| February 06, 2025 | "Irreverent, but never irrelevant" | | | | John Lothian
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John Lothian News | |
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Hits & Takes
John Lothian & JLN Staff
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) delivered a stellar performance in 2024, marking its 19th consecutive year of record revenues. The company reported net revenues of $9.3 billion, a 16% year-over-year increase, with GAAP diluted EPS of $4.78 (up 14%) and adjusted diluted EPS of $6.07 (up 8%). Operating income reached a record $4.3 billion with a 46% margin, while adjusted operating income climbed to $5.5 billion at a 59% margin. ICE also posted record annual operating cash flow of $4.6 billion, a 30% increase, and adjusted free cash flow of over $3.6 billion, up 13% year over year. Buoyed by these strong results, ICE plans to resume share repurchases in the first quarter, underscoring its confidence in continued growth.
In January, Cboe experienced robust trading volumes, with SPX options achieving an average daily volume (ADV) of 3.46 million contracts-the second-best month on record. Notably, the Cboe set new benchmarks for short-dated options and global trading hours. On January 31, a record 2.42 million zero days to expiry (0DTE) SPX contracts were traded in a single day, marking the highest volume for 0DTE options. Additionally, on January 27, trading during Cboe's global session (7:15 p.m. to 8:25 a.m. CT) reached a new peak, with 253,000 SPX contracts exchanged, setting a record for that timeframe. Futures and Australian equities were the only areas down in January, -4.0% and -3.5% respectively from January of 2024.
BornTec has a new commentary titled "Changes from Exchanges: Interesting Developments from the LME, Eurex and MGEX" that starts with the sentence
'You can't spell "exchange" without "change" and the first half of 2025 is slated to deliver some highly anticipated changes at several exchanges.'
Despite La Nina's typical cooling effect, January 2025 set a record as the warmest month on record globally, with scientists reporting unprecedented heat worldwide even as parts of the U.S. experienced severe cold, The New York Times reported. Abnormally high temperatures in northern Canada, Alaska, and Siberia contributed to record-low Arctic sea ice. Researchers emphasized that while carbon emissions remain the primary driver of global warming, reduced sulfate pollution-a once significant cooling factor due to its role in cloud formation-has left the planet more exposed to greenhouse gases. This unexpected warmth, defying traditional La Nina patterns, prompts scientists like NOAA's Russell Vose and former NASA scientist James Hansen to reexamine other contributing factors in Earth's evolving climate.
I am not suggesting that the current CIA leadership is unaware of what they are doing; however, they not only requested that their employees resign, but also sent an unclassified email to the White House containing the names of new agency hires. CNN reported that the email included only their first names and the first initials of their last names, yet that is enough for U.S. adversaries to combine with other sources and identify these employees. Simply put, the current CIA leadership used less security for this email than my health insurance company did when sharing a list of doctors with me. This isn't amateur hour-it is pure incompetence.
Here are the headlines from in front of FOW's paywall from some recent stories: ICE revenue up 16% in 2024 owing to 'all-weather' business model, EEX volumes up 37% in January despite Nordic power futures slump, ANALYSIS: SGX sees out of hours trading driving revenue record, Cboe matches US peers with trading volume up a quarter in January, CFTC signals new approach to sport-related events contracts and Cboe poaches NYSE executive to lead US options offering.
The Wall Street Journal wants you to make your coffee with a drip coffee maker. Its BuySide column this morning has a story titled "Best Drip Coffee Makers for a Perfect Cup Every Morning."
John Shay, the former CEO of AFX before its sale to ICE, has a new position as senior advisor to the CEO at AccessFintech, he shared on LinkedIn.
Kevin Webb, former senior special counsel at the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, is starting a new position as senior special counsel, detailee at U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry - Republican, he shared on LinkedIn.
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:
Trump Just Made Options Trading Trickier Than Ever. What to Do Now. from Barron's.
Cboe Hires Meaghan Dugan as Head of U.S. Options, Marking Latest Expansion of its Global Derivatives Team from Cboe.
Options Traders Bet the Rally in Big Tech Stocks Has More Room to Run from The Wall Street Journal. ~JB
Subscribe to the JLN Options Newsletter HERE (it's free).
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| Sponsored Content |
Japan's Single Stock Options Markets Primed for Revitalization after Regulatory Improvements
The recent upturn in Japanese stock markets has drawn attention from domestic and overseas investors. Originally listed in 1997, Japan's Single Stock Options (JSSO) market is set for a dynamic revitalization, JSSOs are attracting both domestic and international investors. Together with Nikkei 225 and TOPIX derivatives, JSSOs are poised to be an important part of the Japanese equity derivatives markets.
In 2024, Osaka Exchange (OSE) has made groundbreaking changes:
1. Revised margin rules and dedicated SSO accounts to lower additional margin requirements for certain trades.
2. Expanded the number of eligible underlying assets, including popular stocks favored by retail investors.
3. Created an enhanced market-making environment for individual stock SSOs.
4. Improved rules for setting strike prices, making trading more attractive.
In addition to the existing local and international brokers, with the entry of new brokerage firms, the JSSO market is becoming more accessible to retail investors. This wave of improvements is expected to significantly boost market participation and liquidity.
Investors are encouraged to explore the exciting opportunities in Japan's revitalized SSO market, poised for substantial growth and offering diverse investment prospects. Join the momentum and capitalize on the emerging potential of Japan's Single Stock Options market today!
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Mrabet: Cumulus9 Integrates AI Chatbots for Proactive Risk Management
JohnLothianNews.com
Cumulus9 has advanced its risk management platform by embedding AI-powered chatbots, enabling real-time client interaction and predictive analytics, Rafik Mrabet, managing director at Cumulus9, told John Lothian News during an interview at FIA EXPO. "We're turning our innovative risk system into an AI-enabled tool," Mrabet said, noting that users can now query exposures conversationally. For example, a risk manager can ask, "Can you give me my top five exposures?" and receive instant insights on high-risk accounts.
Watch the video »
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World Federation of Exchanges Outlines 2025 Priorities, Emphasizes Public Markets and ESG
JohnLothianNews.com
The World Federation of Exchanges (WFE) has set its sights on strengthening public markets, advancing ESG initiatives, and navigating technological innovation for the coming year, according to top officials in a recent video interview over Zoom with John Lothian News.
Dr. Pedro Gurrola-Perez, head of research, and Richard Metcalfe, head of regulatory affairs at The World Federation of Exchanges, outlined six key priorities for 2025, including the role of market infrastructures, ESG leadership, technology innovation, private and public markets, clearing, and education.
Watch the video »
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Authorities scramble to crack case of 100,000-egg heist in Pennsylvania; About $40,000 worth of eggs were taken from a trailer belonging to Pete and Gerry's Organics, police said. U.S. wholesale egg prices are at a record high.
Niha Masih - The Washington Post
A daring heist in Pennsylvania has left authorities shell-shocked: 100,000 organic eggs were stolen from a facility in Greencastle, just north of the Maryland border. The egg heist, worth approximately $40,000, comes at a time of record-high wholesale egg prices in the country and reports of shortages. Thieves stole the eggs from a distribution trailer belonging to Pete and Gerry's Organics on Saturday around 8:40 p.m., according to a police report. The matter is under investigation, Megan Frazer, a spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania State Police, said in an email late Wednesday, adding that police have asked residents to contact them with leads. A theft of this magnitude involving food is "extremely rare," she wrote.
/jlne.ws/415vzy0
***** Here are some of the other headlines that were considered for this story:
1. Authorities scramble to egg-splain the 100,000-egg heist in Pennsylvania!
2. Egg-stra, egg-stra! Authorities in a scramble over the 100,000-egg caper in Pennsylvania!
3. Egg-citing mystery: Authorities scramble to hatch a plan for the 100,000-egg heist in Pennsylvania!
4. Authorities are egg-hausted trying to crack the case of the 100,000-egg theft in Pennsylvania!
5. In a shell of a situation, authorities scramble to uncover the 100,000-egg heist in Pennsylvania!
6. Authorities in a yolk of trouble as they scramble to solve the 100,000-egg caper in Pennsylvania!
7. The egg-spert team is on the case of the 100,000-egg heist in Pennsylvania-let's not crack under pressure!
8. Egg-ceptional theft: Authorities scramble to determine who's behind the 100,000-egg heist in Pennsylvania!
9. Authorities are trying to eggs-amine the clues in the 100,000-egg heist in Pennsylvania!
10. Shell-shocked authorities scramble to figure out the 100,000-egg robbery in Pennsylvania!~JJL
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MicroStrategy Changes Company Name to Strategy Ahead of Earnings
Monique Mulima - Bloomberg
MicroStrategy Inc., the software maker that has been tapping capital markets to fund purchases of Bitcoin, announced on Wednesday that the company would now be doing business under the name Strategy. The Tysons Corner, Virginia-based company that's morphed into a leveraged Bitcoin proxy made the change ahead its fourth-quarter earnings report, which is scheduled for after the stock market's close on Wednesday. The company has accumulated more than $45 billion of the original cryptocurrency under the direction of Michael Saylor, its chairman and co-founder.
