown
Francesco Guarascio and Khanh Vu - Reuters
Vietnam's imports from China and exports to the United States both reached a post-pandemic record in April, amid talks with Washington to reduce Hanoi's trade surplus and a crackdown on Chinese goods being shipped to the U.S. via its territory. The Southeast Asian nation faces the risk of 46% duties on its exports to the U.S. if the White House confirms this rate at the end of a global tariff pause in July. This could undermine Vietnam's growth model and hit multinationals exporting from the country, including Samsung and Nike.
/jlne.ws/4iUQkCz
Facing tariffs and uncertainty, Canadian firms look past US markets
Promit Mukherjee - Reuters
A manufacturer of capsules and tablets for the pharmaceuticals industry is scouting Asia for new partners. A steel component maker, with a client base in the United States stretching back 35 years, is telling customers to expect to pay higher prices. Another company, that produces mascot costumes for sporting or school events, is lowering its prices so as not to lose American customers. President Donald Trump's tariff war - and his repeated threats to annex Canada - are upending decades of close trade ties between the two North American neighbors, and prompting many small-scale Canadian manufacturing firms to revise their long-term business strategies.
/jlne.ws/4iPlcEo
U.S. Could Collect More Than $100 Billion With Broader Tariffs, EU Trade Official Says; U.S. officials are currently looking into potential tariffs for several sectors, citing national security
Edith Hancock - The Wall Street Journal
The U.S. government could raise more than $100 billion from taxes on imports if new White House investigations into goods like pharmaceutical products result in yet more tariffs, the EU's top trade negotiator said. U.S. officials are currently looking into potential tariffs for several sectors, citing national security, including on imports of copper and lumber as well as pharmaceuticals. Maros Sefcovic, European commissioner for trade, said around 549 billion euros ($621.28 billion) of EU exports to the U.S. would be subject to tariffs if all potential duties were implemented. "The projection is that the U.S. might now collect as much as 100 billion euros," he said during a debate in Strasbourg, France, on Tuesday.
/jlne.ws/4kdtcQN
Trump Is Threatening Big Pharma With Tariffs. Tax Changes Might Work Better; Unlike many industries that might never come back, pharma can build more in the U.S.
David Wainer - The Wall Street Journal
No matter how high President Trump cranks up tariffs, many industries are never coming back to the U.S. For industries that require cheap labor such as apparel and toys, bringing that production to Pennsylvania or Ohio just doesn't make sense. For pharma, an industry in which gross margins are among the highest in the S&P 500, labor was never really the reason for moving offshore to places like Ireland-it was always about playing the global tax game.
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Trump's tariffs have reportedly caused an up to 50% plummet in exports at some ports, and goods expected to arrive in the next month 'simply won't'
Paolo Confino - Fortune
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Chinese Imports Hit 2-Decade Low as Trump Tariffs Begin to Bite; While imports can swing with seasonal shifts, President Trump's ratcheting up of U.S. tariffs on China has begun to cascade through supply chains, government data shows.
Karl Russell and Ana Swanson - The New York Times
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| World Conflicts | | News about various conflicts and their military, economic, political and humanitarian impact. | Ukraine Invasion
Trump appeasing Putin with pressure on Ukraine, Biden tells BBC
Nick Robinson - BBC News
Joe Biden has told the BBC that pressure from the Trump administration on Ukraine to give up territory to Russia is "modern-day appeasement" in an exclusive interview, his first since leaving the White House. Speaking in Delaware on Monday, he said Russian President Vladimir Putin believed Ukraine was part of Russia and "anybody that thinks he's going to stop" if some territory is conceded as part of a peace deal "is just foolish".
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Russian drone strike caused tens of millions worth of damage to Chornobyl
Dan Sabbagh - The Guardian
A Russian Shahed drone costing up to £75,000 is estimated to have inflicted tens of millions worth of damage to the site of the Chornobyl nuclear power plant, according to initial assessments and engineering experts. The cost of a full fix is likely to be borne by western governments including the UK, because initial estimates are that a complete repair will cost more than the EUR25m available in a special international contingency fund.
/jlne.ws/3SdwV4V
Slovakia's leader rejects an EU plan to halt Russian natural gas imports by the end of 2027
Associated Press Finance
Slovakia's populist leader on Wednesday blasted a European Union plan to halt imports of Russian natural gas by the end of 2027 to deprive President Vladimir Putin of revenue that helps fuel the war in Ukraine. The European Commission, the bloc's executive branch, will present a detailed plan next month. It will seek to ban new gas contracts with Russia by the end of this year and phase out existing ones still in use in the 27-nation EU by the end of 2027.
/jlne.ws/3EQ3Rxd
Ukraine's Zelenskiy gets Czech pledge for more ammo, pilot training on Prague visit
Reuters
The Czech Republic will expand training for Ukrainian pilots and maintain a programme to deliver artillery ammunition to Ukraine, Prime Minister Petr Fiala said on Monday, after hosting President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Zelenskiy was in Prague as part of stepped up efforts to rally European partners, while the U.S. administration pushes for a ceasefire in the more than three-year-old war.
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Middle East Conflict
Israel Downs Drone as Houthis Vow to Continue Tit-for-Tat Strikes; The Israeli military said it had intercepted an unmanned vehicle a day after President Trump said the U.S. would step back from conflict with the Iran-backed group.
Lara Jakes - The New York Times
Israel said it had shot down a drone that was approaching from the east on Wednesday, as Houthi officials in Yemen vowed to continue attacking the country a day after President Trump said the United States would stop bombing the Iran-backed group. The Israeli military said in a statement that the drone was intercepted by the air force and sirens blared as it approached. It was not immediately clear who launched the drone. But the Houthi militia group reiterated that it would continue to attack Israel, both to avenge attacks in Yemen and because of the war in Gaza.
/jlne.ws/4k0lUQa
Other Conflicts
India Strikes Pakistan but Is Said to Have Lost Jets; Officials and witnesses said that at least two Indian aircraft had crashed after India struck Pakistani targets, escalating the conflict between the nuclear powers.
