| October 14, 2016 | "Irreverent, but never irrelevant" | | |  | John Lothian
Publisher
John Lothian News | |
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Bits & Pieces
By Jim Kharouf
Next week is one of the biggest weeks of the year for the industry, with FIA Expo in Chicago from October 18th (opening night) to October 20th. John Lothian News will be publishing two interesting pieces in the coming days that we hope will serve as discussion points during the show and beyond.
JLN Associate Editor Spencer Doar has put together a special news report on the growth of options on futures. That segment of the business has grown dramatically in recent years and may continue to be one of the growth segments in the years to come.
John Lothian & Company, Inc. has also branched further into the analysis and thought leadership space with a new report we will also publish next week on the future for FCMs and trading firms in our space. The report is based on an off-the-record conversation with several FCM and proprietary trading firm executives who spoke candidly about everything from regulation, more on regulation and how technology helps and lags in meeting their needs. A big thanks to Itviti, for sponsoring the meeting and report.
Finally, John Lothian News will be at Expo in force. And once again, we will be interviewing professionals for a video compilation on the topic of regulation and its impact now six years since the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act. We will also explore the solutions to those regulatory challenges as well as the opportunities it has forged. Our thanks to Cinnober for once again providing us their trade show booth to act as a studio for our interviews.
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It's Official: This Election Is Driving Americans Nuts; And it's the oldest among us who are suffering the most.
Deena Shanker - Bloomberg
There's good news for Americans who find themselves waking up in a cold sweat at 3 a.m. to check the latest polls: You are not alone.
/goo.gl/ZOU8yq
**JK: Mature voters, 71 and up, are the most stressed. Second goes to Millennials. When grandparents are worrying alongside grandkids, you know it's bad.
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Financial Literacy Is Still Abysmal Everywhere; A new OECD survey of 30 countries shows few people can perform basic financial calculations or understand simple investment rules
By ADAM CREIGHTON - WSJ
John Maynard Keynes advocated setting policies assuming people suffered from "money illusion"Âconfusing changes in their nominal income with changes in their buying power when prices were rising or falling.
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**JK: And so the robo-advisor was born.
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Financial jargon killer: The Wall Street Journal
Susan Weiner - Investment Writing
"How can I talk my boss out of using financial jargon?" I hear variations on this question from my clients and blog readers. I've already written "Seven Ways to Talk Your Financial Execs Out of Jargon and Bad Writing" (registration required) for MarketingProfs. But recently I thought of a new idea to help you rein in the worst offenses by your firm's lovers of complex language.
Here's my idea. Ask "What would The Wall Street Journal do?" We can call this technique WWTWSJD for short, in a nod to other "What would ____ do?" strategies.
jlne.ws/2e8qMXz
***JB: We read a great deal of financial news to compile this newsletter and provide our readers with the best of the best articles. We have to cull far too many inscrutable articles because they are laden with impenetrable jargon. This particular article was written several months ago but we just came across it and felt it is timeless advice that anyone writing financial articles should heed be it a blogger or Bloomberg.
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How London's Gold Market, the World's Largest, Evolved Over Time
Nicholas Larkin - Bloomberg
OTC market set to begin trade reporting; futures being started; Until recently, market largely unchanged for about a century
When the precious metals industry meets in Singapore next week for an annual gathering, one of the key topics will be the coming changes to how gold is traded in London.
/goo.gl/pbqqAU
**JK: It took ICE and a BOAT to fix the gold market.
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E-traders prepare for MiFID II with new trade body
By Tom Porter - Reuters
Four of the biggest electronic fixed income trading venues have set up a new trade association to build a dialogue with regulators, with the introduction of MiFID II regulations just over two years away. BrokerTec, MarketAxess, MTS and Tradeweb on Thursday founded the Electronic Debt Markets Association Europe, or EDMA Europe, to represent the interests of regulated e-trading venues.
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**JK: EDMA, meet SIFMA and over here is distant cousin IOMA. We'll be talking about MIFID and MIFIR today.
