| October 10, 2016 | "Irreverent, but never irrelevant" | | | | John Lothian
Publisher
John Lothian News | |
|
| | | | First Read | | |
| | 2016 Newsletter Subscriptions: | |
Government bars foreign academics from advising on Brexit
Jon Henley - The Guardian
Leading foreign academics acting as expert advisers to the UK government have been told they will not be asked to contribute to government work and analysis on Brexit because they are not British nationals. The news was met with outrage by many academics, while legal experts questioned whether it could be legal under anti-discrimination laws and senior politicians criticised it as bewildering.
/goo.gl/b9Mx5h
**JK: Is Britain building a wall for academics? And here we thought it was only for migrants.
++++
Economists From Harvard and MIT Share Nobel for Contract Theory
Jonas O Bergman - Bloomberg
Harvard University's Oliver Hart and Bengt Holmström of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology won the 2016 Nobel Prize in Economics for laying the groundwork for contract theory and its role in shaping everything from executive pay to public sector privatizations.
jlne.ws/2e3nhO9
**JK: University of Chicago economists are having a bad day.
++++
Wind Is the New Corn for Struggling Farmers; Seventy percent of U.S. turbines are in low-income rural areas.
Jennifer Oldham - Bloomberg
Wind energy, the fastest-growing source of electricity in the U.S., is transforming low-income rural areas in ways not seen since the federal government gave land to homesteaders 150 years ago. As commodity prices threaten to reach decade lows and farmers struggle to meet debt payments, wind has become the newest cash crop, saving family farms across a wide swath of the heartland.
/goo.gl/JqMvcW
**JK: There's politics and business. Business is winning here.
++++
Gary DeWaal, Katten Muchin Rosenman - Regulation, Compliance and the Grandma Test
MarketsWikiEducation.com
"The more you apply your inherent skill set to a job, and the more that job requires your inherent skill set, the greater the formula is for success. And, more importantly, the happier you'll be."
When you are faced with a difficult decision, picture this: you're sitting at Thanksgiving dinner, the family is gathered around the table, and grandma comes in holding a newspaper with your picture on it. If she is happy to read about your decision, it was probably a good decision. If not, it was probably the wrong decision.
Gary DeWaal knows regulation. He knows that good financial market regulation serves the public interest, and is neither overly prescriptive nor overly ambiguous. Good financial regulation addresses not only the state of the market structure, but also anticipates the future of the market and its participants.
He says that no regulation is perfect, but that the perfect should not be the enemy of the good. And as for those minor imperfections? Well, grandma is watching.
Watch the video »
****This is the fourth of our ten New York 2016 presentations. We recently released http://www.johnlothiannews.com/2016/09/bill-looney-cboe-champions-mindset/|Bill Looney of CBOE,]] Kristin Boggiano of Guggenheim Partners, Bill Harts of the Modern Markets Initiative, Adena Friedman of Nasdaq. and Kenny Polcari of O'Neil Securities We will finish out the New York run just as the team steps onto the plane for London.
++++
Why Are So Many Men Not Working? They're in Pain; Stopping the decades long slide in labor force participation should be a national priority, economist Alan Krueger says.
Peter Coy - Bloomberg
A large share of American men between the ages of 25 and 54 who aren't in the labor force may suffer from serious health conditions that are "a barrier to work" and suffer physical pain, sadness, and stress in their daily lives, according to research being presented next week by Princeton University labor economist Alan Krueger.
/goo.gl/Fqyr26
***** Why do we have an opiate problem? Because people are in pain.
++++
Friday's Top Three
Friday's top read stories started with flash with Bloomberg's [[http://jlne.ws/2e7N3Vp|
Flash Crash of the Pound Baffles Traders With Algorithms Being Blamed]]. After that we went right to the bar with Bloomberg's Manhattan's Dead Rabbit Is Named the World's Best Bar. The third most read story was another Bloomberg piece, Russia Becomes a Grain Superpower as Wheat Exports Explode
++++
++++
|
| | | | |
| Lead Stories | Liquidity Illusion Burns Traders Blindsided by Pound's Crash
Lananh Nguyen, Andrea Wong - Bloomberg
BofA warns 'phantom liquidity' vanishing in times of stress; Sterling tumbled 6.1% in a matter of minutes on Oct. 7
The inexplicable volatility that roiled the British pound last week came as no surprise to Bank of America Corp., which just days earlier warned that liquidity in the $5.1 trillion-per-day global currency market was far worse than anyone imagined.