Mujib MashalHari Kumar and Salman Masood - The New York Times
India said early Wednesday that it had conducted several airstrikes on Pakistan, hailing a victory in the name of vengeance for the terrorist attack that killed 26 civilians in Kashmir last month. But evidence was also growing that the Indian forces may have taken heavy losses during the operation. At least two aircraft were said to have gone down in India and the Indian-controlled side of Kashmir, according to three officials, local news reports, and accounts of witnesses who had seen the debris of two.
/jlne.ws/44mzyIN
What's Behind the Enduring India-Pakistan Conflict?
Swati Gupta - Bloomberg
Two weeks after a deadly attack on tourists in Kashmir on April 22, India announced that it had conducted "precise and restrained" strikes on what it called "terrorist camps" in neighboring Pakistan. Pakistan said it had shot down five Indian planes in retaliation. The clash will come as little surprise to anyone familiar with the history of India's relations with Pakistan since their violent and bloody partition into two nations following independence from Britain in 1947. They've been at loggerheads ever since, with tensions occasionally boiling up into armed conflict. The main focus of the rivalry is Kashmir, an area of the Himalayas that both India and Pakistan claim in its entirety while governing separate parts.
/jlne.ws/4kckfXT
India vs. Pakistan Is Also U.S. vs. China When It Comes to Arms Sales; Increasing Western military support to India, and China's to Pakistan, signals a shift in global alignments - and another potential flashpoint for international tensions.
Mujib Mashal - The New York Times
The last time India and Pakistan faced off in a military confrontation, in 2019, U.S. officials detected enough movement in the nuclear arsenals of both nations to be alarmed. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was awakened in the middle of the night. He worked the phone "to convince each side that the other was not preparing for nuclear war," he wrote in his memoir. That clash quickly cooled after initial skirmishing. But six years later, the two South Asian rivals are again engaged in military conflict after a deadly terrorist attack against tourists in Indian-controlled Kashmir. And this time there is a new element of uncertainty as the region's most important military alliances have been redrawn.
/jlne.ws/44WOH3E
Asian airlines reroute and cancel flights after India attacks Pakistan; Some aircraft make unscheduled stops in Middle East en route to and from Europe
Apornrath Phoonphongphiphat and Norman Goh - Nikkei Asia
/jlne.ws/4jJ1sn3
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| Exchanges, OTC & Clearing | | Top news from exchanges, clearing, settlement and trade execution facilities | Cboe Global Markets Declares Second-Quarter 2025 Dividend
Cboe
Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (Cboe: CBOE), the world's leading derivatives and securities exchange network, today announced its Board of Directors has declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.63 per share of common stock for the second quarter of 2025. The second-quarter 2025 dividend is payable on June 13, 2025, to stockholders of record as of May 30, 2025.
/jlne.ws/3RSCLZa
Cboe Global Markets Announces 2025 Annual Meeting Results
Cboe
Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (Cboe: CBOE), the world's leading derivatives and securities exchange network, today announced the preliminary shareholder voting results from its 2025 Annual Meeting held today.
/jlne.ws/4d2C9Ka
Farmer sentiment improves as long-term optimism outweighs tariff concerns
CME Group
Farmer sentiment improved in April as producers expressed more optimism about current and future conditions on their farms. The Purdue University/CME Group Ag Economy Barometer rose 8 points to a reading of 148, up from 140 in March. The Index of Current Conditions climbed 9 points to 141, while the Index of Future Expectations increased 8 points to 152. The improvement in sentiment came amid ongoing tensions with many of U.S. agriculture's largest trading partners, including Mexico and Canada. Notably, a majority of producers said they believe the increased use of tariffs will ultimately benefit the U.S. agricultural economy, a view reflected in the stronger future expectations reading. The April barometer survey took place between April 14-21.
/jlne.ws/43gBbGN
ICE Expands Geospatial Platform to Include 20,000 Global Corporates and Sovereigns; Solution leverages granular data for more than 1.6 billion buildings globally
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (NYSE: ICE), a leading global provider of technology and data, today announced the launch of the ICE Global Climate Risk Solution, an expansion of its geospatial platform for corporates and sovereigns to cover assets globally. This solution leverages building footprint data for over 1.6 billion buildings worldwide to deliver scenario-aligned, forward-looking risk scores and physical and transition climate risk metrics.
/jlne.ws/44sMVY2
ASX Group Monthly Activity Report - April 2025
ASX
Attached is a copy of the ASX Group Monthly Activity Report for April 2025.
/jlne.ws/3GXwKrJ
Miami International Holdings Reports Trading Results for April 2025; Record Monthly and YTD Volume and Market Share across Multiple Exchanges as Options Volume Jumps 33.8%
MIAX
Miami International Holdings, Inc. (MIH), a technology-driven leader in building and operating regulated financial markets across multiple asset classes, today reported April 2025 trading results for its U.S. exchange subsidiaries-MIAX, MIAX Pearl, MIAX Emerald and MIAX Sapphire (collectively, the MIAX Exchange Group), and MIAX Futures.
/jlne.ws/4j0AGWk
Approved Applications for Hard Red Spring Wheat Regularity
CME Group
/jlne.ws/3EQdax9
EEX Group Monthly Volumes - April 2025; Monthly Volume Report
EEX
EEX Group reports its April monthly volumes with the following highlights:
/jlne.ws/4k1bQq0
JPXI Adds "Outstanding Short Selling Positions Reported" to J-Quants API Data Service
JPX
JPX Market Innovation & Research (JPXI) will add the Outstanding Short-Selling Positions Reported dataset in the near future to J-Quants API, a data distribution service offering individuals insightful data on Japanese financial markets.
/jlne.ws/4k4Zvku
Moscow Exchange Trading Volumes in April 2025
MOEX
In April 2025, total trading volumes across Moscow Exchange's markets was RUB 145.8 trln.
/jlne.ws/4jKupiE
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| Fintech | | A roundup of today's market tech news and a look at tomorrow's disruptors | Broadridge Enhances OpsGPT, introducing new Agentic Capabilities to Further Optimize Global Post-Trade Operations; Key enhancements include inventory optimization, fails research, and email integration automation for better connectivity and outcomes
Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc.
