| November 06, 2023 | "Irreverent, but never irrelevant" | | |  | John Lothian
Publisher
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Hits & Takes
John Lothian & JLN Staff
The LA Times' Michael Hiltzik wrote a column that paints a terrible picture of the crypto markets following the seven guilty verdicts against Sam Bankman-Fried last week. The title of the opinion piece is "Column: Sam Bankman-Fried's seven guilty verdicts expose crypto as a swindle through and through."
Hiltzik writes, "The value of cryptocurrencies can be placed anywhere. They don't produce income like bonds, and their prices can't be pegged to liquid markets like those of public company securities. To this day, no one has ever explained what cryptocurrencies are useful for, other than paying ransom to crooks holding databases or computer systems hostage."
He added, "As I reported in the past, even Bankman-Fried acknowledged that claims for the usefulness of crypto involved "a lot of hand-waving."
Part of the problem right now for the crypto markets, beyond all the bad press of the SBF verdicts, is that no one is stepping into the leadership breach and defending crypto amid the withering criticism of its use for nefarious purposes and its being run by dubious characters.
Now, tokenization is not crypto, and the token crowd, I have been told, generally wants to avoid comparisons to crypto. But even the token crowd must find some leaders with a use case and a platform to be able to step up. Everyone seems to be waiting for the smoke from SBF and other bad news to clear though. Remember, leaders lead.
You will want to listen to the "Third Quarter 2023 Earnings Call" of the Cboe. Cboe knocked the ball out of the park during the quarter. The new CEO Fred Tomczyk offered his perspective, which included narrowing Cboe's focus. He is all on board with Cboe's strategy, but said he thinks there can be greater focus, and he wants to effectively allocate capital, develop talent and address management succession. Sounds like he wants to step on the gas a bit. Cboe's stock continues to rally post its change in leadership.
Markets Media's Shanny Basar covered the earnings call in a story titled "New Cboe CEO to Refocus Strategy on Less M&A."
The Financial Times has a Special Report titled "FTfm: Fixed Income" with the subheading "US Federal Reserve forecasts suggesting 'higher for longer' interest rates have caused bond yields to soar - and bondholders to sell. Borrowers on floating rates are also feeling pain. But money market funds and catastrophe bonds still have fans."
The stories include:
'Higher for longer' fears fade at first sign of a slowdown; Weaker economic data have helped bolster prices in the battered US bond market
Oversupply of US debt leaves few takers for Treasuries; Issuance of $1tn-worth of government bonds in space of three months creates a glut as big buyers retreat
Money market funds spring a leak after year of record inflows; Questions arise over cash-based vehicles' competitiveness with longer-dated paper, and whether outflows will accelerate
Mortgage-backed securities market waits for interest rate clouds to lift; Historically expensive home loans have hit issuance, while demand from key buyers has slumped
Floating-rate exposure set to cause more balance-sheet pain; Leveraged companies that did not hedge against rising rates may be forced to tap cash reserves to cover spending
Catastrophe bond returns rebound as hurricanes miss US east coast; A 20 percent return may be achieved this year but climate change increase the risks
This story is not part of the Special Report, but it should be. It is titled "The coming battle between world leaders and bond vigilantes," with the subheading "As multiple nations go to the polls next year, pre-election spending by governing parties will be punished."
Citi is cracking down on customers who use its online services but still receive a paper statement. It is threatening to cut customers off from the online services if they continue to receive the paper statements. The Wall Street Journal has the story titled "Citi to Cardholders: Go Paperless or Else" with the subheading "Bank says it will block access to its app and site if customers refuse to switch to digital bills."
Do you need an icebreaker around the Thanksgiving table? How good are you at telling "Dad Jokes?" Well, the USA Today is here for you with "100 hilarious Thanksgiving jokes your family and friends will gobble up this year."
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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Market, institutional and policy failures cost the global agrifood systems at least $10 trillion annually, according to findings by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN in its annual report, "The State of Food and Agriculture." In its 154-country study released Nov. 6, the UN FAO called for managing these hidden costs by using true cost accounting to guide global food policy. The study found that more than 70% of the hidden costs are driven by unhealthy diets high in ultra-processed foods, fats and sugars, leading to obesity and non-communicable diseases. These losses are high in high- and upper-middle-income countries. Another source of hidden cost is environment-related greenhouse gas and nitrogen emissions, land-use change and water use. View the press release and download the report here. ~SAED
Our most read stories Friday on JLN Options were:
- Opra outages cause consternation in options markets from Risk.net.
- Chasing Options Income Risks 'Grave Error,' Former AQR Quant Warns from Bloomberg.
- SBF's conviction is the final nail in the coffin for crypto bros hoping to get rich quick from Business Insider. ~JB
Subscribe to the JLN Options Newsletter HERE (it's free).
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Column: Sam Bankman-Fried's seven guilty verdicts expose crypto as a swindle through and through
Michael Hiltzik - LA Times
It took a federal court jury barely four hours Thursday to find crypto scam artist Sam Bankman-Fried guilty of seven counts of fraud and conspiracy. He was undone partly by a crack team of federal prosecutors who laid out a clear, simple paint-by-numbers picture of his crimes for the jurors, but mostly by his own greed and arrogance. And also by the deceit fundamental to the cryptocurrency market itself. The prosecutors strove to keep the jury focused on what Bankman-Fried had in common with fraudsters throughout history - the promise to marks that they will acquire riches beyond compare if they just ride along - rather than on the peculiarities of the crypto market.
/jlne.ws/49p84Cs
****** From this story: "The value of cryptocurrencies can be placed anywhere. They don't produce income like bonds, and their prices can't be pegged to liquid markets like those of public company securities. To this day, no one has ever explained what cryptocurrencies are useful for, other than paying ransom to crooks holding databases or computer systems hostage."
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Sam Bankman-Fried found guilty - and the crypto industry may never recover; Sam Bankman-Fried has done irrevocable damage to this industry - reinforcing the narrative of a Wild West where consumers have no protection. It will take years for the crypto world to rehabilitate its image, if it ever does at all.
Connor Sephton - Sky News
It took just four hours for a jury to find fallen "crypto king" Sam Bankman-Fried guilty of fraud. The 31-year-old has been convicted of stealing billions of dollars from customers of FTX, which was the world's second-largest crypto exchange before its dramatic collapse last year. To this day, FTX users - at least 80,000 of them in the UK - remain out of pocket as the company's new management scrambles to figure out where the money went. During the trial, three members of Bankman-Fried's inner circle gave evidence - executives with a first-hand insight into how the doomed company was run.
/jlne.ws/462JMLF
***** How will the crypto world recover? Hiding in the shadows will not be a winning strategy.~JJL
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Journalism at hedge funds
Felix Salmon - Axios Markets
It's not often that a new journalistic business model comes along, but Hunterbrook wants to resuscitate one that has, until now, never really taken off: using hedge fund profits to pay for journalism that, in turn, generates trading ideas for the fund. Why it matters: It's very early days yet - Hunterbrook hasn't even launched - and there's certainly no guarantee of success. But the idea is intriguing.
/jlne.ws/3MrzbTq
****** There is a reason I stay away from price oriented news. ~JJL
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Former Crypto Day Traders Say No Thanks Even as Bitcoin Roars Back; Retail volume in US rose to 35% from 33% since first half; 'The allure is kind of gone,' one former daytrader says
Teresa Xie - Bloomberg
Between 2013 and 2017, Peter To claims he made more than $1 million by day-trading Bitcoin during its bull runs. While the world's largest cryptocurrency has rallied in recent weeks, more than doubling from levels after last year's epic collapse that helped blow up the FTX exchange, the 34-year-old professional stock trader in New York says it's not enough for him to go back. "Bitcoin is not as volatile or as driven as it was," To said. "For traders like me who are hunting for inefficiencies in the market, it's not as interesting. The allure is kind of gone."
/jlne.ws/4631Bdw
******So much for the FOMO. ~JJL
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Friday's Top Three
Our top story Friday was Alice Kelley, a pioneer in male-dominated world of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, dies at 73, from the Chicago Sun-Times. Second was our MarketsWiki page for Sam Bankman-Fried, who was found guilty of seven charges of fraud and conspiracy and will be sentenced on March 28, 2024. And third was Sam Bankman-Fried Trial: Fallen Crypto Mogul Convicted in Collapse That Cost Users Billions, from The New York Times.