/goo.gl/dRMUo9
Carney calls for sterling flash crash investigation; Pound fell 6% in two minutes
Laura Dew - Investment Week
Bank of England governor Mark Carney has asked the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) to investigate Friday's flash crash in sterling which saw it fall to a fresh 31-year low.
/goo.gl/lNGIeQ
Tel Aviv Stock Exchange Loses Second Chief in as Many Months
Yaacov Benmeleh - Bloomberg
The acting chief executive officer of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange resigned on Monday, the second time the head of Israel's bourse has quit in two months. Gal Landau-Yaari, 41, previously the deputy to former CEO Yossi Beinart, will continue in her role until the end of the year, according to an e-mailed statement, which didn't say why she stepped down or name a replacement. Beinart, who had been on leave for health reasons since June, resigned in September.
/goo.gl/fB8Xa9
***** Here is the September 21 Bloomberg story about Yossi Beinart stepping down for health reasons.
Nasdaq plans China commodity futures trading in Singapore; Exchange joins rivals in wider push into Asia derivatives trading
by: Jeevan Vasagar in Singapore - FT
Nasdaq is planning to give investors direct exposure to China's freight, iron ore and crude oil markets, through offshore futures contracts traded in Singapore  joining other exchanges in a wider push into Asian derivatives trading.
/goo.gl/cfiWb9
Deutsche Bank was given special treatment in EU stress tests; German lender's result was boosted by a special concession agreed by the European Central Bank
by: Laura Noonan, Caroline Binham and James Shotter - FT
Deutsche Bank was given special treatment in the summer EU stress tests that promised to restore faith in Europe's banks by assessing all of their finances in the same way.
/goo.gl/EHfnJP
Citadel pulls a bit of a comeback
Bloomberg via Crain's Chicago Business
Tough year? Not anymore. Hedge fund giant Citadel, which posted losses amid market turmoil in the first quarter, saw most of its hedge funds return to profitability in the third quarter. The firm's flagship multistrategy Wellington fund rose 2 percent in September, bringing its gain for the year to 2.6 percent, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The fund posted a 7.3 percent gain last quarter, said the person, who asked not to be named because the information is private.
/goo.gl/Jg8xm8
Hedge funds post modest rise in September, still lag stock market: HFR
Reuters
Hedge fund returns inched ahead in September to finish their strongest quarter of the year, new data released on Friday showed, but they are still lagging the broader stock market's gains.
/goo.gl/UB46Gx
A Great Cost Migration Is Upending the Financial Industry
By Eric Balchunas - Bloomberg
Janus saw the writing on the wall. And it wasn't pretty. Like many big asset managers, Janus Capital Group is caught on the wrong side of two powerful trends that are reshaping the financial industry.
/goo.gl/vvo9p8
Titans of Finance Gather and Sulk Over Low Rates, Deutsche Bank
Hugh Son, Yalman_Onaran - Bloomberg
Fiscal policy, rules and radical politics seen as obstacles; Goldman's Gary Cohn calls central banks 'ineffective cartel'
Mary Callahan Erdoes, one of JPMorgan Chase & Co.'s most senior executives, summed up her industry's mood like this: "There is no excitement," she told throngs of bankers gathered in Washington. "There is a lot of handwringing."
/goo.gl/1Gfmoa
Risky banks face higher capital needs from latest Basel reforms; Global standard setter presses on amid transatlantic spat over rules
by: Caroline Binham in London and Jim Brunsden in Brussels - FT
Risky lenders may face a "significant" increase in capital in the latest round of bank safety reforms, the global standard-setter has warned in a development that is likely to exacerbate a transatlantic spat and threaten co-ordinated worldwide banking rules.
/goo.gl/3esdZP
Computer revolution? Good investments still need the human touch; Smart beta approaches risk making dumb mistakes
by: Miles Johnson - FT
Parts of the modern investment industry appear to view reading through company accounts as like hand-washing dishes or waiting in the rain to hail a taxi  a loathsome task that will eventually be eliminated by technology.