Global Fintech leader Broadridge Financial Solutions Inc. (NYSE: BR), today announced significant enhancements to OpsGPT across fails research, inventory optimization and email integration automation. With these enhancements OpsGPT delivers real-time operational intelligence and execution, enabling firms to better manage risk, capital, and drive greater operational efficiency.
/jlne.ws/3Z6T9Jn
Tata seeks Hong Kong expansion by tackling DeepSeek security risks; Indian IT group also sees opportunity in city's banking layoffs and mergers
Peggy Ye - Nikkei Asia
India's largest software exporter is seeking expansion in Hong Kong, sensing opportunities after a series of bank layoffs and mounting security concerns over artificial intelligence models such as China's DeepSeek. Sankaranarayanan Viswanathan, Tata Consultancy Services' vice president and head of business innovation in the corporate technology office, told Nikkei Asia that corporate interest in AI surged after a Chinese startup unveiled DeepSeek. Many clients, however, expressed concerns about data leaks and transparency.
/jlne.ws/4k4WQaz
IBM CEO makes play for AI market and more US investment
Reuters
IBM (IBM) on Tuesday made a play for more sales in the crowded artificial intelligence field, touting tools that could help customers manage a fleet of AI agents for their key business applications. In an interview, Chief Executive Arvind Krishna said he saw an opening to provide software that integrates customers' AI agents from other providers -- among them Salesforce, Workday and Adobe - and lets them build their own agents for untapped use cases, with IBM's help.
/jlne.ws/435lkd4
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on AI: Every job will be affected, some will be lost
Brian Sozzi - Yahoo FinanceNvidia (NVDA) founder and CEO Jensen Huang served up a blunt take on the job market as AI permeates society. "You will not lose your job to AI, but will lose it to someone who uses it," Huang said at the Milken Institute Conference on Tuesday. Added Huang, "I recommend 100% take advantage of AI, don't be that person."
/jlne.ws/4jJqbrB
Microsoft launches lower-priced AI laptops with Qualcomm chips · Reuters
Stephen Nellis - Reuters
Microsoft (MSFT) on Tuesday said it will release a new laptop and tablet with chips from Qualcomm (QCOM) at lower prices than before, aiming to get new AI features to a broader set of customers. The newest Surface 13-inch laptop and Surface Pro 12-inch tablet will go on sale on May 20, with the laptop starting at $899 and the tablet starting at $799.
/jlne.ws/4m4ADvf
Amazon's Bezos leads new investment in AI data company Toloka
Alexander Marrow - Reuters
Jeff Bezos' personal firm Bezos Expeditions is leading a $72-million investment in artificial intelligence data solutions company Toloka, which is looking to scale up its business, Toloka told Reuters on Wednesday. Toloka, which helps train and evaluate AI models using a network of human experts and testers, is part of Nasdaq-listed AI infrastructure firm Nebius Group and has worked with Amazon, Microsoft and Anthropic.
/jlne.ws/43hZ4xL
Michael Saylor reveals AI usage behind stock offerings
Anand Sinha - TheStreet
/jlne.ws/4d7or90
We're measuring AI all wrong-and missing what matters most
Fernanda Dobal - Fortune
/jlne.ws/42NmQSj
It's getting harder to tell which company is winning the AI race, Hugging Face co-founder says
Beatrice Nolan - Fortune
/jlne.ws/4m24apc
Cisco shows quantum networking chip, opens new lab
Stephen Nellis - Reuters
/jlne.ws/3YxMRCz
Amazon to spend $4 billion on cloud infrastructure in Chile
Fabian Cambero - Reuters
/jlne.ws/4kdANPj
Michael P. Lyons Assumes Leadership Of Fiserv As Chief Executive Officer
Mondovisione
/jlne.ws/4iObUZn
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| Cybersecurity | | Top stories for cybersecurity | Tulsi Gabbard Reused the Same Weak Password on Multiple Accounts for Years; Now the US director of national intelligence, Gabbard failed to follow basic cybersecurity practices on several of her personal accounts, leaked records reviewed by WIRED reveal.
Wired
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, used the same easily cracked password for different online accounts over a period of years, according to leaked records reviewed by WIRED. Following her participation in a Signal group chat in which sensitive details of a military operation were unwittingly shared with a journalist, the revelation raises further questions about the security practices of the US spy chief.
/jlne.ws/4d5wHq3
CrowdStrike to lay off 5% of staff, reaffirms forecasts
Reuters
CrowdStrike reiterated its fiscal 2026 first quarter and annual forecasts on Wednesday and announced a plan to cut about 500 roles, roughly 5% of its workforce, to reduce costs. The cybersecurity company will incur about $36 million to $53 million in charges related to the layoffs, of which about $7 million will be recognized in the first quarter ended April 30, it said in a regulatory filing.
/jlne.ws/3EXhLxp
Court clash between Meta and NSO ends in $168 million defeat for spyware firm
Raphael Satter - Reuters
Meta Platforms won a $168 million verdict against the Israeli surveillance firm NSO, the company said Tuesday, capping a six-year arm wrestling match between America's biggest social networking platform and the world's best known spyware company. Meta had already won a December ruling finding that NSO had unlawfully exploited a bug in its messaging service WhatsApp to plant spy software on its users' phones. On Tuesday, a jury in California ruled that NSO owed Meta $444,719 in compensatory damages - and $167.3 million in punitive damages, Meta said.
/jlne.ws/42Nh1Er
Maker of Pegasus spyware told to pay $167m for WhatsApp hack
Peter Hoskins & Tom Gerken - BBC News
The Israeli firm behind the Pegasus spyware has been ordered to pay WhatsApp $167m (£125m) for hacking 1,400 people in 2019. Pegasus is malicious software which can be installed remotely on mobile phones to access, among other things, people's microphones and cameras. NSO Group, which sells the tech, has been accused of enabling authoritarian regimes to monitor journalists, activists and even political figures. WhatsApp owner Meta said it marked the "first victory against the development and use of illegal spyware".