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Thursday's Top Three
Yesterday's top stories started small, with Bloomberg's piece on XTX Markets, an algo trading firm profiled in "Tiny Bank-Beating Trading Firm Doesn't Use Any Human Traders. Second went to our friends at 3Points Communications with Five tips for getting the most out of FIA Expo. And a close third went to the bruised and battered British pound in the FT's Pound slumps to 168-year low
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| Lead Stories | Market grows for 'regtech', or AI for regulation; Artificial intelligence and biometrics help banks comply with rules
by: Martin Arnold - FT
Hedge fund managers beware, someone is watching you. Or rather, something is watching you. A new artificial intelligence system can monitor traders, learn their behaviour patterns and raise the alarm when they do something out of character.
/goo.gl/Yu8Jzn
This Startup Is Using A.I. to Speed Up Financial Compliance
Jeremy Kahn - Bloomberg
A U.K. startup that uses artificial intelligence to help banks and other financial firms with anti-money laundering compliance received $8.3 million to fund its expansion in Europe and North America.
/goo.gl/pMplsp
Elizabeth Warren urges Barack Obama to fire SEC chief Mary Jo White; Scourge of Wall Street accuses president's appointee of standing in the way of transparency
by: Barney Jopson in Washington - FT
Barack Obama is being pressed by the Democratic party's left wing to sack Mary Jo White, chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission and one of his most senior appointees.
/goo.gl/EfdbmP
**JK: That woman sure demands a lot of firings.
Wells Fargo's Textbook Case of Botched Crisis Management; CEO John Stumpf was slow to respond to outrage over employee misdeeds, stonewalling senators and irking No. 1 shareholder Warren Buffett
By EMILY GLAZER - WSJ
It was clear John Stumpf, chief executive of Wells Fargo & Co., was in trouble on Sept. 20, when senators from both parties castigated him over the bank's sales practices. "It's gutless leadership...you should be criminally investigated," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) "This is fraud," said Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.).
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Little-known trading strategy exacerbates market turmoil; Knee-jerk, automated selling a factor behind the severity of recent slumps
by: Robin Wigglesworth - FT
Dwight D. Eisenhower once observed that "the search for a scapegoat is the easiest of all hunting expeditions". When financial markets suffer one of their periodic wobbles, many analysts and investors these days instinctively train their guns at a strategy called risk parity.
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Will the Fed greet the next president with a recession?
The Economist
It was just a few months into the presidency of Barack Obama that America crept out of the Great Recession and into the current expansion. With just three months to go in his second term, Mr Obama seems likely to pass that expansion on to his successor. But what are they odds that she will make it through a four-year term without a brush with economic contraction? The Wall Street Journal polled 59 economists to get their view. They reckon there is a 60% chance of recession striking within the next four years. Is that a reasonable estimate? Let's consider a few facts about expansions and recessions.
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| Brexit | | Financials stories regarding the recent decision of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union | Short-lived Marmite war reveals basic truth: the falling pound will push up prices
Larry Elliott - The Guardian
It was one of the shortest wars in history, over within 24 hours. Peace has been declared between Unilever and Tesco which will mean that Marmite is going back on the shelves of Britain's biggest supermarket. Short-lived it might have been, but the battle between the two corporate giants reveals a basic truth: the fall in the value of the pound will lead to higher prices in the shops.
/goo.gl/DmfLZG
Brexit-Bitten Tokyo Day Traders Turn Pound Shy to Limit Losses
Hiroko Komiya and Chikako Mogi - Bloomberg
Individual Japanese investors boosted bets on the pound in the run-up to the Brexit referendum in June only to see sterling plummet. They were caught on the wrong side again before last week's flash crash, but at least they had less on the table.
/goo.gl/swiZhJ
Recruit Bond Markets to Reset U.K. Fiscal Policy
Mark Gilbert - Bloomberg
If Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond is serious in his pledge to "reset" fiscal policy, here's a suggestion: Co-opt the bond market to fund a much-needed revival of infrastructure investment.