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| Lead Stories | Short-Selling Ban Sparks Biggest Rally in Korean Stocks Since 2020; Kospi surges 5.7%, boosted by shorted stocks like LG Energy; Ban 'unusual' in absence of a financial crisis: Eugene's Huh
Youkyung Lee - Bloomberg
South Korean stocks soared after the country reimposed a full ban on short-selling, a controversial move that regulators said was needed to stop the illegal use of a trading tactic deployed regularly by hedge funds and other investors around the world. The nearly eight-month ban may help appease retail investors who have complained about the impact of shorting - the selling of borrowed shares by institutional investors - ahead of elections in April, several market watchers said. However, it could deter participation by foreign funds in the $1.7 trillion equity market and complicate Korea's bid to seek a developed-market status in MSCI Inc.'s indexes.
/jlne.ws/3Sva4TI
****** Here is the Financial Times' version of the story. ~JJL
US Lays Path for More Financial Giants to Get Fed Oversight; Officials led by Janet Yellen describe bid to mitigate risk; The systemically important tag would mean stepped-up oversight
Viktoria Dendrinou and Katanga Johnson - Bloomberg
The US government laid out a pathway for placing firms other than banks under strict Federal Reserve oversight, a major regulatory threat to hedge funds and investment companies. After months of back-and-forth, Washington's top financial officials on Friday released a new framework for designating financial firms as systemically important. That too-big-to-fail tag, which brings significant compliance costs and regulatory headaches, has mostly been applied to large Wall Street banks since its introduction more than a decade ago.
/jlne.ws/47kIf4I
FIA Tech joins trade association ISITC
FIA Tech
FIA Tech, a leading futures industry technology provider, today announced that it has joined trade association ISITC. ISITC brings together asset servicers, broker dealers, asset managers and solution providers to develop and promote standards and best practices that increase operational efficiencies across the securities industry, enabling member companies to provide essential and enhanced products and services.
https://jlne.ws/3QL5y1Q
Citadel's Ken Griffin warns against hedge fund clampdown to curb basis trade risk; Founder of $62bn firm hits out at US proposals to treat big players in his industry like broker-dealer arms of banks
Costas Mourselas and Harriet Agnew - Financial Times
Ken Griffin, the founder and chief executive of $62bn US hedge fund Citadel, has warned regulators that they should focus their attention on banks rather than his industry if they want to reduce risks in the financial system stemming from leveraged bets on US government debt.
/jlne.ws/3QLmhSO
Why Banks Are Suddenly Closing Down Customer Accounts
Ron Lieber and Tara Siegel Bernard - The New York Times
The reasons vary, but the scene that plays out is almost always the same. Bank customers get a letter in the mail saying their institution is closing all of their checking and savings accounts. Their debit and credit cards are shuttered, too. The explanation, if there is one, usually lacks any useful detail. Or maybe the customers don't see the letter, or never get one at all. Instead, they discover that their accounts no longer work while they're at the grocery store, rental car counter or ATM. When they call their bank, frantic, representatives show concern at first. "Oh, no, so sorry," they say. "We'll do whatever we can to fix this."
/jlne.ws/3snwqvK
Sam Bankman-Fried might not be the last crypto criminal; Cryptocurrency advocates might believe that FTX's collapse was an anomaly - but they could have trouble convincing the public of the same.
Emma Roth - The Verge
During Sam Bankman-Fried's monthlong fraud trial, prosecutors presented damning evidence that the fallen crypto founder knew full well what he was doing from the beginning. He knew that Alameda Research borrowed billions in customer funds from FTX. He knew his fellow executives fabricated balance sheets to send to lenders. He knew FTX wasn't fine when he told customers it was. In cryptoland, the response to these revelations was largely to condemn Bankman-Fried and FTX as an aberration. When the truth about FTX came out, Binance CEO Changpeng "CZ" Zhao slammed Bankman-Fried, saying he "lied to everyone." Similarly, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that "even the most gullible person should not believe Sam's claim" that the missing funds stemmed from an accounting error.
/jlne.ws/3QtuCtb
Sam Bankman-Fried Verdict Reflects Crypto's Broken Dreams; The FTX founder once predicted crypto would swallow traditional finance
Alexander Osipovich - The Wall Street Journal
Sam Bankman-Fried is gone. And crypto is back to its favorite activity: a wild speculative rally. The FTX founder's trial featured a parade of witnesses detailing a multibillion-dollar fraud at the heart of the crypto market. None of it dented the enthusiasm of crypto investors. During the trial, crypto prices surged on optimism that U.S. regulators would allow an exchange-traded fund that holds bitcoin. Bitcoin is up more than 25% since the start of October and recently touched an 18-month high.
/jlne.ws/3St6Kbz
Treasury Clearing Mandates: Rearranging the Market Structure Furniture on the Deck of SS Treasury Titanic Is Pointless
Craig Pirrong - Streetwise Professor
The market for United States Treasury securities (notes and bonds) has been a source of concern for some years, dating back to the Treasury "flash" event of 15 October 2014, but especially in the aftermath of the "dash for cash" during the March 2020 Covid scare. The relentless selloff of Treasuries in the past year plus has contributed to the angst.
/jlne.ws/47kcCrW
The War on Hamas Spells Trouble for the War on Inflation; The clash in Israel and Gaza should bring a reminder from the 1970s: Central bankers and investors must beware of false dawns.
Niall Ferguson - Bloomberg
I am not sure Oct. 12, 2023, was the day I'd have chosen to declare victory. Just five days after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad launched their barbaric rampage from Gaza, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman tweeted, "The war on inflation is over. We won, at very little cost."
/jlne.ws/3StCmxB
SBF's Fall Isn't Just a Morality Tale. It's a Warning to Regulators; Instead of letting new industries flourish in the absence of safeguards, lawmakers should be quicker to impose preliminary rules.
Noah Feldman - Bloomberg
It's tempting to treat FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried's conviction as a morality play, replete with the familiar elements of a hubristic protagonist's rise and fall. That's understandable, but the bigger lesson here is not that startup founders should be humbler, true though that may be. It's that regulation is better than criminal law at preventing harm.
/jlne.ws/3SsdJS0
Was crypto on trial with Sam Bankman-Fried?
Blake Montgomery - Yahoo Finance
As the trial of the former crypto star and FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried began last month, headlines declared cryptocurrency was on trial too. But when Bankman-Fried was found guilty on seven counts of wire fraud and money-laundering conspiracy Thursday evening, after less than five hours of jury deliberations, Bitcoin was trading at its highest price in a year. As the scene in the courtroom played out, it became clear it wasn't so much cryptocurrency on trial as the crypto bro himself - both Bankman-Fried and the archetype: the tech dilettante who believes he's such an all-around genius that he can get rich with no expertise and an unkempt head of Einstein hair.
/jlne.ws/3tUZJ9a
Jordan Belfort is back on Wall Street and talking with InvestmentNews; The former financial fraudster made famous by Leonardo DiCaprio is now promoting index funds and leading the charge against the 'Wall Street fee machine.'
Gregg Greenberg - Investment News
No joke. The now-reformed former penny stock fraudster is out with a new book, "The Wolf of Investing," in which he offers advice on how to safely invest for the long term. No phony IPOs or high-pressure sales allowed - just legitimate financial advice. Not only that, Belfort also tackles the "Wall Street fee machine" and offers a concise chapter on the history of Wall Street regulation.
/jlne.ws/49iQCiT
Elon Musk releases new AI chatbot 'Grok' in bid to take on ChatGPT; Billionaire's xAI start up unveils generative AI model in challenge to Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Google
Tim Bradshaw - Financial Times
Elon Musk's artificial intelligence start-up xAI has released its first AI model, as the tech billionaire looks to take on OpenAI, Google and Meta with a sassy chatbot that is tightly integrated with X, formerly Twitter. Grok, the new AI system, has "real time access" to information from X, the social media platform Musk bought for $44bn a year ago, he said in a post on Saturday night, giving it a "massive advantage over other models" that have largely relied on older archives of internet data.
/jlne.ws/3FQm7TK
Private Credit Giants Are Butting Heads Over a Hot New Asset Class; PE-style "whitelists" hamper efforts to expand the secondary market for fund stakes, as regulators raise liquidity concerns about private capital.