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| Cryptocurrencies | | Top stories for cryptocurrencies | Bitcoin Likely Still 'Rat Poison' at Berkshire Hathaway Even Without Warren Buffett
Helene Braun - CoinDesk
Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor who helped shape Berkshire Hathaway into a global investment powerhouse, is stepping down as CEO at year-end - but his distaste for bitcoin (BTC) will likely live on at the firm. Buffett, who will remain chairman of the board, has famously described bitcoin as "rat poison squared" and a "gambling token," signaling a strong ideological opposition to digital assets. His legacy on this issue casts a long shadow over his successor, Greg Abel, who now takes the reins of day-to-day leadership.
/jlne.ws/42JeGKy
VanEck Files to Launch First US ETF Tracking Binance's BNB
Ron Day - etf.com
VanEck aims to launch the first U.S. ETF that tracks BNB, the token used on the network operated by Binance, the crypto exchange operator that in 2023 pleaded guilty to money laundering and other charges. New York-based VanEck, which manages $78 billion across 69 ETFs, filed with the SEC May 2 to issue the VanEck BNB ETF. The firm manages a pair of spot crypto ETFs, the $1.4 billion VanEck Bitcoin ETF (HODL) and the $82.4 million VanEck Ethereum ETF (ETHV).
/jlne.ws/3GHbjey
58 crypto wallets have made millions on Trump's meme coin while 764,000 have lost money, data shows; The $TRUMP token, which surged in popularity after being tied to the start of Trump's second term, has seen sharp price swings and highly uneven returns for investors.
MacKenzie Sigalos - CNBC
About 764,000 wallets that purchased President Donald Trump's $TRUMP meme coin have lost money on the investment, according to fresh data shared with CNBC by blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis. Most of the wallets that lost money held smaller amounts of the token, according to the firm's on-chain analysis. Crypto wallets are accounts that store the keys you need to access and use your cryptocurrency holdings.
/jlne.ws/4358L1e
Vitalik Buterin Wants to Make Ethereum as Simple as Bitcoin
Shaurya Malwa - CoinDesk
Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin is calling for a major simplification of the protocol, aiming to reduce its complexity to a level closer to Bitcoin's while preserving its unique strengths in programmability and scalability. In a blog post published Saturday, Buterin argued that Ethereum's growing technical sprawl - from its consensus mechanisms to its virtual machine - has made it harder to maintain, audit, and onboard new developers.
/jlne.ws/4m1osz8
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| Politics | | An overview of politics as it relates to the financial markets | Trump's crypto ventures cause tensions to bubble over as Democratic lawmaker scuttles key hearing
Hannah Lang - Reuters
Tensions on Capitol Hill over President Donald Trump's various cryptocurrency ventures escalated on Tuesday and threatened to derail the digital asset sector's hope of legislation by the end of this year as a top Democratic lawmaker stalled efforts to debate a bill. Although Congress had appeared likely earlier this year to pass legislation governing digital assets for the first time, Democrats have grown increasingly frustrated as Republican Trump and his family members have promoted their personal crypto projects.
/jlne.ws/3YzeURZ
Lawyers Are Quoting $1 Million in Fees to Get Pardons to Trump; One pardon recipient recalls the president telling him, 'You're cleaner than a baby's bottom.'
Ava Benny-Morrison and Bill Allison - Bloomberg
Trevor Milton was at home in mid-March when his phone lit up. The caller ID indicated the "Executive Office of the President of the United States" was on the line. "I thought it was fake," said Milton, the founder of the electric-truck maker Nikola Corp., who was convicted of fraud in 2022 after the now bankrupt company made an infamous video of a prototype vehicle seeming to move on its own power, when in fact it was just rolling down a hill. "This has to be one of those people that hate me."
/jlne.ws/4dcubhQ
Six Environmental Mapping Tools the White House Doesn't Want You to See; Government officials and advocates used them to help communities disproportionately affected by climate change and pollution.
Zahra Hirji - Bloomberg
The White House effort to scrub government websites of environmental data has researchers and activists trying to recreate several lost mapping tools to protect communities vulnerable to pollution and climate change. One of them pinpointed existing air and water pollutant risks nationwide, for example. Another mapped low-income areas facing high energy costs, while a third showed the location and costs of future climate threats. Government officials, academics and activists used that data for everything from studying environmental harms at the local level to funneling money to help those communities protect themselves against those threats.
/jlne.ws/3GCEcZs
Some Giant Law Firms Shy Away From Pro Bono Immigration Cases; Fearing the wrath of President Trump, some elite law firms are declining pro bono work on lawsuits challenging the administration's policies.
Matthew Goldstein and Jessica Silver-Greenberg - The New York Times
Hours after Donald J. Trump was sworn in for a second term, he issued an executive order laying the groundwork for mass deportations of immigrants and denying them legal assistance. Public interest groups focused on immigrant rights teamed up to fight the order and called in Gibson Dunn, a major law firm with the resources to help take on the White House. In January, Gibson Dunn, working with the groups, sued the Trump administration seeking to restore legal help for immigrants facing deportation. Two months later, Gibson Dunn changed its tune.
/jlne.ws/4m0zNzL
Carney says he asked Trump in White House meeting to stop calling Canada 51st state
Alex Gangitano - The Hill
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said he asked President Trump during their meeting Tuesday to stop calling his neighbors to the north the 51st state, insisting the president will not get his "wish." In a press conference at the Canadian Embassy following his meeting at the White House, a reporter asked Carney if he pushed Trump to stop calling Canada the 51st state because it offends Canadians, and the new prime minister responded "yes."
/jlne.ws/44WIeFU
The Developing Economic Trap for Congressional Republicans
Brendan Buck - The New York Times
After more than 100 days of President Trump marked by overreach and economic self-immolation, congressional Republicans need a reset to save their political fortunes. Representative Mike Johnson, the House speaker, is banking on a spending and tax cut package to provide that jolt, and numerous House committees are now working quickly to stitch together a bill he has pledged to deliver to Mr. Trump before Independence Day. This "one big, beautiful bill," as Mr. Trump has called it, contains most of the president's legislative agenda. Indeed, the strategy is making the bill too big to fail, betting that wavering members will not be willing to vote against it and deliver the leader of their own party such a stinging defeat.