/goo.gl/wja2jP
The trillion-dollar reason why Wall Street should take gender diversity more seriously
Akin Oyedele - Business Insider
There are plenty of reasons why companies and investors should take gender diversity seriously. But if a quantitative reason based on stock-market returns is needed, Morgan Stanley has it. Strategists at the bank recently updated their study on 1,600 public companies around the world and found that the shares of public companies that are more gender diverse experience less volatility and outperform those that aren't.
/goo.gl/Lgmx2s
GE quits financial services: Capital punishment
The Economist
Among the proud titans humiliated in the financial crisis of 2007-08 was GE, forced to take a government bail-out in 2008. In response it swiftly slimmed down its lending arm, GE Capital. But the regulators were still not happy. In 2013 they labelled it a "systemically important financial institution" (SIFI), ie, one big enough to pose a global risk. That imposed costly regulatory burdens and encouraged GE's boss, Jeffrey Immelt, to announce in April 2015 that he would wind down most of GE's finance division within three years. In a remarkable corporate transformation, he is ahead of schedule.
/goo.gl/KKDlnP
Corporate Bonds Have Become a Deal-Seeker's Nightmare; Rising currency hedging costs mean investors are facing unpalatable choices leading to "the definition of reach-for-yield behavior," according to Deutsche Bank analysts.
Tracy Alloway - Bloomberg
There are no bargains left in U.S. corporate credit, according to Deutsche Bank AG.
Ultra-low interest rates in Europe, Japan and the U.K. have spurred investors to seek returns by buying the debt sold by U.S. companies with investment-grade ratings, leading some analysts to label the market as "the only game in town." But the rush into the asset class and the rising cost of protecting against currency-risk on dollar-denominated securities means foreign investors are facing an increasingly unpalatable menu of options when it comes to generating higher returns by buying U.S. corporate debt.
/goo.gl/D4OKLo
Bond ETF volumes surge to record highs; Investors pile in more than $100bn this year, a rise of 24 per cent
by: Thomas Hale - FT
Investors have piled more than $100bn into bond exchange traded funds so far this year, taking the global total to its highest ever level as fixed income investors adapt to a changing financial ecosystem.
/goo.gl/1At3JI
|
| | | |
|
| Brexit | | Financials stories regarding the recent decision of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union | Hard Brexit to cost 2,000 Goldman jobs
Aimee Donnellan - The Times
Goldman Sachs is preparing to move almost 2,000 highly paid staff out of London if the government opts for a "hard" break from the EU. The Wall Street giant will switch nearly one in three of its bankers to rival European cities if Britain loses preferential access to the single market.
/goo.gl/kRoyHq
Germany well-placed for post-Brexit migration of London business
Laura Noonan, Oliver Ralph and Patrick Jenkins - Financial Times
Frankfurt and Germany's other financial hubs are better placed than EU rivals to capture any post-Brexit migration of business and jobs from the City of London, new data compiled by the Financial Times suggests.
/goo.gl/0323CQ
Wall Street bosses warn on Brexit risks; JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon and Morgan Stanley's James Gorman fear wider crisis
Martin Arnold - Financial Times
Leading Wall Street banks are more likely to head for New York than the eurozone if they move out of London, their bosses have indicated, adding that the UK's exit from the EU could trigger a break-up of the remaining bloc.
/goo.gl/AQrtBP
Brexit makes eurozone sustainability less likely: JPMorgan CEO
Reuters
Britain's vote to leave the European Union has made it more likely that the euro zone will not be around in 10 years, JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) CEO Jamie Dimon told bankers on Friday. "Brexit makes the chance of the euro zone not surviving 10 years from now five times higher," Dimon said at the Institute of International Finance's 2016 annual membership meeting in Washington.
/goo.gl/AZqDd0
Goldman Sachs Says No Decision Taken on Post-Brexit U.K. Staff
Simon Kennedy - Bloomberg
Sunday Times reported Goldman to move 2,000 in hard Brexit; Goldman says it's still studying implications of withdrawal
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said it has yet to decide whether to move jobs from London after the Sunday Times reported it was preparing to shift 2,000 staff if Brexit costs banks easy access to Europe's single market.
/goo.gl/yqRAbv
The Brexit Conundrum - Freedom Of Movement Means Only Hard, Or Clean, Brexit Is Possible
Tim Worstall - Forbes
The negotiating lines from the Continent are becoming much clearer. The essential statement is that membership of, or any form of privileged access to, the Single Market will require that Britain accept full freedom of movement for all European Union citizens.