/jlne.ws/3Q5sx6H
***** This sounds more like a MACROstrategy thing to me.~JJL
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Google owner drops promise not to use AI for weapons; Alphabet guidelines no longer refer to not pursuing technologies that could 'cause or are likely to cause overall harm'
Julia Kollewe - The Guardian
The Google owner, Alphabet, has dropped its promise not to use artificial intelligence for purposes such as developing weapons and surveillance tools. The US technology company said on Tuesday, just before it reported lower-than-forecast earnings, that it had updated its ethical guidelines around AI, and they no longer referred to not pursuing technologies that could "cause or are likely to cause overall harm".
/jlne.ws/417N8xO
******Google's original motto was "Don't be evil." This phrase became a core part of the company's identity, reflecting its commitment to ethical business practices and influencing its corporate culture from the very beginning. Oh, the good old days.~JJL
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Wednesday's Top Three
Our top clicked story Wednesday was Cboe Hires Meaghan Dugan as Head of U.S. Options, Marking Latest Expansion of its Global Derivatives Team, a Cboe press release. (Meaghan Dugan was also our MarketsWiki Page of the Day on Wednesday.) Second was Robinhood Ends Super Bowl LIX Bets Plan After CFTC Complaint: 'Work To Roll Out A More Comprehensive Contracts Platform Later This Year', from Benzinga. Third was Elon Musk Suggests Getting Rid Of All Regulations In Midnight Call, from HuffPost.
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| Lead Stories | CFTC Announces Prediction Markets Roundtable
CFTC
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission will hold a public roundtable in approximately 45 days at the conclusion of its requests for information on certain sports-related event contracts. The goal of the roundtable is to develop a robust administrative record with studies, data, expert reports, and public input from a wide variety of stakeholder groups to inform the Commission's approach to regulation and oversight of prediction markets, including sports-related event contracts. The roundtable will be held in the Conference Center at the CFTC's headquarters at Three Lafayette Centre, 1155 21st Street N.W., Washington, D.C. Further information on the roundtable will be released once details are finalized.
/jlne.ws/4gC4ffG
Unstoppable Retail Crowd Breaks Stock Buying Record Despite Rout; Mom-and-pop investor sentiment has reached record level; Retail investors poured $3 billion into stocks on Monday
Natalia Kniazhevich - Bloomberg
The volatile start to the year has spooked some professional investors but has done little to dowse retail traders' enthusiasm for the US stock market and the so-called Magnificent 7 companies. Mom-and-pop investor sentiment has reached the highest level on record, surpassing what was seen during the meme-stock mania in 2021, according to Emma Wu, JPMorgan's global quantitative and derivatives strategist. Individual investor exposure to stocks is near the highest level its been since 1997, an analysis by Barclays' global head of equities tactical strategies Alexander Altmann shows. And as long as the US economy remains resilient, those investors probably will stay stay in the game.
/jlne.ws/3Eo2fu3
Trump's CFTC Head Slams Prediction Markets Resistance Under Predecessor; Caroline Pham, the agency's acting chairman, is scheduling an experts roundtable to reset the CFTC's course on this "sinkhole of legal uncertainty."
Jesse Hamilton - CoinDesk
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission's legal campaign against prediction market platforms such as Polymarket and Kalshi can't just be shut down, according to Caroline Pham, the acting agency chairman put in place by President Donald Trump. Pham said the agency will gather experts for a roundtable meeting, probably next month, that can build a case for how the commission ought to approach regulation and oversight of firms that offer betting on event contracts.
/jlne.ws/3EBWkRT
How to trade the trade war; Global investors had time to prepare for Donald Trump's tariffs but swift market reversals are keeping them on edge
Ian Smith and Mari Novik and Harriet Clarfelt and George Steer - Financial Times
Financial markets have been roiled by US President Donald Trump's announcement of tariffs on key trading partners, and investors are bracing for further volatility ahead. Here's how they are trading Trump's on-again, off-again trade war. Wall Street has been working since before November's presidential election on how it should position for tariffs. Investment banks have built baskets of stocks with the highest sensitivity to Trump's plans - mostly exporters such as carmakers and consumer goods companies - which allow their clients to bet on the impact of a trade war across a range of stocks.
/jlne.ws/4hoEctj
Citadel nears deal to shrink, move Chicago office
Danny Ecker - Crain's Chicago Business
More than two and a half years after Citadel uprooted its headquarters from Chicago, the hedge fund is poised to slash its office footprint in the city and move out of its namesake Loop tower. Citadel is in advanced talks to lease about 55,000 square feet on two floors in the office building at 353 N. Clark St., according to sources familiar with the negotiations. The new office space in the 45-story River North tower would be a fraction of the 315,000 square feet it leases today at 131 S. Dearborn St., known as Citadel Center.
/jlne.ws/42KEYwy
Citadel to Leave Namesake Chicago Tower as Employees Relocate
Miranda Davis - Bloomberg
Ken Griffin's Citadel is departing the iconic Chicago tower that once served as its headquarters, cutting one of its last remaining ties to the city. The financial conglomerate is in talks to exit Citadel Center, the 37-story building named after the company at 131 S. Dearborn St., people familiar with the discussions said. Citadel would still keep a presence in Chicago, downsizing to a smaller office nearby, one of the people said, asking not to be named because the information is private.
/jlne.ws/3CDqnbr
Trump administration agrees to restrict DOGE access to Treasury Department payment systems; The agreement came in response to a lawsuit accusing Treasury of committing an "unlawful action" by giving private info to Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.
Daniel Barnes, Dareh Gregorian and Zoe Richards - NBC News
Attorneys for the Justice Department have agreed to temporarily restrict staffers associated with Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency from accessing information in the Treasury Department's payment system. The agreement comes after a group of union members and retirees sued the Treasury Department alleging that providing DOGE access to the federal government's massive payment and collections system - and the personal data housed in it - violated federal privacy laws.
/jlne.ws/412X9Mv
World leaders set to vie for AI domination at Paris summit
Zoe Kleinman - BBC News
As I write, there are a lot of powerful people around the world preparing to make their way to Paris - and a sense that many of them are holding their breath. On Monday, against the sumptuous backdrop of the city's 125-year-old Grand Palais, representatives from 80 countries including world leaders, tech bosses, academics and other experts, will gather for a two-day global summit to discuss current progress, and future goals, for the rapidly-evolving, hugely-disruptive technology that is artificial intelligence. That might be what's on the official agenda of the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit, but there is something else that's breathing fire into this particular talking shop: DeepSeek.
/jlne.ws/3Q5tRq7
Hedge Funds Slam 'Enormous Burden' of ESG in New Era of Pushback
Frances Schwartzkopff - Bloomberg
Hedge funds are seizing the rising tide of opposition to European ESG rules as an opportunity to seek exemptions from some environmental, social and governance reporting requirements. At issue is whether alternative investment managers should have to disclose ESG data on assets they invest in on behalf of their clients, under the European Union's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. CSRD, which is designed to apply to all sectors, is currently the subject of intense debate as Germany and France seek to limit its scope. The EU's financial services commissioner, Maria Luis Albuquerque, has said there's room for adjustments in light of the criticisms.
/jlne.ws/3ErSx9R
Federal Reserve Board releases the hypothetical scenarios for its annual stress test
Federal Reserve Board
The Federal Reserve Board on Wednesday released the hypothetical scenarios for its annual stress test, which helps ensure that large banks can lend to households and businesses even in a severe recession. Additionally, the Board released two hypothetical elements designed to probe different risks through its "exploratory analysis" of the banking system. The exploratory analysis will not affect bank capital requirements. The Board's annual stress test evaluates the resilience of large banks by estimating losses, net revenue, and capital levels-which provide a cushion against losses-under hypothetical recession scenarios that extend two years into the future. This year, 22 banks will be tested against a severe global recession with heightened stress in both commercial and residential real estate markets, as well as in corporate debt markets. The scenarios are not forecasts and should not be interpreted as predictions of future economic conditions.