/jlne.ws/4iSTjvg
Putin and Venezuela's Maduro to sign strategic partnership pact
Reuters
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Romania Seeks to Calm Markets With Upbeat Signals on Budget
Andra Timu, Irina Vilcu, and Selcuk Gokoluk - Bloomberg
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| Regulation & Enforcement | | Stories about regulation and the law. | Targeted Reforms Needed to Strengthen U.S. Equity Markets
Anna Lyudvig - Traders Magazine
U.S. equity markets remain a global benchmark for transparency, liquidity, and resiliency. But even the strongest market structures must evolve with the times. In its recently released white paper, Enhancing Competition and Innovation in U.S. Financial Markets, Citadel Securities outlines a measured path forward-one that avoids sweeping changes in favor of smart, targeted reforms.
/jlne.ws/4m4rvGY
SIFMA and Arteria AI Announce US Treasury Clearing Solutions Partnership
SIFMA Press Release via Traders Magazine
SIFMA and Arteria AI have partnered to provide all US Treasury clearing participants a data-driven documentation platform to streamline and scale the onboarding, legal compliance, and operational systems integration with respect to the mandated central clearing of US Treasury securities repurchase transactions, as required by new rules out of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
/jlne.ws/44xxDRT
CFTC Staff on Leave Pending Investigation
CFTC
The CFTC is committed to holding employees to the highest standards, as expected by American taxpayers. Pursuant to the President's executive orders on lawful governance and accountability, the CFTC has placed staff on administrative leave for potential violations of laws, government ethics requirements and professional rules of conduct. Investigations are currently ongoing into these matters and the CFTC will provide updates as appropriate.
/jlne.ws/3GK8Obk
Remarks at the Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee Meeting
Paul S. Atkins, Chairman - SEC
Good morning. Today is the sixth-year anniversary of the first-ever meeting of the Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee.[1] Since that initial meeting, I have followed the discussions and recommendations by this Committee from outside the agency. Now it gives me great pleasure to have the opportunity to address this Committee for the first time as Chairman of the SEC. It is particularly appropriate that this meeting takes place during this year's National Small Business Week, when we are recognizing America's entrepreneurs and small business owners.
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Quarter Frictions: Remarks before the Small Business Capital Formation Advisory Committee
Commissioner Hester M. Peirce - SEC
Thank you to the Committee members for your continued service and to today's panelists. I was at the grocery store the other day thinking about, of course, small business capital raising. I shop at several different grocery stores, each of which has its plusses-low prices, broad selection, high-quality local produce, unique items, proximity to other places I need to go. Each store also has its frictions-crowded parking lots and aisles, annoying quarter deposits for grocery carts, limited opening hours. I often choose the store based as much on the frictions I will face in going there as on which one has what I want that day. That quarter for a grocery cart might just be the deciding factor against a particular store on a day when I have neither a quarter nor the capacity to carry everything I need to buy. Just as I have choice in grocery stores, small businesses have multiple capital raising options, and frictions often dictate the choice small businesses make.
/jlne.ws/4m620oF
ASIC acts against Macquarie Bank for repeated compliance failures
ASIC
ASIC has imposed additional conditions on Macquarie Bank Limited's (Macquarie) Australian financial services licence after multiple and significant compliance failures - some going undetected for many years and one for a decade. The compliance failures relate to Macquarie's futures dealing business and its over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives trade reporting.
/jlne.ws/4k0cTX6
FCA to replace consumer credit data reports
FCA
As part of our drive to become a smarter regulator, we have introduced a new consumer credit return.
/jlne.ws/4d6ElAt
FCA consults on steps to simplify mortgage rules
FCA
We want to make it easier, faster and cheaper for borrowers to make changes to their mortgage. Doing so will help consumers better navigate their financial lives and support growth, both priorities in our new strategy.
/jlne.ws/4d9diV1
"Staying the Course for Asia's Transition to a Climate-Resilient Future" - Opening Address by Mr Chia Der Jiun, Managing Director, Monetary Authority of Singapore, at the FAST Conference 2025 on 7 May 2025
MAS
/jlne.ws/3GYnx2k
SFC's senior executives visit Abu Dhabi and Dubai to promote collaboration on virtual assets
SFC
The Securities and Futures Commission's (SFC) Executive Director of Intermediaries, Dr Eric Yip, and Director of Intermediaries & Head of Fintech unit, Ms Elizabeth Wong, met with regulatory counterparts and the Web 3 industry in Abu Dhabi and Dubai of the United Arab Emirates last week to exchange virtual assets-related insights and experiences.
/jlne.ws/4k0ptG2
Joint announcement on launch of Technology Enterprises Channel
SFC
The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) and The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited (the Exchange), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX), are pleased to jointly announce today the launch of a dedicated Technology Enterprises Channel (TECH) to further facilitate New Listing applications from prospective Specialist Technology Companies and Biotech Companies (Note 1), as well as a new confidential filing option for these companies.
/jlne.ws/44r1TxI
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| Investing & Trading | | Today's top stories from equities, indices and FICC (fixed income, currencies and commodities) | US debt on 'unsustainable' path, admits Scott Bessent
Chris Price - The Telegraph
US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent has warned that America's government debt is on an "unsustainable" path. Donald Trump's finance chief admitted that his department's borrowing limit is on a "warning track", as he promised to give guidance over when the US government would run out of money.
/jlne.ws/4m59uYU
Bunge Profit Drops Less Than Expected Amid Trade Uncertainty
Gerson Freitas Jr - Bloomberg
Bunge Global SA saw profits shrink less than expected in the first quarter as the company weathered the impact of tariff uncertainty on crop trading. Earnings excluding some items were $1.81 a share in the three months ended in March, down 40% from a year earlier, the trader said in a statement. However, the result beat the $1.35 average of analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
/jlne.ws/4jPQEno
Dollar Faces $2.5 Trillion 'Avalanche' of Asian Sales, Jen Says
Ruth Carson - Bloomberg
The dollar may face a $2.5 trillion "avalanche" of selling as Asian countries unwind their stockpile of the world's reserve currency, according to Stephen Jen. Asian exporters and investors may have amassed an "extremely large" pile of dollars through the years, widening the region's trade surplus with the US, Eurizon SLJ Capital's Jen and Joana Freire wrote in a note on Wednesday. As a US-led trade war deepens, some Asian investors might repatriate chunks of funds or ramp up levels of protection against a weakening dollar - potentially triggering an exodus from the world's reserve currency.