/goo.gl/FVeuIP
|
| | | |
|
| Deutsche Bank News | | A roundup of stories surrounding the troubles at Deutsche Bank. | Deutsche Bank CEO Hasn't Reached Accord With U.S., Bild Reports
Laura J Keller - Bloomberg
Deutsche Bank AG Chief Executive Officer John Cryan failed to reach an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department to resolve a years-long investigation into its mortgage-bond dealings during a meeting in Washington Friday, Germany's Bild newspaper reported.
/goo.gl/ThlpSv
Deutsche Bank says derivatives exposure fears overblown: paper
Reuters
Deutsche Bank (DBKGn.DE) is continuing to cut back the size of its derivatives book, which is not as risky as investors may believe, Chief Risk Officer Stuart Lewis told German weekly paper Welt am Sonntag. "The risks in our derivatives book are massively overestimated," Lewis told the paper. He said 46 trillion euros in derivatives exposure at Deutsche appeared large but reflected only the notional value of the contracts, while the bank's net exposure to derivatives was far lower, at around 41 billion euros.
/goo.gl/8Ujhw4
Deutsche Bank gets top investor support, CEO in talks with banks
Tom Finn and Arno Schuetze - Reuters
Deutsche Bank has secured backing from its largest investor and is seeking advice from other banks as it scrambles to restore market confidence undermined by a demand by U.S. authorities for up to $14 billion over mis-selling allegations. Qatari investors who own the largest stake in Germany's largest bank do not plan to sell their shares and could consider buying more if it decides to raise capital, sources familiar with Qatari investment policy told Reuters.
/goo.gl/H6Por7
|
| | | |
|
| Exchanges, OTC & Clearing | | Top news from exchanges, clearing, settlement and trade execution facilities | Nasdaq plans China commodity futures trading in Singapore
The Irish Times
Nasdaq is planning to give investors direct exposure to China's freight, iron ore and crude oil markets, through offshore futures contracts traded in Singapore  joining other exchanges in a wider push into Asian derivatives trading. Hanne Johansson, Nasdaq's global head of commodity sales, said the exchange believes new products can help satisfy demand for offshore access to Chinese markets, in much the same way as offshore renminbi trading in Hong Kong and London does.
/goo.gl/2a04ZX
Started Source GPR Real Estate Europe UCITS ETF launched on Xetra; ETF provides access to leading property companies in Europe
Deutsche Boerse
Since Monday, a new equity index funds from the ETF issued by Source in the XTF Segment on Xetra and the Frankfurt Stock Exchange is traded.
/goo.gl/EUySzw
|
| | | |
|
| Politics | | An overview of politics during an election year as it relates to the financial markets | Financial markets continue to price in Clinton win after debate
Caroline Valetkevitch and Rodrigo Campos - Reuters
Wall Street stock index futures were little changed throughout Sunday's highly contentious presidential debate, indicating that markets continue to view that Democrat Hillary Clinton holds an edge in the Nov. 8 election against her Republican rival, Donald Trump.
jlne.ws/2e3p9Gx
The Pound Crash Is a Big Wake-Up Call to U.S. Traders Ahead of the Election
Julie Verhage and Sid Verma - Bloomberg
The shocking overnight plunge in the pound  one of the world's most-traded currencies  draws attention to how outsized volatility can take the markets by storm.
/goo.gl/uo1fnd
Mexican Peso Soars to Month High Amid Furor Over Trump Tapes
Filipe Pacheco and Arif Sharif - Bloomberg
During the first televised debate two weeks ago between the U.S. presidential candidates, Mexico's peso began rallying as traders judged Hillary Clinton to have gotten the edge over Donald Trump. This time, the currency started surging well before the two opponents were due to start sparring. The peso jumped 1.5 percent to 19.0150 per U.S. dollar within in an hour of markets opening in Asia on Monday.
/goo.gl/kfJZUx
Why The Business Community May Favor Clinton Over Trump
Daniel B. Kline - Motley Fool via Newsweek
While the economy only represents one motivating factor behind why people vote, an election pitting a businessman against a career politician puts an added focus on it.
/goo.gl/QMh0I3
What We Saw in the Second Debate; Trump vs. Clinton on women, national security and everything else. Times Opinion writers weighed in
By WILL WILKINSON
'Because You'd Be in Jail'
About 20 minutes into the debate, Donald Trump delivered a menacing threat to Hillary Clinton. "If I win," he warned, "I'm going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation, because there's never been so many lies, so much deception."