/jlne.ws/3EmyJVw
'Debanking' Dispute Highlights a Real Problem; Fixing anti-money-laundering rules can reduce the burden on banks and limit the harm to innocent customers.
The Editorial Board - Bloomberg
Why would a bank suddenly shut down a customer's adequately funded account? Some leading Republicans, echoing tech titans like Marc Andreessen, have warned of a conspiracy among regulators to "debank" conservatives and crypto enthusiasts. The real story is almost certainly more mundane, but it shows that the government's approach to suspicious financial activity - especially in the age of cryptocurrency - isn't as well-focused or transparent as it should be.
/jlne.ws/4hCUdvA
The CMA should be nudged on antitrust, not bullied; The flaws of the UK's competition regulator can be corrected without government interference
John Gapper - Financial Times
It probably came as a relief for the UK's competition regulator to get a good review this week. Margherita Della Valle, Vodafone's chief executive, sang its praises after gaining approval for a £16.5bn merger with Three UK, saying that the EU should follow Britain's approach. Compliments have been in short supply for the Competition and Markets Authority. The government forced out Marcus Bokkerink as chair because it did not think he was taking growth seriously enough. His successor, Doug Gurr, former head of Amazon UK, has duly backed "a regulatory environment that encourages the greatest possible level of business investment".
/jlne.ws/42JBj1G
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| Ukraine Invasion | | News about the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and its military, economic, political and humanitarian impact | Russia behind string of Ukrainian military draft office bombings; Moscow working to 'destabilise the situation' as tensions run high over Kyiv's drive to put more troops on the front line
Samuel Montgomery - The Telegraph
Russian spies have been blamed for a series of bombings at Ukrainian army recruitment offices as tensions run high over the war-weary nation's divisive mobilisation drive. An explosion at a draft centre on Wednesday in western Ukraine killed one person and wounded four others. It was the latest of a string of such incidents in recent weeks. "We clearly understand, together with the security service of Ukraine, that this is a specific attack by the special services of the Russian Federation to ... destabilise the situation," said Ivan Vyhivskyi, Ukraine's national police chief. A man approached the Kamianets-Podilsky district territorial centre, clutching a bag and asking to hand over a package, which then exploded, Mr Vyhivskyi said.
/jlne.ws/3Q6pw69
Exclusive-Ukraine sees marked improvement in accuracy of Russia's North Korean missiles
Tom Balmforth - Reuters
North Korean ballistic missiles fired at Ukraine by Russian forces since late December have been far more precise than salvos of the weapons launched over the past year, two senior Ukrainian sources told Reuters. At a time when Moscow's burgeoning ties with Pyongyang are causing alarm from Washington to Seoul, the increase in accuracy - to within 50-100m of the intended target - suggests North Korea is successfully using the battlefield to test its missile technology, the sources said.
/jlne.ws/40PvJZi
Ukraine says its long-range drones hit a Russian airfield as France delivers Mirage fighter jets
Illia Novikov - Associated Press
Ukrainian forces struck an airfield in southern Russia that was being used to launch Iran-designed Shahed drones, Ukraine's General Staff claimed Thursday, as France said it had delivered a first batch of Mirage fighter jets to Ukraine. The nighttime attack on the Primorsko-Akhtarsk airfield in Russia's Krasnodar region started a fire, the General Staff wrote on Facebook. The facility houses and fires drones and maintains aircraft used to attack Ukraine's Kherson and Zaporizhzhia border region.
/jlne.ws/40FgKB2
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| Middle East Conflict | | News about the current conflict in the Middle East that began with the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. | US Set to Unveil Trump Plan to End Three-Year War in Ukraine; Plan to be presented at high-stakes Munich Security Conference; Trump's special envoy for Russia and Ukraine is running point
Alberto Nardelli, Annmarie Hordern, and Daryna Krasnolutska - Bloomberg
US allies expect President Donald Trump's administration to present a long-awaited plan to end Russia's war on Ukraine at the Munich Security Conference in Germany next week, according to people familiar with the matter. The blueprint would be presented to allies by Trump's special representative for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, the people said on condition of anonymity. They declined to say how detailed they expected the discussions to be or what format they would take.
/jlne.ws/4hk6m8S
The Madness of Donald Trump; To Benjamin Netanyahu's delight, Trump proposes the wholesale ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the creation of a new "Riviera."
David Remnick - The New Yorker
More than five hundred years ago, Machiavelli, the philosopher of political practice and modern republicanism, suggested, in "Discourses on Livy," that "at times it is a very wise thing to simulate madness." Richard Nixon, according to his chief of staff H. R. Haldeman, apparently arrived at a similar conclusion, saying, "I call it the Madman Theory, Bob. I want the North Vietnamese to believe I've reached the point where I might do anything to stop the war. We'll just slip the word to them that, 'for God's sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can't restrain him when he's angry-and he has his hand on the nuclear button'-and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace."
/jlne.ws/3CEUz60
UN chief warns against 'ethnic cleansing' after Trump's Gaza proposal; President's plan for US to take over Gaza Strip and move Palestinians out also rejected by allies Saudi Arabia and Jordan
Emma Graham-Harrison in Jerusalem - The Guardian
Donald Trump's proposal for a US takeover of Gaza was met with anger and blunt rejection from regional allies, delight from Israel's far right and a warning against "ethnic cleansing" from the head of the UN. The secretary general, António Guterres, told a UN meeting on Wednesday that "it is essential to avoid any form of ethnic cleansing" after the US president said he wanted to "own" Gaza and resettle its Palestinian residents elsewhere.
/jlne.ws/4jOcKac
Donald Trump says Gaza will be 'turned over to the US by Israel'; President says plan to take over and resettle Palestinians elsewhere 'in the region' won't require American troops
James Shotter and Heba Saleh - Financial Times
Donald Trump said that the Gaza Strip would be turned over to the US by Israel only after fighting had ceased in the war-torn territory and that no American troops would be needed to maintain stability. The US president made his latest announcement about the proposal to take over Gaza on Thursday, a day after allies at home, in the Middle East and Europe had objected to his plans and the White House sought to assuage fears of a protracted military intervention.
/jlne.ws/4jYbAJk
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| Exchanges, OTC & Clearing | | Top news from exchanges, clearing, settlement and trade execution facilities | Changes from Exchanges: Interesting Developments from the LME, Eurex and MGEX
BornTec
You can't spell "exchange" without "change" and the first half of 2025 is slated to deliver some highly anticipated changes at several exchanges. The launch of LME 10, an enhanced drop copy service at Eurex, and migration of MGEX trading to MIAX technology are all interesting developments that not only bear watching but also may signal new business opportunities.
/jlne.ws/42IJj2X
LSEG's data and analytics head departs after 18 months; Individual was appointed to the role at the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) in July 2023 after roles at Deutsche Bank, Citi and HSBC.
Claudia Preece - The Trade
Satvinder Singh has left the London Stock Exchange Group, having served as Group head of data and analytics for the last 18 months, The TRADE can reveal. While at LSEG he was also a member of the executive committee. Singh boasts three decades of experience leading global businesses in data and analytics, capital markets, post-trade services, payments, and technology. His previous roles include stints as global head of securities services and head of global transaction bank, EMEA, at Deutsche Bank, head of custody and clearing, EMEA at Citi, and global head of sales at HSBC Securities Services.
/jlne.ws/3QbfrEU
ASX Group Monthly Activity Report - January 2025
ASX
/jlne.ws/3CFWlnq
Cboe Global Markets Reports Trading Volume for January 2025
Cboe Global Markets, Inc.
Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (Cboe: CBOE), the world's leading derivatives and securities exchange network, today reported January monthly trading volume statistics across its global business lines. The data sheet "Cboe Global Markets Monthly Volume & RPC/Net Revenue Capture Report" contains an overview of certain January trading statistics and market share by business segment, volume in select index products, and RPC/net capture, which is reported on a one-month lag, across business lines.
/jlne.ws/3EsmvdZ
CME Group Declares Quarterly Dividend
CME Group
CME Group Inc., the world's leading derivatives marketplace, today declared a first-quarter dividend of $1.25 per share, a 9% increase from the prior level of $1.15 per share. The dividend is payable March 26, 2025 to shareholders of record as of March 7, 2025.