/jlne.ws/3YyPqUU
'Remarkable' US Options Growth Assessed
Editorial Staff - Traders Magazine
The opening afternoon of the annual Options Industry Conference is always good for a deep data dive, and Henry Schwartz, Vice President, Market Intelligence at Cboe Global markets didn't disappoint. Moderating the Tuesday afternoon "State of the Industry" panel at OIC in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, Schwartz opened with a high-level look at options volume since 1973. The first 25 years showed mostly nothing happening in what was a sleepy monopoly-type business; options volumes meaningfully increased over the next dozen years before being largely flat in the 2010s; followed by exploding volume in the 2020s with annual double-digit growth rates.
/jlne.ws/42Nxzft
Overnight Trading Push Gets Boost From Plan to Extend Data Feed
Katherine Doherty - Bloomberg
Efforts by the biggest public exchanges to offer overnight trading moved a step closer after the committee responsible for posting real-time trading data said it's looking to extend operating hours. The Operating Committees of the Securities Information Processors, known in the industry as SIPs, will submit a plan to extend trading hours to nearly 24 hours a day, five days a week to the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to a statement Tuesday.
/jlne.ws/4m61Zkq
Novel risk-off CTA strategy passes tariff test; Ai for Alpha's defensive approach to trend following worked as planned in April turmoil
Helen Bartholomew - Risk.net
Commodity trading advisers have long been viewed as a defensive investment - trading into long-term trends across assets to deliver positive returns in both bull and bear markets. Achieving consistent performance in the sharpest of downturns, though, has remained elusive for CTA managers. Trend-following strategies rely on backward-looking signals and have often suffered losses in market reversals. One firm, Ai for Alpha, believes its novel "risk-off" approach could hold the answer.
/jlne.ws/4d53z2d
WeightWatchers Files Bankruptcy to Adapt to Chemically Induced Weight-Loss Future; The icon of a bygone dieting era seeks to shed debt and restructure as women gravitate toward drugs to lose weight
Alexander Gladstone - The Wall Street Journal
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| Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance | | Stories about environmental, social and governance investing | Europe Needs More Than Cash Incentives to Lure US Climate Scientists; It will take more than deep cuts in US government research spending and half a billion euros to convince some of the world's brightest minds to settle on the other side of the Atlantic, experts say.
Laura Millan, Zahra Hirji, and Eric Roston - Bloomberg
Europe sees the string of funding freezes, canceled programs and general hostility toward science in the US under President Donald Trump as an opportunity to become the world's top destination for research - but attracting top talent won't be easy. Earlier this week, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen launched a EUR500 million ($566.4 million) incentives package for 2025 to 2027 aimed at making Europe a "magnet for researchers," at an event hosted by France's Emmanuel Macron. The French president unveiled a further EUR100 million aimed at high-tech innovators.
/jlne.ws/3RTyBQL
US House Is Likely to Kill EV Tax Credit, Speaker Johnson Says
Ari Natter - Bloomberg
Republicans in the US House are more likely than not to kill a consumer tax credit for electric vehicles, according to Speaker Mike Johnson. "I think there is a better chance we kill it than save it," Johnson said in a Tuesday interview. "But we'll see how it comes out." Eliminating the popular tax credit of as much as $7,500 for consumers who purchase an EV has been a prime target for Republicans looking for ways to help pay for President Donald Trump's massive tax-cut package.
/jlne.ws/4d621Vm
Seaweed Could Reduce Methane Emissions from Grazing Cattle, New Study Shows; The benefits of adding seaweed to the diets of cows confined to barns is well studied, but feeding it to cattle scattered on farm pastures and public lands poses more logistical challenges.
Miranda Lipton - Inside Climate News
New research from the University of California, Davis on feeding seaweed to grazing cattle shows that the practice could significantly reduce the greenhouse gases released by livestock, which produce roughly 14.5 percent of the climate-warming emissions. The peer-reviewed study, published in December 2024 by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was led by three researchers in the Department of Animal Science. It found that incorporating seaweed into the diets of grazing cattle, which outnumber any other type of cattle by a factor of three, can reduce methane emissions by nearly 40 percent. Now, there are two major stepping stones to integrating this treatment at a commercial scale: gaining FDA approval, and making it palatable enough for cows to eat willingly.
/jlne.ws/4iUtgDD
New carbon credit scheme targets 60 plants by 2030 for coal phaseout
David Stanway - Reuters
The Rockefeller Foundation aims to sign up 60 projects by 2030 to a new carbon finance scheme for phasing out coal-fired power in developing countries, it said on Wednesday, after its rulebook was given the go-ahead. Around 2,000 coal-fired power plants need to be decommissioned from now until 2040 in order to meet global climate targets, the International Energy Agency says, but only 15% are covered by decommissioning pledges.
/jlne.ws/3YxCnmK
Trump funding cuts force layoffs at US renewable energy research lab
Reuters
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), a research division of the U.S. Department of Energy that focuses on energy sources like wind and solar, said on Tuesday that it laid off 114 employees due to federal budget cuts, stop work orders and new directives.
/jlne.ws/4kavLTv
New carbon credit scheme targets 60 plants by 2030 for coal phaseout
David Stanway - Reuters
The Rockefeller Foundation aims to sign up 60 projects by 2030 to a new carbon finance scheme for phasing out coal-fired power in developing countries, it said on Wednesday, after its rulebook was given the go-ahead. Around 2,000 coal-fired power plants need to be decommissioned from now until 2040 in order to meet global climate targets, the International Energy Agency says, but only 15% are covered by decommissioning pledges.