/goo.gl/Plf5Rp
|
| | | |
|
| Investing & Trading | | Today's top stories from fixed income, currencies and commodities (FICC) | Sterling flash crash needed computers, but a human was probably the cause
Reuters via CNBC
Sterling's short-lived 10-percent fall on Friday could not have happened without the lightning-fast computer-driven trading that now dominates the $5-trillion a day foreign exchange market. But a person, not a machine, was probably ultimately the cause. The Bank of England is still investigating the cause of the sudden price move. But traders and senior managers at some of the main non-bank market makers said Friday's crash probably stemmed from an error in the parameters of one of the algorithms that more sophisticated players routinely use to execute larger orders.
/goo.gl/nR0aP8
The ETF With the 0.00% Fee
Jason Zweig - WSJ
This past week, BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, cut management fees on some of its iShares exchange-traded funds to as low as 0.04%, or $4 on a $10,000 investment. Charles Schwab quickly followed suit. But why stop there? Cambria Global Asset Allocation ETF, run by Cambria Investment Management of El Segundo, Calif., assesses a management fee of zero (although the funds it holds charge 0.25%). At least two ETFs in Europe have total expenses of zero, says Deborah Fuhr, managing partner of ETFGI, a research firm in London.
jlne.ws/2dT0loK
Charles Schwab Fires Another Salvo in ETF Fee War
Chris Dieterich - WSJ
Charles Schwab won't be left out of the fee war raging in the exchange-traded fund industry and the brokerage has BlackRock in its cross hairs. Schwab on Friday announced lower expenses for five of its ETFs that collectively hold about $18 billion in assets. Schwab's announcement comes just days after BlackRock, the world's largest money manager, cut fees on more than one dozen of its iShares ETFs. It's the second time in less than a year that Schwab quickly fired back at BlackRock.
/goo.gl/Q69l2N
Stock Market Dogs Top Darlings as Investors Resist Momentum
Lu Wang - Bloomberg
For stock market investors, 2016 is shaping up as the year of the dog. Since January, buying the worst-performing stocks over the prior three months has beaten the strategy of wagering on past leaders, delivering a nine-month winning streak that's the longest since at least 1996, data compiled by FBN Securities and Bloomberg show. The extra return from chasing these so-called dogs has amounted to 33 percentage points, a clear departure from 2015 when buying winners was the trade of the year.
/goo.gl/IoTs4c
Rieger Report: Retail Bond Transaction Costs Show Improvement
S&P Indexology
Tracking the mark up on retail size bond transactions can be a tricky effort particularly as mark ups have not be disclosed in the past. By comparing trades of bonds of similar characteristics we are able to isolate and calculate estimated transaction costs published in our study "Unveiling the Hidden Costs of Retail Buying & Selling".
/goo.gl/josYnm
Activist funds change tack to fill up board seats; Hedge funds scale back campaigns to focus on changing companies from within
by: James Fontanella-Khan and Mary Childs in New York - FT
Shareholder activists have targeted far fewer companies so far this year, yet they have won a record number of board seats as they focus more on changing companies from within, according to Lazard research.
/goo.gl/AXckig
Buy-side must make changes now for MiFID II end-investor rules; Report has urged buy-side companies to act now to ensure compliance with MiFID II requirements on protecting end-investors.
By Hayley McDowell - The Trade
Buy-side firms have been urged to begin making changes now to ensure compliance with MiFID II requirements aimed at protecting end-investors.
/goo.gl/SRwU8s
|
| | | |
|
| Banks, Brokers & Managed Funds | | The latest from banks, brokers, hedge funds and managed futures | RBS Seeks to Ease Pressure Over Treatment of Small Firms
Richard Partington - Bloomberg
U.K. bank had project code-named 'Dash for Cash,' BBC Says; Lender says leaks don't support allegations against bank
Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc denied deliberately forcing the collapse of small-business customers in the wake of the financial crisis after two news organizations published leaked internal documents.
The majority taxpayer-owned lender sought to make more money from small-and medium-sized enterprises that ran into trouble during the financial crisis as part of a project code-named "Dash for Cash," according to documents published Monday by the BBC and Buzzfeed News. While Edinburgh-based RBS said in a statement it failed to meet its own standards and let some customers down, it denied deliberately forcing their collapse.