/goo.gl/GrZJf5
Flight of the Brexit Bankers; Where in Europe will they go? If London loses its luster, Dublin and Frankfurt look like winners, but places like WarsawÂyes, WarsawÂstand to gain, too.
David Rocks, Julia Hirsch - Bloomberg
After the British stiff-armed Europe this summer, sterling plummeted, London-traded shares quavered, consumer confidence took a dive, and businesses shelved expansion plans. But within a few weeks, Britons saw that the shops were still open, the Tube was running, and the fish and chips remained as crisp as before the June?23 vote.
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| Exchanges, OTC & Clearing | | Top news from exchanges, clearing, settlement and trade execution facilities | Acting CEO of Tel Aviv Stock Exchange pulls resignation request
Reuters
The interim CEO of the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange (TASE) on Thursday withdrew her request to resign at the end of the year, the bourse said. Gal Landau-Yaari, 41, had announced on Monday that she would step down, adding to uncertainty surrounding the exchange as it battles to recover from a drop in trading volumes and company listings.
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FIA PTG: Speed bumps are fundamentally incompatible with Reg NMS
FIA
FIA PTG submitted a comment letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) today in response to a proposal from the Chicago Stock Exchange, Inc. (CHX) to introduce a new type of speed bump, the Liquidity Taking Access Delay (LTAD).
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A talk with Bats CEO Chris Concannon
BY ARI I. WEINBERG - Pensions & Investments
Bats Global Markets CEO Chris Concannon has been at the forefront of securities product and trading innovation from the start of his career
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Brazil antitrust watchdog demands more information on BM&FBovespa deal
Reuters
Brazil's antitrust watchdog CADE has declared the Brazilian bourse BM&FBovespa's 12.9 billion reais ($4 billion) acquisition of rival Cetip SA Mercados Organizados as a complex transaction that needs a more detailed analysis, both companies said in securities filings on Thursday.
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Performance Bond Requirements: Agriculture, Energy, Interest Rates - Effective October 14, 2016
CME Group
/goo.gl/rH91ZI
New Product Advisory: Initial listing of Gold/Silver Ratio Futures and Gold/Platinum Spread - Effective October 24, 2016
CME Group
/goo.gl/b6jCKY
New FIXML Confirm "Party Detail" Block Coming October 31, 2016
CME Group
At the request of customers, beginning October 30, 2016, for trade date October 31, 2016, CME Clearing will add a new FIXML "Party Detail" block to some CME ClearPort trade confirmations that are sent to Clearing Member Firms (CMFs) from Front End Clearing (FEC) via MQM. The new Party Detail block will contain the sub-accounts related to the account specified in Party Role 24. It will only appear when the trade is entered into ClearPort with the sub-account specified.
/goo.gl/Bb7T5A
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| Politics | | An overview of politics during an election year as it relates to the financial markets | Currency investors need razor sharp political instincts; Winners and losers on foreign exchange market decided by matters of state
by: Roger Blitz - FT
This year's most successful currency investors would have needed some remarkable political insight. They would have had to predict Brexit, the fall of Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, an attempted Turkish coup and the improbable polling success of Donald Trump.
/goo.gl/JgRMzw
Malaysian Fund 1MDB Linked to White House Visit; Investigators look into whether money embezzled from the fund paid for lobbying seeking closer U.S.-Malaysian relations
By BRADLEY HOPE and COLLEEN MCCAIN NELSON - WSJ
Malaysia's government-fund scandal, one of the world's biggest alleged white-collar crimes, has been connected to a Hollywood studio, high-end U.S. real estateÂand now, a visit to the White House.
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Don't Fear Trump's Lawsuits. He'll Keep Losing.
By Timothy L. O'Brien - Bloomberg
Awash in allegations that he sexually assaulted several women, Donald Trump is reaching into his old playbook and threatening to sue the media for reporting the claims, which he says are false.
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Cut Ties to Donald Trump, Big Donors Urge R.N.C.