/jlne.ws/3YxCnmK
Digging to zero? Inside the race to decarbonise mining
Ben Payton - Reuters
/jlne.ws/3YWs9MX
Zimbabwe Sets Up Carbon Markets Watchdog to Govern Trading Activity
Ray Ndlovu - Bloomberg
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Rising systemic risk demands a new risk management paradigm; Reinsurers need insurance-linked securities to share burden of climate-related catastrophic risk
Madelyn Antoncic - Risk.net
/jlne.ws/3GKE3mB
More than 40% of electricity used in Australia's main power grid at start of year was renewable; Data suggests pollution from energy is falling again after previously stalling, but experts say faster growth needed to achieve Labor goal of 82% renewable electricity by 2030
Adam Morton - The Guardian
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Spain's PM Pedro Sanchez says blackout will not change his renewables bet; Opposition parties have questioned government's commitment to wind and solar power
Barney Jopson - Financial Times
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Germany to Lift ESG Rules on Some Banks in Push to Cut Red Tape
Nicholas Comfort - Bloomberg
/jlne.ws/4m1SkeK
Indian LNG Buyers Embrace US Benchmark to Balance Volatility
Rakesh Sharma and Stephen Stapczynski - Bloomberg
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Brussels seeks to force EU companies to disclose Russian gas contracts; European Commission will propose rules next month requiring contract details to be shared with energy and security authorities
Alice Hancock - Financial Times
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Two-thirds of global heating caused by richest 10%, study suggests; Paper in Nature Climate Change journal reveals major role wealthy emitters play in driving climate extremes
Damien Gayle - The Guardian
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Demonized by Trump, DEI Professionals Go 'Discreet' to Find Jobs
Kelsey Butler - Bloomberg
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| Banks, Brokers & Managed Funds | | The latest from banks, brokers, hedge funds and managed futures | Interactive Brokers Expands Access to Prediction Markets
Interactive Brokers Press Release via Traders Magazine
Interactive Brokers, an automated global electronic broker, today announced the launch of expanded trading hours for Forecast Contracts. Eligible clients can now trade Forecast Contracts nearly 24 hours a day, Sunday through Friday. This provides the flexibility to manage risk and express market views on economic, government, and climate events whenever opportunities occur.
/jlne.ws/3Z8mkMa
Why Swiss Want UBS to Hold More Capital and Bank Is Pushing Back
Noele Illien and Bastian Benrath-Wright - Bloomberg
The Swiss government is in a standoff with the country's biggest bank, UBS Group AG, over how much capital it should hold to deal with future crises. The dispute has its origins in the failure of Credit Suisse in 2023, when the government brokered a takeover by UBS of its local rival. The merged entity's sheer size and complexity would make it all but impossible for the country to manage another such crisis itself. So a move is under way to to force the bank to boost its capital reserves.
/jlne.ws/4d2wNyy
BNP Agrees to SRT Deal With PGGM Tied to $2 Billion of Loans
Esteban Duarte - Bloomberg
BNP Paribas SA is offloading some of the credit risk it has from a $2 billion portfolio of loans, shifting the exposure to Dutch pension fund manager PGGM, according to a statement from the two firms provided to Bloomberg News. A substantial part of the reference portfolio is linked to renewable energy projects in Europe, North America, and Asia that help reduce reliance on fossil fuels.
/jlne.ws/3GL3nsL
First Chinese TLAC ratios trail global peers; Bank of Communications's 18.7% TLAC lowest among 28 G-Sibs
Joshua Walker - Risk.net
Chinese global systemically important banks (G-Sibs) have published their first total loss-absorbing capacity (TLAC) disclosures for the first quarter of 2025, revealing razor-thin buffers above regulatory requirements. China Construction Bank (CCB) reported the highest TLAC-to-risk-weighted assets (RWAs) ratio among the group, at 21.9%. It was followed closely by Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) at 21.8%, Bank of China (BoC) at 20.7% and Agricultural Bank of China (ABC) at 20.5%.
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SMBC Teams With Private Lenders to Offer $1.7 Billion of Credit
Katherine Doherty - Bloomberg
Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. is joining forces with asset managers at Monroe Capital and MA Financial Group to work together on $1.7 billion of lending deals in the fast-growing private credit market. The tie-up between the Japanese banking conglomerate and its new partners will target US middle-market companies, according to executives. They'll be offering first-lien senior-secured loans starting this month, with the potential to increase the total based on demand.
/jlne.ws/3SdNCgB
How BlackRock's CEO Gets Paid Is Anyone's Guess; The asset manager is under fire a second year running for poor transparency over executive pay. You can see why.
Chris Hughes - Bloomberg
BlackRock Inc.'s annual proxy statement devotes more than 50 pages to executive pay. How many of those are useful in understanding why Chief Executive Officer Larry Fink was compensated to the tune of $37 million for 2024? Not enough. The asset manager's latest remuneration report has heightened significance because BlackRock's shareholders delivered a rare and large protest vote against its pay framework at last year's annual meeting. That followed recommendations from the two main proxy advisory firms, Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. and Glass Lewis & Co., to withhold support for the so-called say-on-pay motion.
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| Work & Management | | Stories impacting work and more about management ideas, practices and trends. | Trump administration to garnish wages of 5.3 million defaulted student loan borrowers this summer; The government has extraordinary collection powers on federal debts, and it can seize borrowers' federal tax refunds, wages and Social Security retirement and disability benefits.
Annie Nova - CNBC
The Trump Administration resumed collection efforts on defaulted student loans Monday after a roughly five-year hiatus - and affected borrowers could begin feeling the financial consequences sooner than experts expected. The U.S. Department of Education released new details on what actions it plans to take, when. Here's what to know.
/jlne.ws/4k78KRo
Why you should cheat on your boss; UK authorities are cracking down on polygamous working, the most productive form of slacking there is
Emma Jacobs - Financial Times
Was it only yesterday that we were worried about quiet quitters - workers who simply do their jobs, rather than putting in extra unpaid hours? Today's anxiety is all about the industriousness of polygamous workers, which describes someone taking on more than one job, also known as double jobbing, or overemployment. Unlike polygamy (marriage between three or more people), it is undertaken without the consent of the other person in their relationship: their boss. Side hustles, done around the edges of a job, or gig work, involving multiple roles without a main employer, are, by contrast, seen as a sign of a good, honest grinder.