Laura Benitez and Silas Brown - Bloomberg
Attempts by some of private credit's biggest names to develop a hot new corner of the $1.6 trillion market have hit a roadblock: their peers. Buyers including Apollo Global Management, Ares Management and Tikehau Capital have raised billions to spend on so-called "secondary" deals, when an investor in a private credit fund decides to sell their stake early. But in some cases they're being excluded from lists of approved acquirers by the firms who run the funds, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
/jlne.ws/4628lYQ
Wall Street's Top Bosses Descend on Hong Kong After Deep Job Cuts; Solomon, Gorman among CEOs of top banks expected at HK summit; Layoffs of China bankers are worst in years as growth sputters
Krystal Chia - Bloomberg
Hong Kong can still attract the who's who of finance, but its future as an international melting pot of dealmaking and trading is fading. The de-facto central bank of the Chinese territory is this week holding its global finance summit for a second year in a row. Conceived in 2022 to restore confidence after years of Covid restrictions and a tightening political climate, the Nov. 6-8 summit's rubric is "Living With Complexity."
/jlne.ws/3u2MP9c
The Price of Money Is Going Up, and It's Not Only Because of the Fed
Jamie Rush, Martin Ademmer, Maeva Cousin, and Tom Orlik - Bloomberg
What's the most important price in the global economy? The price of oil? The price of semiconductors? The price of a Big Mac? More important than any of these is the price of money. For more than three decades it was falling. Now it's going up. Ask most people how the price of money is set, and they'll say central banks. True, when it comes to direct control of US interest rates, the Federal Reserve calls the shots. But there's a deeper logic at work. Fundamentally, the price of money-like the price of anything else-reflects the balance of supply and demand. Higher supply of saving pushes rates down. More investment demand pushes them up.
/jlne.ws/45WhW3H
UN climate fund battle looms over US stance on financing; Geopolitical divisions overshadow plan for scheme to help countries cope with destruction from global warming
Attracta Mooney and Aime Williams - Financial Times
A fight over a global fund to help countries deal with climate change is set to play out at a UN climate summit this month, after the US objected to taking a greater role in the financing of it in a tentative agreement reached at the weekend. The last round of talks to set out how to get the so-called loss and damage fund up and running before COP28 ended in acrimony late on Saturday night in Abu Dhabi, with the US absenting itself at a critical juncture.
/jlne.ws/465Tlcy
Climate Negotiators Reach Framework to Aid Vulnerable Countries; Blueprint would offset loss and damage from extreme weather; The deal doesn't demand immediate funding from rich nations
Jennifer A Dlouhy and John Ainger - Bloomberg
Global climate negotiators reached a framework for a fund to help vulnerable nations deal with loss and damage from increasingly extreme weather, though the breakthrough was marred by sparring over exactly how the program would be funded. Delegates meeting in Abu Dhabi agreed late Saturday that the World Bank will host a new Loss and Damage Fund on an interim basis for four years - breaking an impasse after months of negotiations. They also set basic guideposts for funding, with developed countries urged to provide support. The discussion next heads to the United Nations climate change summit known as COP28, which starts in Dubai later this month.
/jlne.ws/3QJS86s
Leaders in Trading 2023: Industry Person of the Year shortlist revealed; The winner of the Industry Person of the Year 2023 award will be decided by a live industry vote that will take place at Leaders in Trading on 8 November.
Annabel Smith - The Trade
The TRADE is delighted to announce the shortlisted nominees for the Industry Person of the Year Award 2023. Now in its second year, this award is designed to celebrate those individuals who have made a significant impact on their own organisation and, equally, the industry externally, with a commitment to bettering and future proofing the markets for years to come.
/jlne.ws/47ftOyC
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| Ukraine Invasion | | News about the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and its military, economic, political and humanitarian impact | The west must not prevaricate when it comes to seizing Russian reserves; Confiscating and deploying them for Ukraine's benefit is the morally obvious next step
Martin Sandbu - Financial Times
Within days of Vladimir Putin's full-scale assault on Ukraine, western capitals acted with remarkable determination in blocking Russia's access to more than $300bn of foreign exchange reserves. In the 20 months since, however, the western sanctions coalition has got itself into ever more contortions trying to avoid the morally obvious next steps: seizing the reserves and deploying them for Ukraine's benefit.
/jlne.ws/3FHHHKp
Putin Confronts Financial 'Waterloo' Risk to Choke Off Inflation
Bloomberg
As Russia's central bank prepared to lift interest rates last week, an executive at a top state lender warned policymakers were confronting no less than their "Waterloo" - a battle with inflation whose outcome would prove momentous for the country's financial institutions and markets. The eventual hike was double the forecast of most economists, a decision that left Russia with one of the world's highest rates when adjusted for inflation. It marked the culmination of a shift in official thinking over the risks of a price spiral, according to people familiar with the matter, as looming presidential elections stretch spending commitments already swollen by Russia's war in Ukraine.
/jlne.ws/49B7stF
Ukraine Finally Deploys Its Ex-Swedish Archer Howitzers. They're Some Of The Best Big Guns In The War.
David Axe - Forbes
infantry fighting vehicles, Bgbv 90 armored recovery vehicles and Archer self-propelled howitzers. The tanks, fighting vehicles and recovery vehicles went to the Ukrainian army's 21st Mechanized Brigade. But not the Archers. Ten months after the Swedes pledged the howitzers, we finally have photos of the mobile 155-millimeter guns on the front line.
/jlne.ws/3scl2ml
Musk-endorsed X war account spreading 'pro-Russian propaganda'; US Navy veteran behind influential anonymous X account, according to Ukraine
Bevan Hurley - Independent
An anonymous X/Twitter account that was boosted by Elon Musk was set up by a 24-year-old US military veteran who used it to spread "pro-Russian propaganda", according to a private Ukrainian intelligence firm. The @sentdefender account gained hundreds of thousands of followers after being endorsed by Mr Musk on 8 October for its coverage of the Israeli-Hamas war, and puts out dozens of daily posts on the widening Middle East conflict and the war in Ukraine.
/jlne.ws/46Z8fT8
Ukraine likely destroyed 3 of Russia's prized S-400 missile systems worth $1.5 billion, weakening its air defenses, says UK intel
Alia Shoaib - Insider
Ukraine has likely destroyed at least four Russian long-range air defense systems in the last week, weakening Russia's air defenses, the UK Department of Defense said in an intelligence update on Thursday. These include three prized S-400 Triumf missile systems, which were destroyed in the Luhansk region on October 26, according to Russian media reports.
/jlne.ws/3MuuCYE
Zelenskiy pushes US for more aid, invites Trump to Ukraine
Reuters
/jlne.ws/47milgG
Ukraine Damages Russian Cruise Missile Carrier In Latest Strike on Crimea; Warship struck by Kyiv is among the most advanced in Russia's Navy
Matthew Luxmoore - Then Wall Street Journal
/jlne.ws/3QupJA5
Zelenskiy Urges Congress to Pass Ukraine Aid or Risk Bigger War
Tony Czuczka - Bloomberg
/jlne.ws/3u2VwR0
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| Israel/Palestine Conflict | | News about the recent (October, 2023) conflict between Israel and Palestine | How Hamas aims to trap Israel in Gaza quagmire
Samia Nakhoul, Laila Bassam and Matt Spetalnick - Reuters
Hamas has prepared for a long, drawn-out war in the Gaza Strip and believes it can hold up Israel's advance long enough to force its arch enemy to agree to a ceasefire, two sources close to the organization's leadership said. Hamas, which rules Gaza, has stockpiled weapons, missiles, food and medical supplies, according to the people, who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the situation. The group is confident its thousands of fighters can survive for months in a city of tunnels carved deep beneath the Palestinian enclave and frustrate Israeli forces with urban guerrilla tactics, the people told Reuters.
/jlne.ws/3tZn6P0
Don't Equate Anti-Zionism With Anti-Semitism; It is not anti-Semitic to want equal rights for all in Jerusalem, in Tel Aviv, in Gaza, in Ramallah.
Adam Serwer - The Atlantic
On October 7, the Islamist militant group Hamas, which governs the Gaza Strip, killed more than 1,400 people in Israel. Israel responded with military operations that have killed several times that number of Palestinians in Gaza, a territory described by Human Rights Watch as an "open-air prison" as a result of an Israeli and Egyptian blockade. In both cases, most of the casualties are civilians. The conflict has reverberated into other areas of the world, including the United States, where anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim incidents have included the killing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy. The bloodshed has revived the perennial debates about anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.