By JONATHAN MARTIN, ALEXANDER BURNS and MAGGIE HABERMAN - NY Times
Several of the Republican Party's most generous donors called on the Republican National Committee on Thursday to disavow Donald J. Trump, saying that allegations by multiple women that Mr. Trump had groped or made inappropriate sexual advances toward them threatened to inflict lasting damage on the party's image.
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| Investing & Trading | | Today's top stories from fixed income, currencies and commodities (FICC) | How to Get into (Index) Heaven
Reid Steadman - Indexology
A poll conducted in 2014 revealed that 74% of Americans believe in heaven, which was defined for respondents as a place "where people who have led good lives are eternally rewarded." The index world has a heaven too, where companies aspire to be and good deeds are recognized. It's called the Dow Jones Sustainability Index.
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Inside Smart Beta: professional managers advance ETF boundaries
Rolf Agather - FTSE Russell Blog
At the Inside Smart Beta conference I attended in September, it was impossible not to leave without being impressed by the continued evolution of the ETF space and in particular the influx of talent that is raising the level of industry conversation... The main takeaways: while index-based ETFs have attracted significant assets representing $2.4 trillion in the US alone[1], asset managers and advisors are taking advantage of the growing range of indexes and ETFs based on them, particularly in the factor arena, to build much more sophisticated portfolios than was possible even just a few years ago.
/goo.gl/M6vHku
European bond funds hit by largest outflow in more than a year
Eric Platt and Joe Rennison - Financial Times
European bond funds suffered their largest withdrawals in more than a year and the redemptions from the continent's equity funds inched closer to the $100bn mark as a turbulent pound highlighted the risks of the looming UK exit from the EU. Money managers invested in European stocks recorded $1.1bn of withdrawals in the week to October 12, the 36th consecutive week of outflows, according to fund flows tracked by EPFR. European bond funds, which had benefited from central bank stimulus programmes in the wake of the Brexit vote in June, were hit with $2.2bn of outflows. That marked the largest weekly withdrawal since June 2015.
/goo.gl/7cbxVR
Financial Advisers Leverage Social Media for New Business; Putnam Investments survey finds 85% of advisers are using social media day-to-day
By DAISY MAXEY - WSJ
Social media has cemented its place as a lucrative tool for financial advisers, according to a new survey that points to a digital divide in the industry along demographic lines.
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Man Group Jumps Most in Six Years After Net Inflows Surprise
Nishant Kumar - Bloomberg
Net inflows, assets under management beat analysts' forecasts; Man Group buys company managing real estate equity and debt
Man Group Plc, the world's largest publicly traded hedge-fund firm, climbed the most in almost six years in London after third-quarter net inflows beat estimates as investors poured money into its quantitative funds.
/goo.gl/afMZFF
Land With Longest Stretch of Negative Rates Finds Rich Are Getting Richer Faster; A report by the Danish Economic Council says low rates have deepened inequality
Peter Levring - Bloomberg
Wise men from the land with the world record in subzero rates have weighed in on the debate about the effects of loose monetary policy on income distribution.
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| Banks, Brokers & Managed Funds | | The latest from banks, brokers, hedge funds and managed futures | Wells board changes fail to kill off bogus accounts scandal
Alistair Gray and Kara Scannell - Financial Times
In the five weeks since the scandal over bogus accounts erupted at Wells Fargo, John Stumpf adopted various tactics to defuse the row. He scrapped the sales targets blamed for encouraging under-pressure workers to resort to fraud, forfeited $40m in pay and took out full-page adverts in US newspapers apologising for the bank's behaviour  all without success. Now the bank has taken a more drastic step, caving in to political and public pressure by offering up the head of Mr Stumpf  abruptly ending his 34-year career at the bank and nine-year spell as chief executive.
/goo.gl/kBwM8e
Banking and Finance: A Global Perspective
William C. Dudley, Federal Reserve Bank of New York - Medium
Reforming the culture of banking is necessary to support the long-term health of our financial system. Without good culture shaped by appropriate incentives, we can't have the consistent good conduct we should expect and deserve. We cannot continue on the present course. We know this, the public knows this and so do many in the industry. Continuing instances of misconduct highlight the need for attention to this issue and raise the question of whether the largest firms are "too big to manage." I remain convinced, however, that when the will is there, meaningful improvement is possible.