/goo.gl/gjGPE5
Britain to Resume Sale of Lloyds Banking Group Stake
Chad Bray - NY Times
The British government said on Friday that it would begin to sell down its remaining holdings in the Lloyds Banking Group but would not proceed with an offering to retail investors because of market turmoil. U.K. Financial Investments, which manages the government's stake in the bank, said it would seek to sell the remaining 9.1 percent holding in the lender over the next 12 months through a trading plan managed by Morgan Stanley.
/goo.gl/wGdYKl
Credit Suisse places five employees on leave over tax probe
Reuters
Credit Suisse (CSGN.S) has placed five employees on leave while it carries out an internal investigation related to tax matters, the Swiss bank said on Sunday.
/goo.gl/JBfhrG
Wells Fargo banking scandal a financial crisis we can finally understand
Suzanne McGee - The Guardian
For most Americans the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis was all too obvious. The economy imploded, jobs disappeared, house prices collapsed. But coming to grips with the reason it was happening - the run on mortgage-backed securities, collateralized debt obligations (AKA, CDOs), credit default swaps, synthetic derivatives, tranches - was not so easy.
/goo.gl/Py8iSY
UBS CEO Says Asset-Management Industry to See More Consolidation
Jeffrey Voegeli - Bloomberg
UBS Group AG Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti said he expects to see more consolidation among asset managers, adding that he can't rule out an acquisition.
/goo.gl/PtHvW1
Banks ponder the meaning of life as Deutsche agonizes
Carmel Crimmins and Olivia Oran - Reuters
It wasn't just Deutsche Bank that was grappling with big questions about the future at the International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington last week. The German bank is scrambling to overhaul its operations as it faces a multi-billion dollar fine for selling toxic mortgage-backed securities in the United States. But many others in the banking industry are also still figuring out what they should be doing, nearly a decade after the financial crisis, as they grapple with anemic economic growth, wafer-thin returns on lending and the possibility that regulators will further hike their cost of doing business.
/goo.gl/7KA7A8
Victory Financial's managing director a role model for women seeking careers among middle-sized brokerages
Enoch Yiu - South China Morning Post
In a local financial industry dominated by men, Katerine Kou Kuen stands out as among the few women at the helm of a mid-sized brokerage, overseeing Victory Financial Group, the trading house established by her father 45 years ago. "The brokerage business involves a lot of networking activities, including gatherings with customers and other brokers. Women, who are a minority in this industry, may find it hard to mingle," Kou, who is managing director at Victory Financial, said.
/goo.gl/Gb4xtw
UBS CEO: European banks 'in much better shape' now than several years ago
Reuters
The European banking system is in "much better shape" than it was several years ago, UBS Group AG (UBSG.S)(UBS.N) Chief Executive Officer Sergio Ermotti said on Friday. "The last two weeks are a testament to that," Ermotti said at the 2016 Institute of International Finance Annual Membership Meeting in Washington. "The same kind of dynamics seven or eight years ago would have created a major fallout."
/goo.gl/3Iw8eW
Asset management: Active defence
The Economist
When firms merge, their bosses gush Panglossian jargon. So it was with the tie-up announced this week of Henderson Global Investors, an Anglo-Australian asset manager, and Janus Capital, an American one. Janus Henderson, as the combined business will be known, will become a "truly global" asset manager that will deliver "compelling value creation", boasted its American half. Yet behind the boosterism lie the real fears of active fund managers: of losing business to passive onesÂie, those offering funds that simply track a market index. It is hard not to see the merger as, more than anything, a defensive move.
/goo.gl/HkZRlW
UBS exited Wanda deal over compliance; Swiss bank was uncomfortable with structure of $4.4bn transaction
by: Don Weinland and Jennifer Hughes in Hong Kong - FT
UBS walked away from a $4.4bn deal to take a Dalian Wanda unit into private ownership despite initially proposing the move, clearing the way for a rival Chinese bank to take the lead financial adviser role.
/goo.gl/WTuSGI
The Dash For Cash: Leaked Files Reveal RBS Systematically Crushed British Businesses For Profit
Buzzfeed
The RBS Files expose the bank's secret scheme to boost revenues during the financial crisis by draining businesses of cash and stripping their assets, blowing apart its previous statements to the public and parliament.