/jlne.ws/4jOzyXq
EEX Press Release - EEX Group Monthly Volumes - January 2025
EEX
The EEX Group Global Power markets achieved a monthly traded volume of 1188.6 TWh, marking a +27% Year-on-Year growth. This included a 37% YoY growth on the EEX European Power Derivatives volumes, which reached a total of 810.9 TWh.
/jlne.ws/4jK5UCx
January 2025 figures at Eurex
Eurex
Eurex, Europe's leading derivatives exchange - along with Eurex Clearing - one of the leading central counterparties globally, recorded a 13 percent rise in total trading volume for January, reaching 172 million contracts, up from 152.7 million contracts in the same month last year. The growth was primarily driven by equity derivatives, which increased by 65 percent from 17.4 million to 28.7 million contracts. Interest rate derivatives also saw an uptick, rising 12 percent to 82.7 million contracts. However, index derivatives experienced a 4 percent decline, falling from 61.4 to 59 million traded contracts.
/jlne.ws/3WPHfT0
Intercontinental Exchange Reports Strong Full Year 2024 Results
ICE
Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE), a leading global provider of technology and data, today reported financial results for the fourth quarter and full year of 2024. For the quarter ended December 31, 2024, consolidated net income attributable to ICE was $698 million on $2.3 billion of consolidated revenues less transaction-based expenses. Fourth quarter GAAP diluted earnings per share (EPS) were $1.21. Adjusted net income attributable to ICE was $875 million in the fourth quarter and adjusted diluted EPS were $1.52. For the full year of 2024, consolidated net income attributable to ICE was $2.8 billion on $9.3 billion of consolidated revenues less transaction-based expenses. Full year 2024 GAAP diluted EPS was $4.78, up 14% year-over-year. On an adjusted basis, net income attributable to ICE for the year was $3.5 billion and adjusted diluted EPS was $6.07, up 8% year-over-year.
/jlne.ws/3Crtpj6
Intercontinental Exchange Announces 7% Increase to its Quarterly Dividend
ICE
Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE), a leading global provider of technology and data, announced board authorization of its first quarter 2025 dividend of $0.48 per share, up 7% from its previous $0.45 per share quarterly dividend in 2024. The first quarter cash dividend is payable on March 31, 2025 to stockholders of record as of March 17, 2025. The ex-dividend date is March 17, 2025. ICE expects the annual total dividend for 2025 to be $1.92 per share. The expected record and payable dates for the balance of the year are expected to be as noted below, subject to board authorization.
/jlne.ws/4jLE9JO
JSE Voluntary Carbon Market sees first trades of carbon credits eligible for the SA Carbon Tax
JSE
The JSE Ventures Voluntary Carbon Market powered by Xpansiv has facilitated the first trades of carbon credits eligible as offsets against the South African Carbon Tax. A total of 10,000 credits traded at $8.25 per credit, which is equivalent to approximately 80% of the current carbon tax rate of R190 per ton.
/jlne.ws/4hG4Jml
Joint Development of New Index Focusing on Human Capital
JPX
JPX Market Innovation & Research, Inc. (JPXI) and Nikkei Inc. (Nikkei) have agreed to jointly develop a new stock price index that focuses on human capital. While keeping in close consultation with market participants, JPXI and Nikkei will work toward launching the new index around the middle of this year.
/jlne.ws/4hooHSl
Nodal Exchange achieves January trading records in power and environmental markets
Nodal Exchange
Nodal Exchange announced new trading records in power and environmental markets today. Nodal surpassed last January's volume and achieved a calendar month record with traded volume of 282.6 million MWh, up 5% from January 2024. Nodal continues to be the North American power market leader ending January at 1.43 billion MWh of futures open interest, a 57% market share. Nodal posted a calendar month trading record for January in its environmental markets with 48,460 lots traded, up 6% from 45,837 lots a year earlier. Environmental open interest at the end of January was 392,258 lots, up 32% from 298,055 a year earlier.
/jlne.ws/3CEauS5
Tradeweb Reports January 2025 Total Trading Volume of $54.6 Trillion and Average Daily Volume of $2.44 Trillion
Tradeweb
Tradeweb Markets Inc. (Nasdaq: TW), a leading, global operator of electronic marketplaces for rates, credit, equities and money markets, today reported total trading volume for the month of January 2025 of $54.6 trillion (tn)[1]. Average daily volume (ADV) for the month was $2.44tn, an increase of 20.3 percent (%) year-over-year (YoY). Excluding the impact of the ICD acquisition, which closed on August 1, 2024, total ADV for the month of January was up 6.4% YoY.
/jlne.ws/4hp964J
Tradeweb Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Financial Results
Tradeweb
New York, February 6, 2025 - Tradeweb Markets Inc. (Nasdaq: TW), a leading, global operator of electronic marketplaces for rates, credit, equities and money markets, today reported financial results for the fourth quarter and full year ended December 31, 2024.
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Moscow Exchange Trading Volumes in January 2025
MOEX
In January 2025, total trading volumes across Moscow Exchange's markets was RUB 105.4 trln.
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| Fintech | | A roundup of today's market tech news and a look at tomorrow's disruptors | Devexperts Announces Futures Trading Platform
Anna Lyudvig - Traders Magazine
Devexperts, a global software developer for the capital markets industry, has launched a turnkey futures trading platform that will enable brokers looking to expand into both futures and options on futures trading. "We have seen a steady increase in futures trading volumes over the last few years and there continue to be a number of international market factors that suggest this trend is likely to continue," said Peter Snasdell, Senior Vice President at Devexperts.
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OpenAI Set to Make Super Bowl Ad Debut; The TV spot marks the artificial-intelligence company's biggest foray into consumer advertising to date
Suzanne Vranica - The Wall Street Journal
OpenAI, the artificial-intelligence company behind ChatGPT, is expected to air its first TV commercial during Sunday's Super Bowl, according to people familiar with the matter. Founded in 2015, the OpenAI brand took off in late 2022 when it launched its wildly popular chatbot, ChatGPT. While Open AI has become one of the best known companies in the AI space, it achieved that feat with little help from paid advertising.
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The DeepSeek Competitors Vying to Be China's Next AI Champion
Yuan Gao and Saritha Rai - Bloomberg
The next DeepSeek to disrupt the global artificial intelligence industry could also come from China. The country of 1.4 billion has seeded several promising AI startups and projects, while its leading internet players have spent years investing and developing the infrastructure to support such new ventures. With the DeepSeek experience casting doubt over the need for bleeding-edge expensive AI hardware from the likes of Nvidia Corp. - which the US has banned from sale in China - the prospects of China's up-and-coming AI companies look to be improving.
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The Dangerous A.I. Nonsense That Trump and Biden Fell For
Zeynep Tufekci - The New York Times
China's tech industry recently gave the U.S. tech industry - and along with it, the stock market - a rude shock when it unveiled DeepSeek, an artificial intelligence model that performs on par with America's best, but that may have been developed at a fraction of the cost and despite trade restrictions on A.I. chips. Since then there have been a lot of frantic attempts to figure out how they did it and whether it was all above board. Those are not the most important questions, and the excessive focus on them is an example of precisely how we got caught off guard in the first place.
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DeepSeek attracts China's young jobseekers as AI firm ramps up recruitment; The Hangzhou-based start-up has opened spots for dozens of jobs related to research and development in artificial general intelligence
Iris Dengin in Shenzhen and Ann Caoin in Shanghai - South China Morning Post
DeepSeek, China's hottest tech start-up, has become one of the most coveted destinations for young jobseekers across the country, as the company ramps up recruitment of artificial intelligence (AI) talent. Spots for dozens of jobs related to research and development in artificial general intelligence (AGI) have been opened by DeepSeek at its home base in Hangzhou, capital of eastern Zhejiang province, and in Beijing, according to the website of parent firm High-Flyer Quant and various Chinese recruitment sites.
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| Cybersecurity | | Top stories for cybersecurity | IMI becomes the latest British engineering firm to be hacked; British engineering company IMI has disclosed a cybersecurity incident just days after rival firm Smiths reported it was targeted by hackers.
Carly Page - TechCrunch
IMI, a Birmingham-based firm that designs and manufactures products for industrial automation, transport, and climate control, said in a filing with the London Stock Exchange on Thursday that it is "currently responding to a cybersecurity incident involving unauthorized access to the company's systems."