ING Said to Add London Jobs, Cut Stock Derivatives in Revamp
Martijn Van Der Starre - Bloomberg
ING Groep NV will move as many as 60 trading jobs from Amsterdam and Brussels to London as the biggest Dutch lender seeks to consolidate operations and cut costs, a person with knowledge of the plans said. The company also plans to shut its equity derivatives business for financial institutions in New York, Singapore and Brussels, said the person, who asked not to be identified as the plans are confidential.
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British banks keep cyber attacks under wraps to protect image
By Lawrence White - Reuters
Britain's banks are not reporting the full extent of cyber attacks to regulators for fear of punishment or bad publicity, bank executives and providers of security systems say.
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JPMorgan Profit Beats Estimates on Surge in Bond-Trading Revenue
Hugh Son - Bloomberg
Brexit, rate bets fuel 48% gain in fixed-income business; Provision for credit loss in consumer bank jumps $905 million
JPMorgan Chase & Co. posted profit that beat analysts' estimates on a 48 percent surge in fixed-income revenue, fueled by trading of government bonds after the U.K. voted to leave the European Union.
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Exclusive: Deutsche Bank considers thousands more job cuts - source
Reuters
Deutsche Bank's finance chief told staff representatives last month that job cuts at the bank could be double that planned, a step that could remove 10,000 further employees, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
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| Fintech | | A roundup of today's market tech news and a look at tomorrow's disruptors | Financial Inclusion and Beyond
Anshul Krishan - Project Syndicate
Because traditional financial services are not designed for small depositors and borrowers, several non-traditional models have been able to scale up rapidly in this untapped market. But, without a strategic policy roadmap to guide further financial-technology (fintech) development, these new "connector" models will remain limited in terms of the services they can provide.
/goo.gl/UHqRws
SEC using high tech to connect illegal insider trading to sources
Francine McKenna - MarketWatch
The Securities and Exchange Commission is using big data to make the connection between people who have material inside information and those who illegally trade on it. William White, of law firm Allen & Overy, and Daniel Hawke, of Arnold & Porter, joined Linda Chatman Thomsen, former SEC Director of Enforcement from 2005 to 2009 now at Davis Polk & Wardwell, in warning potential inside traders that the SEC is watching trades and connecting the dots more quickly and efficiently than ever on insider trading.
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Saudi Arabia, SoftBank aim to be world's No. 1 tech investor with $100 billion fund
By Andrew Torchia and Thomas Wilson - Reuters
Saudi Arabia and Japan's SoftBank Group (9984.T) will create a technology investment fund that could grow as large as $100 billion, making it one of the world's largest private equity investors and a potential kingpin in the industry.
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| Regulation & Enforcement | | For more regulatory, visit MarketsReformWiki, our website focused on current market reform efforts. | Elizabeth Warren to Obama: Fire SEC Chief Mary Jo White; Rule requiring public companies to disclose political spending one of main points
By ANDREW ACKERMAN - WSJ
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is calling on President Barack Obama to dismiss Mary Jo White as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the latest and strongest push by the Massachusetts Democrat to criticize the top markets cop and to influence financial policy-making here.
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SEC Said to Demand That Cooperman Agree to Hedge Fund Suspension
Matt Robinson - Bloomberg
Agency sought $8 million in penalties in insider-trading case; Money manager has said he did nothing wrong and won't settle
Wall Street's top cop demanded that a resolution of its insider-trading case against Leon Cooperman include the billionaire investor accepting a temporary suspension from the hedge fund industry, according to people familiar with the matter.
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Commission Approves an Order Regarding Swap Dealer Registration De Minimis Exception
CFTC
The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (Commission) today approved an Order establishing December 31, 2018 as the swap dealer registration de minimis threshold phase-in termination date.