/jlne.ws/3Ssi4oc
Gaza Becomes a Death Trap for Children as Israeli Strikes Intensify; About 40% of those killed so far have been under 18. 'This is the worst we've seen.'
Dion Nissenbaum and Abu Bakr Bashir - The Wall Street Journal
Abdullah Abu Nada was working in his laboratory at Gaza City's biggest hospital last month when his friend came in with chilling news: The house where his wife and four children were sheltering had been hit by an Israeli airstrike. As survivors of the attack began arriving at the emergency room, Abu Nada, a chemist, rushed through the chaotic halls, searching for his family. One small boy had been pulled from the rubble, but when soot was rubbed from the child's face, it was clear it wasn't Abu Nada's youngest son.
/jlne.ws/3FLJbDj
More kids killed in Gaza in 3 weeks than all global conflict annually since 2019, Save the Children says; 'These are children that had futures, that had lives ahead of them,' says Save the Children rep
Sheena Goodyear - CBC Radio
More children have been killed in the Gaza Strip over the last three weeks than in every other armed conflict annually since 2019, says Save the Children. Citing numbers from Gaza's Health Ministry, the international charity said Sunday that 3,195 children have been killed in Gaza since Oct. 7. That number had risen to 3,457 as of Monday afternoon. The CBC has been unable to independently verify the figures.
/jlne.ws/465EBui
UN leaders say Gaza war must 'stop now', as dozens more die
Nidal Al-Mughrabi - Reuters
U.N. agency leaders saying "enough is enough" demanded a humanitarian ceasefire on Monday nearly a month into Gaza's war, as the enclave's health authorities said dozens more people were killed in overnight attacks by Israeli fighter jets and troops. Israel has rebuffed mounting international pressure for a ceasefire, saying hostages taken by Hamas militants during their rampage in southern Israel on Oct. 7 should be released first.
/jlne.ws/3sl6VLo
Israel rebuffs calls for ceasefire; Lebanon strike angers Hezbollah
Nidal Al-Mughrabi, Ali Sawafta and Simon Lewis - Reuters
/jlne.ws/3QOo1uJ
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| Exchanges, OTC & Clearing | | Top news from exchanges, clearing, settlement and trade execution facilities | ICE Completes Rebuild of NYSE Technology Stack
Shanny Basar - Markets Media
ICE has completed rebuilding the technology stack for the New Stock York Exchange, which it acquired in 2013. Jeffrey Sprecher, chair & chief executive of ICE, said on the third quarter results call on 2 November that the New York Stock Exchange had been built on a technology stack that was overly complicated, hard to manage and unreliable.
/jlne.ws/49kxQrt
ICE Mortgage Monitor: Affordability and Demand Continue to Suffer As Rates Hit 23-Year High; Lendable Equity Nearing Record Levels, Yet Borrower Retention Worst in 17 Years
Intercontinental Exchange
Rising rates and home prices have pushed the principal and interest (P&I) payment needed to purchase the median-priced home up $144 per month over the past 30 days to more than $2,500 for the first time. It now takes 40.6% of the median household income to cover monthly P&I - after averaging less than 25% over the past 35 years - making for the least affordable housing market since 1984. As a result, purchase-mortgage applications fell to 47% below pre-pandemic levels the week of Oct. 26 - the weakest they've been since rates began to rise. Further, annual home price growth continued to accelerate to +4.3% in September, though the monthly gain (+0.39%) was the weakest since January and a marked downshift from August's revised +0.61%. However, with rates above 7.5%, affordability is at a 39-year low and purchase applications are waning; given these conditions it's fair to expect prices to weaken later in 2023.
/jlne.ws/49ihujb
OCC's Dallas Office Receives 2023 Best Place for Working Parents Designation
OCC
OCC is proud to share that in 2023, our Dallas office has earned the Best Place for Working Parents business designation for the third consecutive year in recognition of our family-friendly policies and practices. Fostering a culture of inclusion, belonging and trust inclusive for working parents and all colleagues is part of OCC's #WeAreOCC value and ensures OCC continues to attract, retain and develop talent with a wide range of backgrounds and perspectives.
/jlne.ws/3FHCxhx
EEX introduces additional maturities for natural gas derivatives trading
European Energy Exchange
The European Energy Exchange (EEX) announces the extension of tradable maturities for natural gas derivatives, to be available from 11 December 2023. The new expiries will complement EEX's natural gas maturities product line introduced earlier in the year on selected markets, allowing EEX to offer a full suite to enable a wide range of long-term trading and hedging options across key markets.
/jlne.ws/47hVN0E
Appointment Of HKEX Risk Management Committee (Statutory) Member Corporate
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEX) welcomes Daryl Ho, the new Executive Director (Monetary Management) of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA) to its Risk Management Committee (Statutory) (RMC). The appointment was in accordance with the Securities and Futures Ordinance. Daryl Ho replaced Clara Chan, the former HKMA's Executive Director (Monetary Management), on the RMC. RMC members comprise: Laura M Cha (Chairman); Chow Woo Mo Fong, Susan; Grimme, David Allen; Ho, Hon Kit Daryl; Kwok Pui Fong, Miranda; Leung Chung Yin, Rico; Leung Pak Hon, Hugo; Sun Yu.
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ASX Group Monthly Activity Report - October 2023
Attached is a copy of the ASX Group Monthly Activity Report for October 2023
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Cboe Global Markets Reports Trading Volume for October 2023
Cboe Global Markets
Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (Cboe: CBOE), the world's leading derivatives and securities exchange network, today reported October 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 October 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.
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Nasdaq October 2023 Volumes
Nasdaq
Nasdaq (Nasdaq: NDAQ) today reported monthly volumes for October 2023 on its investor relations website. A data sheet showing this information can be found at: http://ir.nasdaq.com/financials/volume-statistics.
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TMX Group Consolidated Trading Statistics - October 2023
TMX Group Limited
TMX Group Limited today announced October 2023 trading statistics for its marketplaces - Toronto Stock Exchange, TSX Venture Exchange, TSX Alpha Exchange and Montreal Exchange.
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The Moscow Exchange participates in the International Exhibition and Forum "Russia"
On November 4, 2023, the International Exhibition and Forum "Russia" opens at VDNKh, in which the Moscow Exchange takes part.
MOEX
The exchange stands became part of the "Smart Finance" exposition (pavilion 71), which is presented at the exhibition by the Bank of Russia. In the Smart Finance pavilion, the Bank of Russia, together with market participants, talks about the achievements of the Russian financial sector in the payment sector, financial technologies and in the work to create new useful services.
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| Fintech | | A roundup of today's market tech news and a look at tomorrow's disruptors | Revolut in talks over new Canary Wharf headquarters; Fintech negotiating for space in former Thomson Reuters building amid challenging time for Docklands estate
Akila Quinio - Financial Times
Revolut is in talks to move its headquarters to one of Canary Wharf's most prominent buildings, in what would be a vote of confidence for the London business district as it contends with higher vacancy rates and the loss of one of its flagship tenants, HSBC.
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An AI bot performed insider trading and deceived its users after deciding helping a company was worth the risk
Ryan Hogg - Fortune
An AI bot decided to commit insider trading and lie to its user about it afterward because it thought the risk was worth it to help the company.
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AI Pioneer Kai-Fu Lee Builds $1 Billion Startup in Eight Months; 01.AI's model outperforms Meta's Llama 2 on certain metrics; Startup to offer open-source model; proprietary options later
Saritha Rai and Peter Elstrom - Bloomberg
A Chinese startup founded by computer scientist Kai-Fu Lee has become a unicorn in less than eight months on the strength of a new open-source artificial-intelligence model that outstrips Silicon Valley's best, on at least certain metrics.
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Ant Receives Chinese Government Nod to Roll Out AI Services; Bailing will be applied to Ant's various services, firm said; Alibaba, Tencent are competing to build large language models
Jane Zhang - Bloomberg
Ant Group Co., the fintech affiliate of Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., received approval from the Chinese government to roll out products powered by its large language model Bailing to the public. Bailing will be applied to Ant's various services and help with innovation, Xu Peng, vice president of Ant Group said in a statement on Monday.