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Prosecutors probe Russian role in buying software for EU border system; Investigation examines how French IT group Atos used Moscow office for sensitive European computer project
Laura Dubois - Financial Times
European prosecutors are examining how the Moscow office of an IT contractor helped to build the EU's new electronic border system, which will establish the bloc's biggest personal information database. According to documents seen by the Financial Times, the French IT group Atos used staff in Russia to buy software in 2021 for the highly sensitive project, which aims to gather and store biometric data on all non-EU visitors to the EU.
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| Cryptocurrencies | | Top stories for cryptocurrencies | Crypto market has become 'very confusing,' losing all logic - Traders
FX Street
The crypto market isn't following the same old patterns anymore - and it's throwing crypto traders off. "The market is totally cooked," pseudonymous crypto trader Sykodelic said in a Feb. 4 X post. They added that despite pro-crypto moves from the US government and President Donald Trump, the market "just keeps on retracing."
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Crypto Course Correction at the SEC
Akin
Yesterday, February 4, 2025, SEC Commissioner Hester Peirce shared her first policy statement since being charged with leading the Commission's new Crypto Task Force. It will come as no surprise that her statement is nothing less than a wholesale (and for many market participants, welcome) course correction on the Commission's crypto canon. In her own words: it took us a long time to get into this mess, and it is going to take us some time to get out of it ... the Commission's handling of crypto has been marked by legal imprecision and commercial impracticality ... many cases remain in litigation, many rules remain in the proposal stage, and many market participants remain in limbo ... Please be patient. The Task Force wants to get to a good place, but we need to do so in an orderly, practical, and legally defensible way.
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Trump's Crypto Czar Is Studying Feasibility of US Bitcoin Reserve
Stephanie Lai - Bloomberg
The feasibility of Donald Trump's ambition to create a national reserve of Bitcoin is still being studied by officials in the administration, White House crypto czar David Sacks said as he met with lawmakers to advance the new president's policies on digital assets. "That is one of the first things we're going to look at as part of the internal working group in the administration," Sacks said of a potential Bitcoin reserve at a press conference in Washington on Tuesday. "We're still waiting for some cabinet members who are on the working group to get confirmed, so we're still in the very early stages of this. But that is one of the first things we're going to look at."
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How the SEC's proposed token relief might impact crypto firms; Proposed token relief from the Securities and Exchange Commission does not mean a blanket pass for all projects, attorney Franco Jofre said.
Vince Quill - CoinTelegraph
The retroactive token and coin offering relief measures proposed by US Securities and Exchange Commission Commissioner Hester Peirce will likely benefit crypto firms and projects with a certain profile, attorneys told Cointelegraph. Franco Jofré, an attorney and a senior adviser at Miller & Chevalier, said firms that conducted initial coin offerings during the ICO boom of 2017-2018 have a strong argument for relief under the new proposal.
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Nadex Self-Certifies Solana (SOL) Cryptocurrency Touch Bracket Contracts
Mondovisione
Notice Type: Rulebook & Agreement Notice ID: 1817.020525 2025 Pursuant to Section 5c(c)(1) of the Commodity Exchange Act, as amended ("Act"), and Section 40.2(a) of the regulations promulgated by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (the "Commission") under the Act (the "Regulations"), North American Derivatives Exchange, Inc. ("Nadex", the "Exchange"), Nadex self-certified the terms and conditions for its new Solana (SOL) Cryptocurrency Touch Bracket Contracts. These contracts will be listed on or after trade date February 7, 2025.
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R3 partners with IDEMIA Secure Transactions to Transform CBDC Payments Both Online and Offline; R3's Digital Currency platform integrates IDEMIA Secure Transactions' offline solution to enable secure, seamless CBDC transactions both online and offline, progressing the global digital payments ecosystem.
R3
R3, the financial markets digital solutions provider, has partnered with IDEMIA Secure Transactions (IST), a division of IDEMIA Group and global provider of secure payment and connectivity solutions, to offer offline payment solutions. This partnership marks a significant step forward in the evolution of Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs), offering enhanced access and usability across both online and offline environments. R3's Digital Currency platform is advancing global financial infrastructure by empowering central banks and financial institutions with programmable digital money for wholesale and retail CBDCs, as well as private digital currencies. Built on R3's Corda-the leading tokenization platform for regulated institutions with 60+ live applications globally-it offers secure, scalable digital money solutions that ensure network sovereignty and interoperability. Users have control over their networks while maintaining the ability to transact seamlessly across others unlocking access to next-generation services.
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Bitcoin Hashrate Hits All-Time High Defying Analyst Expectations
James Van Straten - CoinDesk
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Michael Saylor's company rebrands to 'Strategy' and calls itself a 'Bitcoin treasury company'
Catherine McGrath - Fortune
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BlackRock to List Bitcoin Exchange-Traded Product in Europe
Leonard Kehnscherper and Emily Nicolle - Bloomberg
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The Protocol: Ethereum's Wall Street Cheerleader
Benjamin Schiller - CoinDesk
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| Politics | | An overview of politics as it relates to the financial markets | Lawmakers Push to Ban DeepSeek App From U.S. Government Devices; Bipartisan bill comes amid concerns that the application allows China to see user data
Natalie Andrews - The Wall Street Journal
Lawmakers plan to introduce a bill Thursday that would ban DeepSeek's chatbot application from government-owned devices, over new security concerns that the app could provide user information to the Chinese government. The legislation written by Reps. Darin LaHood, an Illinois Republican, and Josh Gottheimer, a New Jersey Democrat, is echoing a strategy that Congress used to ban Chinese-controlled TikTok from government devices, which marked the beginning of the effort to block the company from operating in the U.S.
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Treasury Sought to Freeze Foreign Aid Payments, Emails Show; Trump administration appointees and allies of Elon Musk wanted to use the Treasury's sensitive payment system to block payments.
Andrew Duehren, Alan Rappeport and Theodore Schleifer - The New York Times
In the days after President Trump took office, as Elon Musk's team began pressing for access to the Treasury Department's payments system, officials repeatedly said that their goal was to undertake a general review of the system. They said they would observe, but not stop money from going out the door. But emails reviewed by The New York Times show that the Treasury's chief of staff originally pushed for Tom Krause, a software executive affiliated with Mr. Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency, to receive access to the closely held payment system so that the Treasury could freeze U.S. Agency for International Development payments.
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White House Says Musk Will Police His Own Conflicts of Interest
Dana Hull - Bloomberg
The White House said Elon Musk, the billionaire leading President Donald Trump's government cost-cutting efforts, will determine if there are conflicts of interest between his work reviewing federal spending and his overlapping empire of six companies. "The president was already asked to answer this question this week," said White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt at a briefing Wednesday. "And he said, if Elon Musk comes across a conflict of interest with the contracts and the funding that DOGE is overseeing, that Elon will excuse himself from those contracts, and he has again abided by all applicable laws."
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Elon Musk Installs Illegal Server to Seize All Federal Workers' Data
Hafiz Rashid - The New Republic
Elon Musk has taken control of government employees' private data by having his cronies illegally install a commercial server at the Office of Personnel Management. Musk and his handpicked associates at the fake "Department of Government Efficiency" are using their ill-gotten access to control federal databases containing Social Security numbers, home addresses, medical histories, and other sensitive personal information, according to journalists Caleb Ecarma and Judd Legum at Musk Watch. Many of these Musk staffers are young people between 19 and 24, such as software engineer Akash Bobba, an undergraduate student at University of California, Berkeley, and 2022 high school graduate Edward Coristine. At Musk's direction, these inexperienced underlings now have access to the private information of every federal employee, and even people who have merely applied to federal jobs.
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How Trump's Sweeping Expulsions Have Thrown the FBI Into Chaos; Firings at the Justice Department and FBI herald revenge-and a broad shift from white-collar and national-security cases to illegal immigration and street crime
Sadie Gurman, C. Ryan Barber and Aruna Viswanatha - The Wall Street Journal
A half-dozen of the most senior officials at the Federal Bureau of Investigation gathered at headquarters last week to hear an urgent directive from the Trump administration. One official had been a lead investigator in the 9/11 attacks. Another ran the investigation into the attempted assassination of President Trump last summer. They all waited for Brian Driscoll, the FBI acting director. Driscoll arrived from a tense meeting with Emil Bove, the Trump-appointed second in command at the Justice Department. Bove told him to deliver an ultimatum to the senior officials: Resign by Monday or be fired. They had four days to decide. We tried to stop this, Driscoll told the group.