/goo.gl/Pg9bL4
Religious investors lose faith in Wells Fargo after scandal
By Ross Kerber - Reuters
A group of nuns and other religiously-affiliated investors have lost faith in embattled Wells Fargo & Co and filed a shareholder resolution calling on the bank to report on the root causes of a fake accounts scandal that led to a $190 million settlement struck with regulators last month.
/goo.gl/bwQETz
|
| | | |
|
| Fintech | | A roundup of today's market tech news and a look at tomorrow's disruptors | Blockchain: a game of winners and losers
Hayley McDowell - The Trade
The hype around blockchain has been focused on its potential to revolutionise the financial services industry. The disruptive technology is set to lower costs, improve transparency and reduce the overall complexity of financial transactions. In some cases, blockchain could possibly replace current centralised business models in the financial sector, as distributed ledger technology (DLT) works its way through disrupting the industry one section at a time.
/goo.gl/qBPPpO
As Investment in Fintech Goes Billion-Dollar Stratospheric, There's an Ancient Principle Uniting the Source Code
Nick Murray-Leslie - TABB Forum
Back in 350 B.C., Aristotle observed that assigning monetary value to an otherwise insignificant thing - such as a coin - could only happen because of the human capacity for trust. He noted that through their trading relationships, people had evolved a natural, psychological capacity to place trust in each other, as part of a trading exchange. Today, it is well documented that trust is low in, and across, financial markets. A culture of excess, charges of lax compliance and regulation, and the behavior of some has caused enormous reputational, political and societal damage.
/goo.gl/ArWLxW
Fed's Brainard sees blockchain as revolutionary, but still to prove itself
Reuters
The technology behind the controversial bitcoin electronic currency could lead to sweeping improvements in how financial transactions are carried out worldwide, Federal Reserve Governor Lael Brainard said on Friday. But only if it can be safeguarded from hackers and terrorists, and not grind to a halt in a crisis.
/goo.gl/C8lV4p
Barclays SPECS tool launches in Europe to give greater order control; SPECS provides portal for buy-side traders to view, verify and request changes to equities order handling.
By Hayley McDowell - The Trade
Barclays has announced its equities order handling tool is available in Europe from this week, following its launch in the US.
/goo.gl/V97AgJ
|
| | | |
|
| Regulation & Enforcement | | For more regulatory, visit MarketsReformWiki, our website focused on current market reform efforts. | Libor trader goes to court in bid to overturn ban
Marion Dakers - The Telegraph
A former UBS trader is pushing the financial watchdog to reveal the details of its investigation into the bank during the Libor scandal, in a bid to have his ban from the City reversed.
/goo.gl/B8ZuxO
Lynn Tilton Just Can't Stop Suing the SEC
Paul Barrett - Bloomberg
Lynn Tilton has invited me to her lawyer's office to explain why she's not the fraud the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission claims she is. While she's at it, the distressed debt mogul elaborates on her latest lawsuit contending the regulator operates unconstitutionally. "I just want the truth," says Tilton. "All I've ever wanted was a fair forum."
/goo.gl/7Y3Qgx
Risky banks face higher capital needs from latest Basel reforms
Caroline Binham and Jim Brunsden - Financial Times
Risky lenders may face a "significant" increase in capital in the latest round of bank safety reforms, the global standard-setter has warned in a development that is likely to exacerbate a transatlantic spat and threaten co-ordinated worldwide banking rules. William Coen, the secretary-general of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, said on Friday that a package of measures intended to stop banks gaming existing rules were still on track to be finalised by the end of the year, despite a rare public pushback last week from the EU.
/goo.gl/1m6hzf
CFTC 'puzzled' by CPMI-Iosco plan on margin pro-cyclicality
Risk.net
Prescriptive models could increase systemic risk at CCPs, market participants warn
International regulatory standard-setting bodies are creating "solutions in search of a problem" by proposing that clearing houses introduce prescriptive new quantitative metrics to detect possible pro-cyclical effects embedded within their initial margin (IM) models, a senior US supervisor has claimed.
/goo.gl/ixLBa0
Pennsylvania adopts new fracking regulations
David DeKok - Reuters
New regulations governing the extraction of natural gas through fracking will go into effect on Saturday in Pennsylvania, the first overhaul since the industry took off in the state more than 10 years ago. The new rules allow the state's department of environmental protection to require additional measures if fracking is taking place near public resources, and requires drillers to restore water supply that is degraded or damaged through fracking, according to the statement.