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How can blockchain platforms make currency trading cheaper? HSBC and Wells Fargo are bucking the trend and using the technology to settle foreign exchange transactions
Nikou Asgari - Financial Times
The use of blockchain in the financial services industry is still in its early stages, but two banks are using the technology to make settling currency trades easier, and cheaper.
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Tech giants pour billions into cloud capacity in AI push; Google, Microsoft and Amazon boost investment by a fifth over two years to a combined quarterly total of $42bn
Camilla Hodgson - Financial Times
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| Cybersecurity | | Top stories for cybersecurity | Keeping secrets in a quantum world; Cryptographers are preparing for new quantum computers that will break their ciphers.
Neil Savage - Nature
In July 2022, a pair of mathematicians in Belgium startled the cybersecurity world. They took a data-encryption scheme that had been designed to withstand attacks from quantum computers so sophisticated they don't yet exist, and broke it in 10 minutes using a nine-year-old, non-quantum PC.
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China Unleashes Crackdown on 'Pig Butchering.' (It Isn't What You Think.); Beijing is going after scam mills that operate out of secretive, dystopian compounds and swindle people worldwide
Feliz Solomon - The Wall Street Journal
It's called "pig butchering." Armies of scammers operating from lawless corners of Southeast Asia-often controlled by Chinese crime bosses-connect with people all over the world through online messages. They foster elaborate, sometimes romantic, relationships, and then coax their targets into making bogus investments. Over time, they make it appear that the investments are growing to get victims to send more money. Then, they disappear.
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This fake ledger app on the Microsoft Store may have stolen over half a million dollars worth of crypto
Colton Stradling - Windows Central
A scammer was able to get a fake Ledger app called Ledger Live Web3 passed through Microsoft Store's checks and get it published on the store.mThe app was being used to steal people's Bitcoin by asking users to enter in their 12-24 word recovery phrase into the app. This of course gave the scammer access to the user's cryptocurrency. You can see the initial post about this by X (Twitter) user @ZachXBT. It is also important to note that while this article was being written, @ZachXBT updated their post with a reply that the Microsoft Store has removed the app.
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Is Cybersecurity A Line Or A Circle? The Shape Of Incident Response
Stewart Room - Forbes
The operational shape of cybersecurity in an organisation is critical to its success and legal health. In light of recent developments such as the SEC prosecutions of SolarWinds, the forthcoming implementation of its new reporting rules, the increasing strength of the GDPR enforcement regime in Europe, the need to maintain resilience in the insurance sector and countless related developments, it is obvious that the shape of security will be a key focus of regulators, litigators, court and, of course, business partners in a supply chain. An elemental concern will be the shape of incident response.
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We must stop AI replicating the problems of surveillance capitalism
There should be less focus on 'Terminator'-style scenarios and more on economic data disclosure
Rana Foroohar - Financial Times
Artificial intelligence has been at the centre of the global conversation in recent days, with a major summit in the UK and a new executive order coming down from the White House. Much of the discussion has centred on how companies and regulators might prevent futuristic disasters triggered by AI, from nuclear war to a pandemic. But there's a real-time problem that's getting far less attention: how to ensure that AI doesn't eat everyone's economic lunch.
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| Cryptocurrencies | | Top stories for cryptocurrencies | After a year in FTX's shadow, the crypto industry is delighting in Bankman-Fried's conviction
Allison Morrow - CNN
It took just under a year for Sam Bankman-Fried to go from crypto wunderkind to convicted felon. No one is happier about that than the professionals in the industry that made him, for a time, a rock star. When Bankman-Fried's crypto empire collapsed last November, it sent the fledgling industry back years. For the crypto faithful who are still standing and striving, the trial couldn't be over soon enough.
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Crypto lawyer says $20M settlement is 99.9% win for Ripple; Deaton strongly refuted the idea that the lawsuit's result was an even 50/50 outcome for the SEC, claiming that it's closer to a 90/10 advantage in favor of Ripple.
Amaka Nwaokocha - Cointelegraph
Prominent cryptocurrency attorney John Deaton has offered insights into the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) vs. Ripple lawsuit. He contends that a settlement of $20 million or less would constitute a significant legal triumph for the company. In a recent post on X (formerly Twitter), Deaton strongly refuted the idea that the lawsuit's result was an even 50/50 outcome for the SEC, claiming that it's closer to a 90/10 advantage in favor of Ripple. Deaton's remarks were prompted by a post from Stuart Alderoty, Ripple's chief legal officer, highlighting another legal setback for the SEC.
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Sam Bankman-Fried exposed the woke capitalist elite for the fools they are; FTX had red flags all over it yet the investment industry was happy to pour in vast sums
Matthew Lynn - The Telegraph
In the end, he was found guilty on seven counts. But Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the crypto currency exchange FTX, and once the youngest multi-billionaire on the planet, will have to wait until March for sentencing. He may well spend the rest of his life behind bars. But as the dust now settles, one point has become increasingly clear. It is not just SBF, as he was known to acolytes, who should have been on trial. It should have been much of the flawed, phoney venture capital (VC) industry.
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Don't confuse customers over stablecoins, Bank of England warns lenders
Huw Jones - Reuters
The Bank of England told lenders on Monday that they must avoid any risk that customers might confuse new forms of e-money like 'stablecoins' with standard deposits which are guaranteed against bank failures. Stablecoins are a cryptocurrency backed by a traditional currency such as sterling or the U.S. dollar, or an asset.
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Hong Kong Mulls Allowing Spot Crypto ETFs in Pursuit of Asia Hub; SFC head says Hong Kong open to wider access to digital assets; City also trying to foster an ecosystem for tokenized products
Kiuyan Wong - Bloomberg
Hong Kong is assessing whether to allow exchange-traded funds that invest directly in crypto as officials step up efforts to create an Asia-Pacific digital-asset hub while tackling the fallout of the JPEX scandal. The city is weighing retail-investor access to such spot ETFs providing regulatory concerns are met, Securities and Futures Commission Chief Executive Officer Julia Leung said.
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Bored Ape creator investigates claims that guests at its NFT event suffered agonizing eye problems because of UV lights on the stage
Jyoti Mann - Business Insider
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| Politics | | An overview of politics as it relates to the financial markets | We are witnessing the fall of the American empire; The Pax Americana rests in the trembling hands of Joe Biden
Time Stanley - The Telegraph
Why have the October 7 attacks triggered a culture war in the West? Because parts of our Left are anti-Semitic and the Right is calling them out? Absolutely. But this is also psychological displacement: we're so shocked by the murder of Israelis, distressed by the bombings in Gaza and, unable to comprehend an intractable problem, that we withdraw into the familiar language of domestic politics.
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Efforts to Bump Trump Off the 2024 Ballot Raise Fears of Election Chaos; Cases involve ban on insurrectionists holding public office; Legal fight expected to eventually reach US Supreme Court
Zoe Tillman - Bloomberg
Minutes into a hearing on whether Donald Trump is constitutionally barred from being president again, Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson jumped in with her biggest concern: There could be "chaos" if some states keep Trump off 2024 ballots while others allow him on.
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Rishi Sunak to unveil North Sea annual oil and gas licensing bill; Legislation to be announced in King's Speech will allow companies to bid yearly for new licences to drill for fossil fuels
Lucy Fisher, Gill Plimmer, Jim Pickard and David Sheppard - Financial Times
New legislation to mandate annual North Sea oil and gas licensing rounds will be at the heart of the King's Speech on Tuesday, as Rishi Sunak looks to exploit a policy divide with Labour ahead of the next UK general election.
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The EU's plan to regain its competitive edge; Brussels is trying to devise another new strategy amid fears of being left even further behind the US and China
Henry Foy and Ian Johnston - Financial Times
When the heads of cabinets of the EU's 27 commissioners huddled in the Belgian countryside in late August for their back-to-work retreat, all were invited to talk about what they thought should be the priority for the autumn. The standout theme was clear, and unexpected.
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Singapore's PM Lee Plans to Step Aside in 2024 Before Next Polls; Succession edges closer as deputy Wong steps up party outreach; City-state must hold next general election by November 2025
Philip Heijmans - Bloomberg
Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said he will hand over power to his deputy Lawrence Wong before the country's next general election, and signaled the transition could come as early as 2024. "I have full confidence in Lawrence and his team and there's no reason to delay the political transition," Lee, 71, said during the ruling party's convention on Sunday. "Therefore, I intend to hand over to DPM Lawrence before the next general election."