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Why Musk Is So Focused on the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, America's 'Checkbook'; Spending power, privacy concerns and conflicts of interest have put the bureau at the center of a political fight.
Alan Rappeport, Andrew Duehren and Colby Smith - The New York Times
The first weeks of President Trump's second term have been dominated by a blizzard of executive orders aimed at reversing diversity policies, trade wars with major American trading partners and intrigue over the most important federal office that most Americans have never heard of in the Bureau of the Fiscal Service. Tucked within the Treasury Department, the bureau is staffed by career civil servants who operate a system that channels about 90 percent of the payments for the United States government, which spent about $6.75 trillion last fiscal year.
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U.S. government officials privately warn Musk's blitz appears illegal
Jeff Stein, Dan Diamond, Faiz Siddiqui, Cat Zakrzewski, Hannah Natanson and Jacqueline Alemany - The Washington Post
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Florida Orange Juice Could Be Tariffs' Most Iconic Casualty; The citrus sector in President Trump's home state is already reeling from diseases and natural disasters. Tariffs could kill it.
Mary Ellen Klas - Bloomberg
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Tariff Threat Spurs Canada to Rethink Limits on Oil Pipelines
Robert Tuttle - Bloomberg
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Canadians Support Using Oil as Weapon If Trump Starts Trade War; Some 82% support export levies on oil if Trump imposes tariffs; Idea liked in Prairies, where premiers have opposed it
Brian Platt - Bloomberg
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Justin Trudeau summons business leaders to break Canada's economic dependence on US; Prime minister's move follows Donald Trump's plan to hit neighbour's exports with steep tariffs
Ilya Gridneff and Joshua Oliver - Financial Times
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UK peers decry 'abject failure' in FCA's plan to name and shame more firms; Lords committee says financial watchdog should abandon proposals unless concerns addressed
Martin Arnold and Maisie Grice - Financial Times
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Finland Proposes Law to Ban Russians From Buying Real Estate
Leo Laikola - Bloomberg
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Baltics to cut Soviet-era ties to Russian power grid
Saulius Jakucionis - AFP
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| Regulation & Enforcement | | Stories about regulation and the law. | US Treasury Brings In Two Members From Musk's DOGE Team
Jake Bleiberg, Viktoria Dendrinou and Gregory Korte - Bloomberg
The US Treasury has brought in at least two people connected to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, according to people familiar with the matter: Tom Krause, the chief executive of Cloud Software Group Inc. and Marko Elez, an engineer who has worked for SpaceX and social-media platform X. The men both have offices in the Treasury Department, along with agency email addresses as well as clearance to access some secure but unclassified Treasury information, people familiar with the situation said.
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CFTC Announces Prediction Markets Roundtable
CFTC
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission will hold a public roundtable in approximately 45 days at the conclusion of its requests for information on certain sports-related event contracts. The goal of the roundtable is to develop a robust administrative record with studies, data, expert reports, and public input from a wide variety of stakeholder groups to inform the Commission's approach to regulation and oversight of prediction markets, including sports-related event contracts. The roundtable will be held in the Conference Center at the CFTC's headquarters at Three Lafayette Centre, 1155 21st Street N.W., Washington, D.C. Further information on the roundtable will be released once details are finalized.
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NFA orders Jersey City, NJ futures commission merchant Futu Futures Inc. to pay a $100,000 fine
NFA
February 5, 2025-NFA has ordered Futu Futures Inc. (Futu) to pay a $100,000 fine. Futu is an NFA Member futures commission merchant located in Jersey City, New Jersey. The Decision, issued by NFA's Business Conduct Committee (BCC), is based on a Complaint issued by the BCC and a settlement offer submitted by Futu, in which the firm neither admitted nor denied the allegations of the Complaint. The BCC found that Futu failed to file various required financial reports and notifications timely with NFA, in violation of NFA Financial Requirements Sections 1(d) and 1(e), and failed to supervise, in violation of NFA Compliance Rule 2-9(a).
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Updating TRACE Reporting Timeframes
Robert Cook - FINRA
In September 2024, the SEC approved amendments (Amendments) to FINRA's TRACE reporting rules to reduce the current 15-minute timeframe for reporting transactions in relevant fixed income securities.1 For the reasons described below, I have directed FINRA staff to not set an effective date for these Amendments. Instead, in light of questions and concerns that have been raised regarding the Amendments, FINRA staff will work expeditiously on developing and filing with the SEC substantive changes to the Amendments that take into consideration these questions and concerns.
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SEC Obtains Final Judgment Against Investment Adviser Steven J. Susoeff in Connection with Fraudulent "Cherry-Picking" Scheme
SEC
On December 23, 2024, the Securities and Exchange Commission obtained a final judgment against Steven J. Susoeff, the sole owner and principal of Steve Susoeff, LLC (dba Meritage Financial Group), a now defunct state-registered investment adviser. Account, while consistently allocating losing trades to his disfavored clients' accounts.
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SEC Obtains Judgments Against Defendants who are Ordered to Pay Over $8 Million for Roles in Offering Fraud
SEC
On January 16, 2025, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York entered judgments ordering defendants Joseph M. Laura and Anthony R. Sichenzio to pay over $8 million in disgorgement, prejudgment interest, and civil penalties.
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Update on charges against former directors of Capital Mining Limited
ASIC
On 25 February 2022, Peter James Dykes and Peter Alan Torney, former directors of previously ASX-listed Capital Mining Limited, appeared in the Perth Magistrates Court, each charged with dishonestly using their position as directors. On 8 April 2022, Mr Anthony John Dunlop, a former director of Capital Mining Limited, also appeared in the Perth Magistrates Court charged with four offences of dishonestly using his position as a director.
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FCA statement on Blackmore Bonds complaints
FCA
The FCA has today written to people who complained about the way the FCA handled the Blackmore Bonds case. Blackmore Bond PLC (Blackmore) was an unregulated firm that raised funds by issuing mini-bonds. Two regulated firms, NCM Fund Services (NCM) and Northern Provident Investments (NPI), approved the financial promotions for the mini-bonds. The FCA conducted thorough enforcement investigations into NCM and NPI and decided that the financial promotions were largely accurate and contained very relevant risk warnings to consumers, so it did not take enforcement action against either firm.
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FSA Weekly Review No.622
FSA
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Cross-Agency Steering Group sets 2025 priorities to support growth of sustainable finance in Hong Kong
SFC
The Green and Sustainable Finance Cross-Agency Steering Group (Steering Group) sets out three key priorities for this year to foster the growth of sustainable finance in Hong Kong following its meeting today (6 February).
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SFC flags cybersecurity incidents involving licensed firms and resulting business disruptions in thematic review report
SFC
The Securities and Futures Commission (SFC) noted material cybersecurity incidents in recent years involving cyberattacks against licensed corporations (LC) had resulted in significant business disruptions or hacking of client accounts. Issued today, the SFC's Report on the 2023/24 Thematic Cybersecurity Review of Licensed Corporations (Report) noted eight incidents of material cybersecurity breach reported to the SFC between 2021 and 2024. In some incidents, fraudsters conducted unauthorised trades in clients' accounts after gaining control of them by infiltrating the LCs' networks through network security loopholes. The use of end-of-life software and weak algorithm for encrypting client data are some of the common weaknesses identified in these incidents (Note 1). Such vulnerabilities indicate the LCs' insufficient senior management oversight and inadequate controls on cybersecurity measures.
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| Investing & Trading | | Today's top stories from equities, indices and FICC (fixed income, currencies and commodities) | Jim Chanos Says Biggest Risk for Markets Is DeepSeek-Like Event; Legendary investor sees speculation, but not near 2021 levels; Says investors need to differentiate among rich valuations
Carmen Reinicke and Norah Mulinda - Bloomberg
Famed short seller Jim Chanos says no one can see the biggest risks facing US markets over the next six to 12 months - because the challenges are going to be unpredictable events, like last month's DeepSeek collapse that wiped out roughly $1 trillion in market value from US stocks. "The real risks will be something like DeepSeek that comes out of left field that changes people's thinking," Chanos said in an interview with Bloomberg TV Wednesday. "By definition, we do not know what that is."
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BTIG and OptimX partner on buy-side focused offering; "This partnership addresses the growing demand among institutional traders for advanced, centralised technology that enables seamless access to deep liquidity and high-quality execution," said the firms.