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SEC kicks the bitcoin ETF approval decision down the road
Ryan Vlastelica - MarketWatch
The Securities and Exchange Commission late Wednesday declined to make a ruling on a bid to launch what would be the first exchange-traded fund that exclusively tracks the digital currency bitcoin. The regulator said it was instead seeking additional public feedback on the proposal.
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US modifies plans to crack down on inversions
Barney Jopson - Financial Times
The Obama administration has revised a proposed crackdown on US companies moving overseas to cut their tax bills in an effort to stop other businesses from suffering collateral damage. Jack Lew, the US Treasury secretary, announced on Thursday that he was modifying the plans designed to deter deals known as inversions, which scuppered Pfizer's $160bn takeover of Allergan when they were unveiled in April.
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Why the SEC Wanted Leon Cooperman Off Wall Street
Lucinda Shen - Fortune
The agency sought $8 million in penalties. Hedge fund giant Leon Cooperman may not want to retire, but the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) wanted him off Wall Street due to insider trading charges, according to new reports.
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Statement of Chairman Timothy Massad on Order Extending De Minimis Threshold Phase-In Termination Date
CFTC
I thank my fellow Commissioners for unanimously supporting this order, which extends the phase-in of the de minimis threshold for swap dealing by one year. The de minimis threshold determines when an entity's swap dealing activity requires registration with the CFTC. Registration triggers capital and margin requirements as well as other responsibilities, such as disclosure, recordkeeping, and documentation requirements. In 2012, the CFTC set the threshold initially at $8 billion in notional amount of swap dealing activity over the course of a year, and provided that it would fall to $3 billion at the end of 2017.
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Concurring Statement of Commissioner Sharon Y. Bowen Regarding Order Establishing De Minimis Threshold Phase-In Termination Date
CFTC
While we might disagree on the details of today's order, I think we can all agree on one thing: today's action is very important to how the swaps industry operates and our system of financial regulation functions. If we do not accurately and appropriately set the mandatory level of trading for swap dealer registration, our entire regulatory regime for the swaps market will be weakened.
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Artis Capital settles charges related to insider trading: SEC
Reuters
Artis Capital Management and a senior research analyst at the hedge fund have agreed to settle charges related to their failure to detect insider trading by an employee, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said on Thursday.
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ESMA and IFRS Foundation Strengthen Cooperation
ESMA
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) and the IFRS Foundation today announced an updated set of protocols under which the two organisations will deepen their cooperation on the development of IFRS Standards and support for their consistent application across the European Union.
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ESMA ISSUES GUIDELINES ON REMUNERATION PRACTICES UNDER UCITS AND AIFMD
ESMA
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published today two sets of Guidelines: Guidelines on Sound Remuneration under UCITS (UCITS Remuneration Guidelines) and Guidelines on Sound Remuneration under the AIFMD (AIFMD Remuneration Guidelines).
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Company to Pay Penalty for Stock Picking Game That Was An Unregistered Swap
SEC
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that a New York-based company has agreed to pay a $50,000 penalty for illegally offering complex derivatives products to retail investors through mobile phone games that were described as "fantasy sports for stocks."
/goo.gl/V9WLME
The Intended and Unintended Consequences for End Users of Post-Crisis Financial Regulation
By Randy Snook - SIFMA
Regulations implemented in the wake of the financial crisis have had a number of consequences?-?both intended and unintended?-?on consumers, households, and venture capital firms, ranging from limited access to credit and mortgages to disrupting supply chains, according to analysts and end users who spoke at SIFMA's Annual Meeting, The Capital Markets Conference.
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SIFMA AMG Statement on Today's SEC Rulemakings
SIFMA
SIFMA's Asset Management Group (AMG) issued the following statement on today's rulemakings by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from Timothy Cameron, managing director and head of SIFMA AMG:
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| Regions | | Stories of local interest from the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions | Rival exporters fear China's high-grade oil products
South China Morning Post
With the quality of Chinese gas oil steadily improving, Japanese distributors, who have been the leading exporters of high-grade oil products in Asia, are increasingly taking note and may be forced to reconsider export strategies due to the growing presence of their new rival. Diesel and other gas oil fuels from Chinese companies have recently become comparable to products from Japanese peers. If qualities are indeed similar, Japanese companies may lose their competitive advantage.