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Australia's Albanese to Meet With China's Xi in Beijing
Ben Westcott - Bloomberg
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| Regulation & Enforcement | | Stories about regulation and the law. | SEC Presses Ahead in Civil Case Against Terraform Labs and Co-Founder Do Kwon
Allyson Versprille - Bloomberg
As jurors were deciding the fate of FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried in his criminal case, US regulators pushed forward with a civil lawsuit against another former crypto mogul, Do Kwon. The Securities and Exchange Commission in a court filing Thursday asked a Manhattan judge to rule on its case against Kwon and his company, Terraform Labs, without a full trial, also known as summary judgment.
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FTX Bankruptcy Advisers Provided Customer Trading Data to FBI; Alvarez & Marsal gave trading data, customer details to FBI; FTX has responded to subpoenas from at least five FBI offices
Jonathan Randles - Bloomberg
FTX advisers have been giving federal law enforcement offices across the US information on customer accounts and records related to transactions on the failed crypto platform, court records show. Company advisers have in recent months gathered FTX customer data in response to subpoenas from at least five FBI field offices, according to billing records from consultancy Alvarez & Marsal. Tasks included extracting information on specific customers' trades, investigating accounts and sifting through cloud-computing data.
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Crackdown has ensnared over 100 bankers, officials this year
Bloomberg News
China opened a corruption investigation into Zhang Hongli, a former vice president at the nation's largest bank, adding to a growing list of top bankers to be caught up in the crackdown on the $61 trillion financial sector. Also called Lee Zhang, he worked at Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd. from 2010-2018 after earlier holding top roles at Deutsche Bank AG and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. He is being probed for alleged violations of discipline and laws, the top anti-graft body Central Commission for Discipline Inspection said over the weekend in a one-sentence statement.
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Remarks of Chairman Rostin Behnam on the FSOC Approval of the Analytic Framework for Financial Stability Risks and Guidance on Nonbank Financial Company Determinations
CFTC
Madam Secretary, I want to thank you as Chair of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC or Council), and the entire FSOC Secretariat for all of their tremendous work in preparation for today's meeting. Of the Congressional authorities the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (Dodd-Frank Act) created in response to the 2008 Financial Crisis, designation authority by this Council is one of the most critical and responsive to the exposed vulnerabilities.
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CFTC Charges Illinois Man and His Firm for Operating a Fraudulent Retail Forex Commodity Pool
CFTC
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission today announced it filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois against Coby Young and his firm, Young Emerging Strategies LLC, both of Illinois. The complaint charges the defendants with fraud in connection with leveraged, margined, or financed retail foreign currency transactions (retail forex), fraud by a commodity pool operator, registration violations, disclosure and recordkeeping violations, and commingling pool property.
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Commissioner Pham to Speak at the Singapore Fintech Festival
SEC
Commissioner Caroline D. Pham will speak on a panel titled "Are investors backing the digital assets ecosystem? A policy and investor dialogue" at the Singapore Fintech Festival.
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Commissioner Pham to Speak at the Blockchain Week in Busan 2023
SEC
Commissioner Caroline D. Pham will participate in a fireside chat titled "Proposals for Innovation of Digital Asset Regulation" at the Blockchain Week in Busan 2023.
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Remarks to SEC Regulation Outside the United States: Fifth Annual Scott Friestad Memorial Lecture
Commissioner Mark T. Uyeda - SEC
Good morning and thank you, Jim [Burns], for that introduction. I am pleased to be part of the 2023 conference on SEC Regulation Outside the United States to deliver the Fifth Annual Scott Friestad Memorial Lecture. I had the privilege of working with Scott Friestad at the Securities and Exchange Commission for nearly a dozen years. I arrived at the SEC in October 2006 to serve as counsel to Commissioner Paul Atkins. This was about 18 months after Scott had been promoted to Associate Director in our Division of Enforcement. At the time, each Commissioner had three counsels and, in our office, each one of us handled a third of the Enforcement recommendations.
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Statement of Commissioner Caroline D. Pham in Support of Proposed Amendments to Regulation 1.25
CFTC
I support the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on Investment of Customer Funds by Futures Commission Merchants and Derivatives Clearing Organizations (Proposed Amendments to Regulation 1.25 or NPRM) because, importantly, it provides regulatory clarity by codifying outstanding no-action relief, and promotes good government by providing a timely response to a petition from market participants. I would like to thank Tom Smith, Warren Gorlick, Liliya Bozhanova, and Jeff Burns for their work on the NPRM.
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Statement of Commissioner Christy Goldsmith Romero: The CFTC's Sacrosanct Responsibility to Safeguard Customer Funds to Protect Customers and Avoid Systemic Risk; Proposed Changes to Regulations Governing the Investment of Customer Funds
CFTC
The CFTC has a sacrosanct responsibility to safeguard customer funds held by brokers and clearinghouses. For our markets to work well, customers must have confidence that their funds will be safe. Safe from a broker or clearinghouse who misuses customer money for their own purposes or decides on their own to use customer funds to make risky bets chasing their own profits.
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Statement of Commissioner Kristin N. Johnson: Preserving Trust and Preventing the Erosion of Customer Protection Regulation
CFTC
The health of our financial system and the integrity of our markets rests on the ability of customers to entrust their assets and property to custodians. Consequently, enhancing the protection of customer funds and assets and preventing the erosion of regulation that preserves customer assets is critical to the success of our economy.
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Statement of Support of Chairman Rostin Behnam; Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for Investment of Customer Funds by Futures Commission Merchants and Derivatives Clearing Organizations
CFTC
A fundamental tenet of the Commission's customer protection framework is the safeguarding and investment of customer funds deposited by customers with futures commission merchants ("FCMs") and derivatives clearing organizations ("DCOs") to margin futures, foreign futures, and cleared swaps transactions. This proposal to revise the Commission's regulations for the safeguarding and investment of customer funds by FCMs and DCOs in Commission regulations 1.20, 1.25, 1.26, 1.32, 22.2, 22.3, and 30.7 along with the relevant appendices does not change this foundational principle. This proposal embodies a prudent, periodic reassessment of these requirements to ensure that this framework remains appropriately calibrated to preserve principal and maintain liquidity. Therefore, I support the Commission issuing this proposal for public comment.
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Written reply to Parliamentary Question on risk-based capital adequacy requirements and climate risks
Monetary Authority of Singapore
To ask the Prime Minister following the European Banking Authority's latest requirement for banks to incorporate environmental risks into calculations of their core capital, whether MAS will consider revising the risk-based capital adequacy requirements for local banks to reflect such climate risks in their credit decisions.
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| Investing & Trading | | Today's top stories from equities, indices and FICC (fixed income, currencies and commodities) | Why there are still active asset managers; Markets appear inefficient enough to justify large investors' use of them
Toby Nangle - Financial Times
"After costs, the return on the average actively managed dollar will be less than the return on the average passively managed dollar." This was William Sharpe, the Nobel-winning economist, back in 1991 when index-investing was a decidedly niche pursuit. "The proof", he added with a flourish, "is embarrassingly simple."
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Annual revenue from music copyright climbs to $41.5bn; Figures reflect post-pandemic rebound in public licensing in gigs and hospitality
Daniel Thomas - Financial Times
Annual revenues generated by music copyright have grown to $41.5bn globally on the back of continued growth in streaming and a post-pandemic resurgence in public licensing in concerts and hospitality. A report by Will Page, a former chief economist at Spotify, analysed revenue streams from various sources and found that they grew by about a sixth in 2022, with record labels and their artists accounting for about two-thirds of this money, a share that has increased from about half in 2014.
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A short seller with a 95% win ratio shares 5 stocks he recently traded and why his strategy of finding cash-strapped companies to bet against is working better than ever
David Capablanca - Insider
In 2016, David Capablanca was on track to become an architect as he worked through earning a graduate degree from the University of California, Los Angeles. That year, he had also taken up an interest in stock trading. He began testing his skills in short selling, the process of borrowing a stock to sell and repurchase at a lower price to pocket the difference. During the first few years, he began by trading a couple hundred dollars at a time while he tested his skills and got a feel for the stock market.