Claudia Preece - The Trade
BTIG and OptimX Markets have unveiled a new partnership which will see the firm deliver BTIG's offering direct to institutional buy-side desks. Specifically, the diverse range of trading opportunities will be available to desks in US markets. "By combining BTIG's extensive trading capabilities with OptimX's innovative platform, this partnership addresses the growing demand among institutional traders for advanced, centralised technology that enables seamless access to deep liquidity and high-quality execution," said the firms in a social media announcement.
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Gold Dealers Sell BOE Bullion at Discount in Tariff Turmoil
Yvonne Yue Li, Jack Ryan, Jack Farchy and Sybilla Gross - Bloomberg
Gold in the Bank of England vault is trading at a discount to the wider market, as fears over potential Trump tariffs spark a scramble for bullion that's resulting in weeks-long queues to withdraw metal. Dealers are quoting prices for gold at the BOE at discounts of more than $5 an ounce below spot in London, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.
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UK Bond Trading Nears 2018 Landmark With Boost From Turmoil
James Hirai - Bloomberg
Interest in UK government bond futures is booming, as this year's volatility attracts risk seekers back to the market. The number of outstanding contracts in gilt futures has almost tripled over the past two years, rising to 987,000 as of Tuesday, according to data from Intercontinental Exchange Inc. So-called open interest last exceeded 1 million contracts in 2018, according to ICE.
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Tonight we're going to stonk-punt like it's 2021; US retail equity inflows have hit record levels this week
Bryce Elder - Financial Times
US single-stock buying by retail investors is hitting new records, and the Magnificent Seven is accounting for more than 70 per cent of net purchases, according to JPMorgan data. While ETF inflows were "minimal" on Tuesday, single-stock buys exceeded sells by $3.2bn, the broker found. That's about $1bn more than the second-biggest daily inflow on record, in March 2020.
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| Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance | | Stories about environmental, social and governance investing | Trump moves to shutter environmental offices across the government; The administration plans to close the Environmental Protection Agency's environmental justice office and remake the Justice Department's environmental division.
Maxine Joselow and Amudalat Ajasa - The Washington Post
In a little over two weeks, the Trump administration has taken unprecedented steps to shutter or remake federal offices focused on the environment, causing turmoil and confusion for current and former employees. The latest shake-up came Wednesday, when Trump appointees at the Environmental Protection Agency notified staff members that they plan to close the Office of Environmental Justice and External Civil Rights and place its employees on administrative leave, according to three people familiar with the matter who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
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SocGen Says It Won't Follow Wall Street Out of Climate Alliance
Claudia Cohen - Bloomberg
Societe Generale SA Chief Executive Officer Slawomir Krupa said the French bank won't follow its Wall Street peers out of the world's largest climate finance alliance for the industry. "We are not planning to leave" the Net-Zero Banking Alliance, he said during a press conference on Thursday.
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Norway $1.8 Trillion Fund Hones ESG Focus, Cut 49 Companies; Wealth fund reversed 16 risk-based divestments in the year; Fund holds stakes in almost 9,000 companies globally
Kari Lundgren - Bloomberg
Norway's $1.8 trillion sovereign wealth fund divested from 49 companies last year based on sustainability assessments, down from 86 a year earlier, retaining its focus on ESG in the face of a widespread backlash against environmental, social and governance reporting. As of the end of 2025, 74% of financed emissions from companies in the fund's portfolio were covered by 2050 net zero emissions goals, Norges Bank Investment Management - as it is officially known - said in its annual sustainability report Thursday. Of the divestments, five were associated with climate risk, 15 due to insufficient risk management related to human rights and eight were related to anti-corruption efforts.
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Brussels to exempt most EU companies from carbon border tax; Over 80% to be exempted by reforms aimed at cutting red tape and boosting productivity
Paola Tamma and Andy Bounds - Financial Times
More than 80 per cent of EU companies eligible for a new carbon border tax will be exempted under reforms planned by Brussels, tax commissioner Wopke Hoekstra has said. Hoekstra told the FT he wanted to restrict the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) to the biggest importers and spare most businesses the costs of compliance and charges as part of the bloc's push to cut red tape and boost productivity.
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BP to Explore Sale of Gelsenkirchen Oil Refinery in Germany
Alex Longley and Rachel Graham - Bloomberg
BP Plc said it will look to sell its oil refinery at Gelsenkirchen in Germany, as well as some chemical assets in the country. The process will begin immediately with an aim of concluding the relevant contracts for a sale this year, the company said in an emailed statement. The site has the capacity to process 240,000 barrels a day of crude, although BP had planned to scale back operations due to high costs.
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Japan's trading houses have a duty to turn off the gas; Corporate giants are able to spread renewable energy and shape policies across Asia
Sachiko Suzuki - Nikkei Asia (opinion)
Japan's largest trading and energy companies have a responsibility to step up and help rather than hinder the transition to clean and renewable energy. Yet the seven biggest Japanese trading houses -- also known as sogo shosha -- including Mitsubishi Corp., Mitsui & Co. and Sumitomo Corp., along with JERA, the country's largest power company, are exacerbating Asia's dependence on gas and fueling harmful climate change with impunity.
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Quebec Says It's Open to LNG, Oil Projects After Trump Threats
Mathieu Dion - Bloomberg
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Gazprom Sells Austrian Gas Trading Unit to Dubai Company; EGH Gulf bought Centrex Europe as gas flow via Ukraine halted; Centrex and Italian unit are members of Austrian gas exchange
Marton Eder - Bloomberg
https://jlne.ws/4jJHWaz
Norwegian oil giant cuts green investment in half
Simon Jack - BBC News
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Cargill Buys Biofuels Supplier as It Seeks to Grow Beyond Grains; Brazil's SJC Bioenergia produces sugar, biofuels in two mills; Brazil is expanding blend of ethanol in regular gasoline
Clarice Couto - Bloomberg
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| Banks, Brokers & Managed Funds | | The latest from banks, brokers, hedge funds and managed futures | HSBC Considers CEO Pay Overhaul as UK Banks Dump Bonus Caps
Harry Wilson - Bloomberg
HSBC Holdings Plc is considering halving the fixed pay of its new Chief Executive Officer Georges Elhedery after the UK changed its rules to allow a higher proportion of remuneration to come from variable performance awards. Elhedery currently receives a base salary of £1.38 million ($1.7 million) as well as an additional fixed pay allowance worth £1.7 million. On top of this, he is entitled to an annual incentive worth a maximum of 215% of his base salary and a long-term award worth as much as 320% of his salary. Together with a pension allowance, Elhedery's current package is valued at a maximum of about £10.6 million a year.
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Nomura, Daiwa other Japan big brokers reap profits on wealth push; Retail business, M&A help drive earnings not bound to stocks in first three quarters
Haruki Kitagawa - Nikkei Asia
Total net profits at five major Japanese brokerages jumped 74% on the year in the first three quarters of fiscal 2024, underscoring the success of a pivot toward retail and high-net-worth customers that has created more consistent income streams, along with an M&A boom. Recent earnings releases by Nomura Holdings, Daiwa Securities Group, Mizuho Securities, SMBC Nikko Securities and Mitsubishi UFJ Securities Holdings show net profits totaling 644 billion yen ($4.15 billion) for the nine months through December. Their combined net revenue grew 22%.
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Why Banks May Be Hoping You're Not Paying Attention; They have no fiduciary duty in many cases and can profit from customers' confusion. But where's the line between unsavory and illegal?
Ben Blatt - The New York Times
The median American household has a combined balance of $10,000 in its checking and savings accounts, according to a census estimate. For the last few years, anyone keeping this amount in a high-yield savings account has earned close to 4 percent annual interest, or about $400 a year. But the average savings account interest rate is closer to 0.4 percent. And the nation's three largest banks - Bank of America, Chase and Wells Fargo - offer 0.01 percent on their standard savings accounts. That works out to $1 in interest a year for a $10,000 deposit Banks make up for those dismal rates with perks like numerous branches and A.T.M.s, but they also know many of their customers won't hunt for better deals out of inertia.
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UBS Swiss Capital Hit Will Likely Come Gradually, Analysts Say
Nicholas Comfort and Macarena Munoz Montijano - Bloomberg
Switzerland will probably take a gradual approach to implementing new capital regulations that UBS Group AG has warned could affect its payouts and the country's economy, according to analysts at Citigroup Inc. "Our base case is a transition period will ensue, thereby providing a degree of flexibility," Citi analysts led by Andrew Coombs in London wrote in a note to clients on Thursday.