/goo.gl/3KF0xc
U.S.' Lew says UK authorities need time to probe pound crash
Reuters
U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said on Friday it was necessary to give British authorities some time to determine what drove a steep drop in the pound before jumping to conclusions.
/goo.gl/7h4n6s
|
| | | |
|
| Regions | | Stories of local interest from the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions | How to read the renminbi tea leaves; Currency fix will be seen as a signal China is comfortable with more depreciation
by: Jennifer Hughes in Hong Kong
Nothing says global reserve currency status like hitting a six-year low. Or so it would seem for China, which has marked the renminbi's first full day of trading since joining the International Monetary Fund's basket, by fixing its currency above Rmb6.7 to the dollar for the first time since October 2010.
/goo.gl/NHYY4Y
Libya Starts Expanding Oil Exports  for Now, at Least
Clifford Krauss - NY Times
Little more than a week after the OPEC cartel moved to reduce oil supplies on the glutted global market, embattled Libya has reopened a major seaport terminal for oil exports and has announced that it intends to expand production through the rest of the year. The expansion, if successful  some experts have doubts  would effectively cancel out much of the cuts recently agreed to by Saudi Arabia and other members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
/goo.gl/do8F8Y
China Takes Flak From Foreign Finance Officials at IMF, World Bank Meetings
William Mauldin - WSJ
Finance officials trying to avert the next global economic crisis found time at a summit here to worry about something besides Brexit and European banks: China's mounting debts and its flagging economic overhauls. The country's surging credit growth, overcapacity in its steel and metals industries and its bloated housing market drew widespread complaints from finance officials and central bankers attending semiannual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Officials congratulated China for its efforts to get the yuan included in the IMF's international basket of currencies, known as special drawing rights, starting Oct. 1.
/goo.gl/sctQbT
Thomson Reuters to Add Up to 1,500 Jobs in Toronto
Ian Austen - NY Times
Thomson Reuters, the news and digital information company, said on Friday that it planned to add 400 jobs in downtown Toronto over the next two years as part of a northern expansion that could create up to 1,500 jobs. As part of the change, Thomson Reuters's chief executive and chief financial officers will move to Toronto from the United States.
/goo.gl/iJjSRK
Nigerian Banking Industry Seen in 'Full-Blown' Credit Crisis
Renee Bonorchis - Bloomberg
Unity Bank and Skye Bank close to being insolvent, Arqaam says; Seven Nigerian banks may be under-capitalized and in deficit
Nigeria's banking industry is experiencing a "full-blown financial crisis" as failed fiscal and monetary policies lead to a credit crunch, according to Arqaam Capital.
/goo.gl/f199K1
|
| | | |
|
| Miscellaneous | | Stories that don't quite fit under the other sections | Buy Henry Goldman's 1928 Rolls-Royce Limo for $150,000
Hannah Elliott - Bloomberg
Here's something you won't find at just any car sale: the 1928 Rolls-Royce Phantom 1 Springfield Brewster Lonsdale limousine that financier Henry Goldman bought new the day after the Goldman Sachs Trading Corp. opened in December 1928. (He had left the company years before.) It's for sale exclusively via Pete Siegel, who owns a shop for high-end collectibles on 57th Street in New York. The current owner of the car, Jason Roberts, is a British commercial pilot.
/goo.gl/gXkwNt
**** A fine automobile and a good story.
|
| | | |
|
Disclaimer: All John Lothian Newsletters, JohnLothianNews.com, MarketsWiki.com and MarketsReformWiki.com are products of John Lothian News, a division of John J. Lothian & Company, Inc. The opinions expressed in all John J. Lothian & Company, Inc. publications are strictly those of their respective editors. They are intended solely for informative purposes and are not to be construed, under any circumstances, by implication or otherwise, as an offer to sell or a solicitation to buy or trade in any commodities or securities herein named. Information is obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but is in no way guaranteed. No guarantee of any kind is implied or possible where projections of future conditions are attempted. Security futures are not suitable for all customers. Futures and options trading involve risk. Past results are no indication of future performance. Nothing on any John J. Lothian & Company site should be considered an endorsement by any sponsor of any website or newsletter content.
© 2016 John J. Lothian & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. |
|
|