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Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Sits on Record $157 Billion Cash Pile; The conglomerate's quarterly loss widened, stung by the stock market downturn
Karen Langley - The Wall Street Journal
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B 0.80%increase; green up pointing triangle ended the third quarter with a record cash pile and reported a deeper net loss due to the sputtering stock market rally. The famed investor's Omaha, Neb., company wrapped up the third quarter with a record $157.2 billion in cash and equivalents, up from $147.4 billion at the end of the second quarter and eclipsing the previous record of $149.2 billion that was set two years ago.
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US Treasury Trading Under Regulatory Focus
Shanny Basar - MarketsMedia
The Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed an expansion of central clearing for US Treasuries, while a number of regulators have warned that Treasury basis trades may destabilise financial markets due to hedge funds building up leveraged short positions in US Treasury futures. US Treasury markets currently consist of transactions which are either bilaterally cleared or centrally cleared transactions though Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC), part of US financial market infrastructure DTCC.
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Why 6% Commissions on US Home Sales Are on Trial
Patrick Clark and Leah Nylen - Bloomberg
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Jeff Bezos Isn't Your Average Florida Retiree, But He's Close; Miami offers the Amazon founder and billionaire the right mix of family and lifestyle. But his era of wild entrepreneurial success stories is winding down.
Jessica Karl - Bloomberg
Baby Bezos
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These Funds Offer a Way to Lock In High Bond Yields; Defined-maturity bond funds from BlackRock and Invesco have grown in popularity this year
Jack Pitcher - The Wall Street Journal
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| Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance | | Stories about environmental, social and governance investing | Corporate net-zero targets continue to boom, but more integrity 'urgently' needed; The latest analysis from the Net Zero Tracker has confirmed that the 1,000th company from the Forbes Global 2000 has now set a net-zero target, but warns that the integrity of climate plans needs to urgently improve if the private sector is to play its role in delivering the Paris Agreement.
Matt Mace - edie
Corporate net-zero targets continue to boom, but more integrity 'urgently' needed
The Net Zero tracker, which released its latest analysis today (6 November), found that the number of corporate net-zero targets has risen by more than 40% in 16 months, from 700 in June 2022 to 1,003. Combined, the firms with net-zero targets in place have an annual aggregate revenue of around $27trn. While the Net Zero Tracker welcomes the jump in corporate net-zero targets, it does warn that targets need to be more ambitious. The Tracker found that only 37% of corporate net zero targets fully cover Scope 3 emissions and just 13% specify quality conditions under which any offsets would be used. The Tracker warns that this signals an overreliance on low quality offset credits, rather than emissions reductions.
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UK investors pull out of ESG funds; Record outflow of 544mn pounds from responsible investment funds in September
Arjun Neil Alim - Financial Times
UK investors pulled money out of so-called responsible funds at a record rate, as the market adjusted to the view that interest rates would stay higher for longer and ESG lost its shine in a more volatile market. Responsible investment funds registered a record outflow of 544mn pounds in September, meaning investors have withdrawn more than 1bn pounds so far in 2023, according to figures from the Investment Association.
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How Midwest Landowners Helped to Derail One of the Biggest CO2 Pipelines Ever Proposed; Lured by billions of dollars in federal funding for carbon capture, developers are proposing huge pipelines to carry the CO2 across the Midwest. In Illinois, one retired academic united her neighbors to fight a key project.
Kristoffer Tigue - Inside Climate News
After half a decade of failed attempts, Kathleen Campbell thought 2021 would finally be the year she retired. That is-until she received a letter in December from Navigator CO2 Ventures. The company wanted to build part of its carbon dioxide pipeline through her property, about 1,000 feet from her rural Illinois home, just south of Springfield, which she had shared with her husband for more than 30 years. The massive project would ultimately span five Midwestern states, and Navigator was threatening to seize her property through eminent domain if she didn't grant them an easement.
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Top US gas producer says pipeline fights endanger industrial world; EQT chief lambasts 'movement to cancel energy infrastructures' after latest delay to Mountain Valley project
Jamie Smyth - Financial Times
The largest US natural gas producer has lambasted a "war on infrastructure" that risks sparking a Europe-style energy crisis in parts of the US, days after the latest delay to a new pipeline fast-tracked for approval by Congress. EQT chief executive Toby Rice told the Financial Times that the US had "oceans of natural gas", but companies like his in the prolific Appalachian shale region were struggling to add supplies because new pipeline capacity had been blocked.
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Inside the challenging effort to refill America's energy backstop
Ines Ferre and Ben Werschkul - Yahoo Finance
This was supposed to be the year that the Biden administration took a first swing at the laborious process of refilling America's energy backstop, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). But it hasn't worked out that way.
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How Japan Became the Land That the Energy Transition Forgot; It's hard to believe the nation that invented the lithium-ion battery, the hybrid car and solar-powered calculator has fallen so far behind.
David Fickling - Bloomberg
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In the Florida Everglades, a Greenhouse Gas Emissions Hotspot; Drainage has exposed the fertile soils of the Everglades Agricultural Area, a region responsible for much of the nation's sugar cane.
Amy Green - Inside Climate News
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UK accused of bungling sustainable food production policy domestically and globally; Members of the House of Lords have accused Ministers of failing to take a joined-up, long-term view to ensuring the future sustainability of horticulture in Britain, with soil degradation and a looming skills gap among the challenges threatening the 5bn pound industry.
Sarah George - edie
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Amazon drought sparks fears of climate tipping points; Unprecedented dry spell plunges residents into crisis and highlights threats to rainforest's role as carbon sink
Bryan Harris and Steve Bernard and Chris Campbell - Financial Times
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| Banks, Brokers & Managed Funds | | The latest from banks, brokers, hedge funds and managed futures | BNY Mellon pitches to take on multi-manager hedge funds; London-based boutique Newton seeking seed capital to enter strategy dominated by Citadel and Millennium
Costas Mourselas - Financial Times
A $111bn investment boutique owned by BNY Mellon is seeking seed capital from investors to enter the multi-manager hedge fund business dominated by the likes of US giants Citadel and Millennium. Mainstream asset manager Newton Investment Management is pitching investors a multi-manager hedge fund with teams trading equities, currencies, commodities, bonds and quant strategies. The talks are still in their early stages and being led by newly appointed deputy chief investment officer for multi-asset, Paul Brain.
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US asset managers launch new round of job cuts as investors seek safety; Charles Schwab, Prudential and Invesco announce cost controls as industry turns cautious after 2021 hiring spree
Will Schmitt - Financial Times
US asset managers are launching their second wave of job cuts this year, with Charles Schwab, Prudential and Invesco each announcing cost controls amid a flight of customers into safer investments with lower fees. Schwab and Prudential have in recent days divulged plans to cut about 2,000 and 240 positions, respectively. Invesco last month reported severance and reorganisation expenses of about $39mn in the third quarter of 2023 - about twice as much as expected - while posting a marginal drop in headcount.
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Citigroup Weighs Shutting Once Dominant Muni Business
Sridhar Natarajan and Jenny Surane - Bloomberg
Chief Executive Officer Jane Fraser is weighing whether to shutter Citigroup Inc.'s municipal-bond trading and origination business, which for decades was a powerhouse in the $4 trillion market for US state and local debt. Senior executives in favor of closing it down have presented the proposal to Fraser in response to her push to bring the firm's profitability in line with its competitors, according to people familiar with the matter. No final determination has been made and the CEO could still elect to hold on to the business.
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Hedge Funds Catapulted Treasury Shorts to Record at Wrong Time
Ruth Carson and David Finnerty - Bloomberg
Hedge funds extended short positions on Treasuries to a record just before smaller-than-expected US bond sales and weaker jobs data spurred a rally. Leveraged funds ramped up net short Treasury futures positions to the most in data going back to 2006, according to an aggregate of the latest Commodity Futures Trading Commission figures as of Oct. 31. The bets persisted even though the cash bonds had rallied the week before.
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Barclays Created an Enigma - And That's Not Good; It's a mystery how the bank's CEO has left investors with so much uncertainty and confusion over strategy.
Paul J. Davies - Bloomberg
The way it goes normally is someone says: Do you want the good news or the bad news? Last month, Barclays Plc. offered some bad news and left it at that. It's two years this month since C.S. Venkatakrishnan, who goes by Venkat, was thrust into the chief executive officer role after Jes Staley suddenly resigned because he'd been less than open about his friendship with accused sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. It's the right time for Venkat to set his own aims for the UK bank, having initially stuck with the strategy set by Staley.