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Deal scoop: Ultimus Fund Solutions and HedgeServ are seeking buyers
Luisa Beltran - Fortune
Two firms that provide administrative services to funds, Ultimus Fund Solutions and HedgeServ, are seeking new investors as the dealmakers wait for mergers to rebound.
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John Rogers steps down as portfolio manager for Ariel Appreciation Fund
Mark Weinraub - Crain's Chicago Business
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Sequoia Capital's Evergreen Fund Grows to Almost $20 Billion
Kate Clark - Bloomberg
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Pimco Is Falling Behind as Private Credit Booms; The fund giant's dive into the private-markets gold rush has been much more tentative than rivals. There's a danger of getting left behind.
Laura Benitez - Bloomberg
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Brevan Howard Erases Most of 2024 Gains as Currency Bets Sour
Nishant Kumar and Donal Griffin - Bloomberg
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BlackRock plans to hire 1,200 people in India ramp-up, Bloomberg News reports
Reuters
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| Work & Management | | Stories impacting work and more about management ideas, practices and trends. | A Fifth of Melbourne's Offices Are Empty as Home Working Endures; City's vacancies are 18%, higher than any city in Australia; Melbourne was one of world's most locked-down cities
Nasteho Said - Bloomberg
Almost a fifth of Melbourne's offices are empty after work-from home trends pushed vacancies to the highest in Australia, according to data from the Property Council of Australia. Some 18% of office space is empty in Melbourne, which was one of the world's most locked down cities during the pandemic, data released Thursday show. The vacancy rate was 4.3% above the national average as at January, with Sydney at 12.8% and Brisbane at 10.2%.
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Friday's Jobs Report Will Be Confusing. Here's How to Make Sense of It.; The Labor Department's January survey will include revisions making data for previous months look stronger in some cases and weaker in others.
Ben Casselman - The New York Times
The Labor Department's latest monthly report on hiring and unemployment will include revisions for previous months that should give a more accurate picture of the U.S. job market - but that could also sow confusion. When the data is released on Friday, one major measure of employment will be revised up. Another will be revised down. Some historical numbers will be revised, but others won't. And the updates, though part of a routine process, will be taking place in a political environment where both sides have at times expressed skepticism of government economic statistics.
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Oil Trader Wins UK Anti-Poaching Suit After Worker Feigned Illness; Dare International sued Stephen Soliman and Ashley Hikmet; A 12-month restriction was reasonable, UK court ruled
Upmanyu Trivedi and Alex Longley - Bloomberg
British energy trading firm Dare International Ltd. won a UK lawsuit to enforce a year long break for two traders poached by a rival after a trial that featured private investigators, leaked trade secrets and a trading floor where juniors were often shouted upon. A 12-month restriction was reasonable to protect Dare's confidential information, a London judge said in a ruling. Crude trader Ashley Hikmet "feigned sickness" to avoid working during his notice period and disclosed confidential information to Onyx Capital Management Ltd., the judge said.
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Hongkongers in UK struggle to make skills pay in jobs market; Barriers to employment for new migrants mean many are overqualified
Delphine Strauss - Financial Times
Eric, a surveyor with a master's degree and 15 years' experience managing big government contracts, did everything he could to improve his job prospects before moving from Hong Kong to the UK in May 2023. He secured UK professional accreditation, settled in Manchester because of its building boom and began sending out his CV as soon as he had a permanent address. But after six months scouring job boards, Eric - whose name has been changed to protect his identity - had only managed to find a two-month stint sorting Christmas mail.
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| Wellness Exchange | | An Exchange of Health and Wellness Information | Are Eggs Safe to Eat as Bird Flu Spreads? Here's what experts want you to know.
Dani Blum - The New York Times
Bird flu is striking chickens across the country, causing shortages and pushing up prices at retailers and restaurants. Last week, one of the nation's largest egg producers said that hens at one of its Indiana farms had tested positive for avian influenza. Researchers have stressed that bird flu still poses a minimal risk to the general public, though that may change as the virus continues to circulate and potentially mutate. But the many empty shelves in stores and higher prices on the eggs that people can find have raised concerns among consumers about the safety of the egg supply.
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Cows Have Been Infected With a Second Form of Bird Flu; A new version of the virus is widespread in wild birds but had not previously been detected in cows.
Emily Anthes and Apoorva Mandavilli - The New York Times
Dairy cows in Nevada have been infected with a new form of bird flu that is distinct from the version that has been spreading through herds over the last year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced on Wednesday. The finding indicates that the virus, known as H5N1, has spilled from birds into cows at least twice - leading to these two sets of infections - and that it could continue to do so. It also suggests that the virus may pose a persistent risk to cows and to the people who work closely with them.
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Trump Considers Labeling Migrants a Measles, Tuberculosis Risk; Advisers have searched for disease threats that would merit emergency health law invoked during Trump's first term for Covid-19 risk
Michelle Hackman - The Wall Street Journal
The Trump administration is considering a move to repel asylum seekers at the southern border on the basis that they might bring measles or tuberculosis infections with them into the U.S., current and former officials said. President Trump's advisers have been looking for evidence of disease threats that would merit reviving a policy they used during the pandemic in his first term to push back migrants who sought asylum at the border, the current and former officials said. The Trump administration sees the emergency health law, known as Title 42, as overriding laws that guarantee migrants a right to request humanitarian protection in the U.S.
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| Regions | | Stories of local interest from the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions | Tungsten Miner Says Clients in Shock as China Chokes Supply
Annie Lee - Bloomberg
The phone has been ringing off the hook for Lewis Black after China imposed export controls on tungsten, a niche metal mined by his firm that's crucial to weapons manufacturing. The chief executive officer of North America's Almonty Industries Inc. said his customers are in a "state of disbelief" following Beijing's move on Tuesday, one of a suite of measures announced as a riposte to tariffs placed on Chinese goods by the Trump administration. China accounts for about 80% of the world's tungsten output, and there are concerns the government could add measures around tungsten scrap that would further constrict its availability. Almonty's stock in Toronto has soared 41% over the last two days as investors price in scarcer supply of the super-dense material used in armor-piercing munitions, as well for engine parts and chip making.
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McKinsey Partners Debate China Presence as US Tensions Rise; Some senior partners doubt whether China is worth the risk Managing Partner Sternfels says firm needs to stay global
Ambereen Choudhury and Chanyaporn Chanjaroen - Bloomberg
McKinsey & Co. partners have been questioning the consulting giant's presence in China, worried that doing business there may not be worth the risks given the Asian superpower's increasingly volatile relationship with the US. Some senior partners have been voicing these concerns since late last year, even before Donald Trump was re-elected with a pledge to ratchet up pressure on China, according to people familiar with the matter. The partners argue the lucrative North American business can more than offset a China retreat, some of the people said, declining to be identified as the details are private.
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Australia's banks urge Parliament to regulate mobile wallets; Australia's banks are urging the government to swiftly pass legislation that will ensure the counry's payments regulatory framework remains fit-for-purpose as digital payments continue to skyrocket.
Editorial - Finextra
According to the Reserve bank of Australia, each month citizens are now making over 500 million payments with mobile wallets worth over $20 billion. The Australian Treasury has proposed far-reaching reforms that will widen the regulatory net to incorporate a new wave of products and services that are making the running in the digital economy. The aim is to amend the Payment Systems (Regulation) Act 1998 to update the definition of 'payment' and 'payments systems' to capture new methods.
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Finland Proposes Law to Ban Russians From Buying Real Estate
Leo Laikola - Bloomberg
Finland is moving ahead with its plan to stop property purchases by some foreign nationals after security concerns surfaced over such deals with links to neighboring Russia. The government in Helsinki on Thursday submitted to lawmakers a draft bill, which is aimed at stopping Russians from making any real estate acquisitions in the Nordic NATO member that shares the military bloc's border with its main adversary.
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Ghana wants more for its cashews, but it's a tough nut to crack
Ed Butler - BBC News
Cashew nuts, which grow from beneath cashew fruits, are a big export crop for Ghana The Accra street vendor looks at me, bemused. I'm trying to establish how the rather flimsy 30g bag of roasted cashew nuts she's selling, beside a sweltering highway in Ghana's capital, costs me the equivalent of about 75 cents (60p). That's obviously not a lot of money for me, a visitor from the UK, but I'm amazed at the mark up. The price is at least 4,000% higher than the cost of buying the same weight of raw, unshelled cashews from a Ghanian farmer.
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