/jlne.ws/4jPSyV4
IBM CEO Says AI Has Replaced Hundreds of Workers but Created New Programming, Sales Jobs; The tech company promises higher total employment as it reinvests resources toward roles like software development
Belle Lin - The Wall Street Journal
International Business Machines Chief Executive Arvind Krishna said the tech giant has used artificial intelligence, and specifically AI agents, to replace the work of a couple hundred human resources workers. As a result, it has hired more programmers and salespeople, he said. Krishna's comments on Monday come as businesses sort through the workforce impacts of AI and AI agents, the independent bots that can autonomously perform tasks like analyze spreadsheets, conduct research and draft emails.
/jlne.ws/43siv6b
Billionaire Ken Griffin reveals the 'wake-up moment' in his 20s that helped drive him to success
Preston Fore - Fortune
Billionaire hedge fund manager Ken Griffin is worth a staggering $42 billion-and he says his success is largely thanks to learning to take risks early in his career. "When you're in your 20s, what's your worst-case scenario?" the Citadel CEO advises Gen Z students. Confidence and conviction don't come easy-especially when you're just getting started in your career. It's often sparked by a promotion or a winning pitch. For Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, it all started with the message on a plaque in the office of an early financial backer. The billionaire recently recalled the "wake-up moment" in his 20s that set the tone for his career.
/jlne.ws/3Z4GHd6
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| Wellness Exchange | | An Exchange of Health and Wellness Information | Americans' health at risk as Trump cuts EPA staff to 1980s levels, experts warn; Advocacy groups say gutting EPA's scientific research arm would turn it into a purely political agency
The Guardian
Americans' health is being put at risk after new cuts were announced by Donald Trump's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reduce staffing to 1980s levels and gut its scientific research arm, experts and advocacy groups warned. The EPA's administrator, Lee Zeldin, announced on Friday that the agency would slash its budget by $300m in the fiscal year 2026 as part of a broad overhaul that he said was designed to cut it to levels resembling those in the Reagan administration.
/jlne.ws/3GIjMxX
Trump administration has shut down CDC's infection control committee; Four members said they were informed of the termination Friday, but it had already taken effect in late March, according to a CDC letter.
Aria Bendix - NBC News
The Trump administration has terminated a federal advisory committee that issued guidance about preventing the spread of infections in health care facilities. The Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) crafted national standards for hand-washing, mask-wearing and isolating sick patients that most U.S. hospitals follow.
/jlne.ws/3RUUFKO
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| Regions | | Stories of local interest from the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions | China Keeps Adding Gold to Reserves as Challenges Stack Up
Yihui Xie - Bloomberg
China expanded its gold reserves for a sixth straight month in April, underlining its push to boost holdings of the precious metal as prices trade near a record and the trade war rumbles on. Bullion held by the People's Bank of China rose by about 70,000 troy ounces last month, according to data on Wednesday. In the latest six-month span, volumes have climbed by close to 1 million ounces, or about 30 tons.
/jlne.ws/4dpCCGJ
China urges state-backed tech players overseas to counter Trump tariffs; BOE and Lenovo among those mulling more aggressive expansions
Cheng Ting-Fang, Lauly Li, Cissy Zhou and Shunsuke Tabeta - Nikkei Asia
China has urged leading state-backed tech companies to expand overseas, particularly in Europe, the Middle East and Southeast Asia, to counter mounting pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump's tariff war, Nikkei Asia has learned. Display champion BOE Technology Group and computer maker Lenovo Group are among the companies considering more aggressive expansion into China-friendly destinations, multiple sources briefed on the matter said, adding that the push is aimed at helping the Chinese economy better withstand U.S. tariffs.
/jlne.ws/4jKwr2g
Japan Trading House Shares Rise, Berkshire to Hold Long Term
Aya Wagatsuma - Bloomberg
Shares of Japanese trading houses climbed after Warren Buffett said he expects Berkshire Hathaway Inc. to hold its investments in them for 50 years or more. Mitsubishi Corp., Marubeni Corp., Mitsui & Co., Itochu Corp. and Sumitomo Corp. each rose at least 3.1% in Tokyo on Wednesday. A measure of wholesale trading sector was the biggest contributor to the Topix index's gain, which advanced 2.5%. Markets were shut for two days for holidays.
/jlne.ws/3YxeHyI
Japan asset managers push domestic equities as haven from China; Sumitomo Mitsui Trust group to launch Singapore office to court institutional investors
Yuki Nakamura - Nikkei Asia
Japanese asset managers have been busy marketing domestic equities overseas to capture demand from investors seeking alternatives to Chinese stocks affected by the Trump administration's tariffs. Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management will establish a Singapore office in June at the earliest, the first location in Asia outside Japan. The site will employ about a dozen sales representatives who will market Japan equity funds, among other products.
/jlne.ws/42MhExX
Japan considers joining EU's $100bn science research initiative; Japanese researchers eye collaboration in advanced materials
Takashi Tsuji - Nikkei Asia
Japan is considering taking part in the European Union's flagship research and development program, in a potential boon to technological innovation at the country's companies and universities. The EU has proposed that Japan join the Horizon Europe program from 2026, which means both sides need to reach an agreement by the end of this year.
/jlne.ws/4jRoto8
HSBC-Backed Firm Launches Saudi Arabia's First Quant ETF
Fahad Abuljadayel - Bloomberg
Saudi Awwal Bank's investment arm SAB Invest has launched the kingdom's first quantitative exchange-traded fund as the Gulf nation seeks to diversify its capital markets and attract foreign investors. The ETF began trading on Monday, with a plan to raise $100 million this year from institutional and retail investors to invest in companies listed on the Saudi stock exchange, according to Osama Alowedi, chief investment officer at SAB Invest. The fund tracks local equities.
/jlne.ws/4iO71zv
Japan's Zen-Noh Establishes Grain-Trading Operations in Geneva
Celia Bergin and Isis Almeida - Bloomberg
/jlne.ws/3GHRfc5
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