/goo.gl/8tSRj4
Saudi Arabia, Where Even Milk Depends on Oil, Struggles to Remake Its Economy
Nicholas Kulish - NY TImes
Low crude prices and the war in Yemen have sent a shock through the kingdom's budget and forced it to revise its social contract even as it seeks to diversify its businesses.
This is what it takes to run a mega-dairy in the scorching desert here: 180,000 Holstein cows, precisely cooled cowsheds, water pumped from deep underground, feed from Argentina and a state-of-the-art refrigeration system. To transport chilled milk and other products all over the Arabian Peninsula, add 9,000 vehicles.
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Portugal's economy: Adventure tourism
The Economist
Visitors to Lisbon, Portugal's hilly capital, usually seek its nightlife, its sweet custard tarts (pasteis de nata) or its gothic architecture. But no guidebook could help two visitors on October 10th. The pair of analysts, from Dominion Bond Rating Service (DBRS), a Canadian credit-ratings agency, went to assess the creditworthiness of the Portuguese government. Markets are waiting anxiously for October 21st, when DBRS will update its rating of Portuguese sovereign debt. Hints from DBRS have been playing havoc with the ten-year bond yield: in August a gloomy comment from Fergus McCormick, DBRS's chief economist, saw it climb 14 basis points (hundredths of a percentage point). This week, word that DBRS was "totally comfortable" with the government's fiscal position saw it dip by ten basis points.
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Sebi writes to FinMin for shielding staffers; Seeks 'institutional mechanism' as in RBI, other regulatory bodies, in wake of CBI summons, questioning of multiple staffers in various cases
Shrimi Choudhary - Business Standard
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has written to the Union ministry of finance for approval to establish an institutional mechanism to deal with inquiries by external probe agencies, and to provide legal assistance to employees under scrutiny.
/goo.gl/eTafxX
No plans to implement co-location facilities in commodities, says Sebi official; There is demand and requests to allow co-location, but regulator has not thought of it, he said
Gireesh Babu - Business Standard
Even though there is a demand and there are requests to implement co-location facilities in the commodities market, the market regulator said that it do not think that it is time for allowing the facility in the segment.
/goo.gl/oV6gGP
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| Miscellaneous | | Stories that don't quite fit under the other sections | U of C endowment turns a loss and shrinks
Steven R. Strahler - Crain's Chicago Business
The University of Chicago's $7.1 billion endowment posted a negative 1.9 percent return for the year ended June 30 and shrank by $450 million in challenging economic and political environments for higher ed investment portfolios. In the year-earlier period, the U of C endowment returned a positive 4.8 percent.
/goo.gl/D23FOo
World's billionaires lose £215m each as global economy struggles
Rupert Jones - The Guardian
The world's billionaires saw their wealth shrink by an average of £215m each last year, as economic headwinds made themselves felt. A report published on Thursday by UBS and PricewaterhouseCoopers has found that falling commodity prices helped put billionaires under pressure at a time of stalling growth in technology and finance, the motors of wealth creation.
/goo.gl/5YqkNa
Local filmmakers bring two movies to Chicago film fest
Nina Metz -Chicago Tribune
In the lineup for this year's Chicago International Film Festival you'll find two locally shot films well worth a look  one a documentary, the other an indie coming-of-ager. The fest kicked off this week and continues through Oct. 27.
"Futures Past" (Friday, Tuesday and Oct. 24)
As someone who perhaps over-romanticizes the open outcry system that long dominated Chicago trading floors, I'm going to be drawn to any documentary chronicling its demise. Doing business in the pits  with all its pushy-shovey, sweat-stained mania  has been replaced by coolly efficient electronic trading. No longer are traders barking at one another, neck veins bulging. The work is now largely silent, sitting in offices in front of a computer screen.
/goo.gl/fCBmQf
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