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| Work & Management | | Stories impacting work and more about management ideas, practices and trends. | Opinion: You shouldn't be fired for being a jerk
Kat Rosenfield - The Washington Post
In times of global turmoil, nothing fuels the online discourse like a hunt for hypocrites. "We're watching the most overt wave of McCarthyism in a generation, and overwhelmingly the 'free speech' crowd is silent," reads a post from one X user. From another: "If even one of the 150 signers of the 2020 Harper's letter on "cancel culture" has a comment about Michael Eisen's dismissal from the EICship of eLife, I will eat my hat."
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The New Headache for Bosses: Employees Aren't Quitting; Just last year, companies were struggling to keep staff. Now, they say not enough people are leaving their jobs.
Chip Cutter - The Wall Street Journal
The white-collar labor market is softening to a point that companies are encountering an issue that would have been unthinkable in the era known as the Great Resignation. These days, too few people are voluntarily leaving their jobs.
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Japan Ranks Last in Global Survey of Employees' Well Being; Global study looked at mental, social, spiritual health; Japan often measures low despite lifetime employment practices
Kanoko Matsuyama - Bloomberg
Japan came in last in a global ranking of employees' well being, measured by assessing physical, mental, social and spiritual health, the results of a survey conducted by McKinsey Health Institute showed. The island nation scored 25% in the poll of more than 30,000 workers across 30 countries, according to the study released on Thursday. Turkey was highest at 78%, followed by 76% for India and 75% for China. The global average was 57%.
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Trading in WeWork halted as Wall Street anticipates bankruptcy
Sujeet Indap - Financial Times
Shares in WeWork were halted for trading early on Monday, as Wall Street anticipated an imminent bankruptcy filing of the co-working space company once valued at $47bn.
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| Wellness Exchange | | An Exchange of Health and Wellness Information | People Who Used Recalled Philips Breathing Machines Face Painful Choices; The devices at their bedsides were lifelines, until they learned the foam inside could break down and make them sick. Now, they're plagued by illness, lost sleep and worry.
Margaret Fleming, Monica Sager, Nicole Tan, Susanti Sarkar, Evan Robinson-Johnson and Claire Gardner, Medill Investigative Lab - ProPublica
They thought they were getting clean air from the lifelines at their bedsides, coveted nights of healthy sleep that for too long did not come easy. Near Portland, Oregon, Kim Binford's sleep apnea machine helped him manage chronic pain. Outside Indianapolis, Connie Thompson was able to stay awake in class during her senior year of high school. In the suburbs of Atlanta, Debra Miller could put her grandchildren in the car and drive without fear.
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A Secret War, Strange New Wounds, and Silence From the Pentagon; Many U.S. troops who fired vast numbers of artillery rounds against the Islamic State developed mysterious, life-shattering mental and physical problems. But the military struggled to understand what was wrong.
Dave Philipps, Photographs by Matthew Callahan - The Wall Street Journal
When Javier Ortiz came home from a secret mission in Syria, the ghost of a dead girl appeared to him in his kitchen. She was pale and covered in chalky dust, as if hit by an explosion, and her eyes stared at him with a glare as dark and heavy as oil. The 21-year-old Marine was part of an artillery gun crew that fought against the Islamic State, and he knew that his unit's huge cannons had killed hundreds of enemy fighters. The ghost, he was sure, was their revenge. A shiver went through him. He backed into another room in his apartment near Camp Pendleton in California and flicked on the lights, certain that he was imagining things. She was still there.
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Daily Cannabis Use Linked to Higher Risk of Severe Heart Disease
Alex Millson - Bloomberg
Using cannabis every day raises many of the same risks of severe heart disease that affect frequent cigarette smokers, new research shows. Daily use of the recreational drug was linked to a 34% increased risk of developing heart failure in a study that followed more than 150,000 Americans over almost four years. Marijuana use was also linked to life-threatening brain and heart complications in older hospitalized patients with pre-existing cardiac and metabolic problems, a separate study found.
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| Regions | | Stories of local interest from the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions | Tax-Free Account Boom Heralds New Wave of Young Japan Investors; Inflation, retirement program overhaul may spur investments; New NISA accounts jumped 84% per month in 10-month period: SBI
Aya Wagatsuma - Bloomberg
The cost of a Tokyo bento lunchbox had nearly doubled before Nanami Eda noticed that her savings account wasn't growing nearly as quickly. So, the 26-year-old consultant decided she'd put more of her funds into a new tax-free option that's historically been anathema to young Japanese: the stock market. "I'm excited about it," she said. For much of the world, higher costs have become just another part of life as demand grows, wages increase and supply chains get disrupted. But inflation rapidly jumping to the highest level in more than 40 years has come as a shock in Japan, where corporations have for decades avoided raising prices.
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China Brokerages Rise as Regulator Proposes Wider Capital Use; Guolian Securities soars by the 10% daily limit in Shanghai; Large brokers to benefit most from proposed rule: Citi
Bloomberg News
Chinese brokerages surged after authorities proposed to relax capital requirements for firms and signaled support for more acquisitions. Guolian Securities Co. soared by the 10% daily limit in Shanghai, leading gains among peers. Citic Securities Co., Shenwan Hongyuan Group Co. and Huatai Securities Co. also advanced. Meanwhile, China International Capital Corp. shares jumped 7.9% in Hong Kong.
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Crackdown on illegal mining forces Indonesia to import nickel ore; Large shipments from the Philippines needed to keep smelters operating
Mercedes Ruehl and Harry Dempsey - Financial Times
Supply shortages caused by Indonesia's crackdown on illegal nickel mining have forced the country to import large quantities of ore from the Philippines to keep smelters operating. Indonesia, the world's largest nickel producer, has in recent months pursued a corruption investigation across the government that has led to delays in the issuance of quotas for nickel mining.
/jlne.ws/3Su5JQx
Naira Jumps on Nigeria Streets, Crypto Trade After Forex Cleared
Emele Onu - Bloomberg
Nigeria's naira jumped against the dollar on the parallel market and on crypto exchanges on Friday, a day after authorities said they took steps to clear a backlog of matured foreign-currency forward contracts that have hampered dollar inflows.
/jlne.ws/3MuZhVQ
The Bond Trade of 2024 in Emerging Markets May Beckon in Turkey; Lira debt increasingly drawing interest of Amundi, Abrdn, Itau; Foreigners abandoned market after years of unorthodox policies
Ugur Yilmaz and Beril Akman - Bloomberg
Some of the world's largest investors are taking a fresh look at an unloved Turkish bond market that could prove to be next year's biggest bright spot in the $8 trillion local debt universe of developing nations. Few are taking the plunge just yet, however, despite record-high yields on offer. Almost half a year into a rewrite of economic policies under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, money managers including Amundi SA, which has $2 trillion under management, are clamoring for Turkey to take another step up the ladder of interest rates and possibly allow for a weaker currency to make lira bonds investable again.
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Saudi Arabia's oil production cuts have tipped its economy into reverse
Aimee Look - CNN
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BHP aims to settle over Brazil dam disaster; A venture jointly owned by the miner and Vale faces alleged liabilities in the tens of billions of dollars
Michael Pooler and Harry Dempsey - Financial Times
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Russia to Stick With Voluntary Oil Export Cuts Until Year-End
Bloomberg News
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How Farmers Are Teaching Old Tractors to Think for Themselves; Deere, Agco, CNH offer cheaper retrofits to ease transition to more automation
Bob Tita - The Wall Street Journal
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| Miscellaneous | | Stories that don't quite fit under the other sections | Washington Post names Will Lewis as new chief executive and publisher; Former Daily Telegraph editor had been in the running to bid for British broadsheet
Josh Noble - Financial Times
Veteran British media executive Sir Will Lewis has been named as the new publisher and chief executive of The Washington Post, as the newspaper group owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos looks to revive its fortunes.
/jlne.ws/470iTcp
Hit the London Housing Postcode Lottery for a £20 Million Jackpot; Notting Hill or the best of Wandsworth? Choose wisely.
The Secret Agent - Bloomberg
"I'm having an old friend for dinner." That's Anthony Hopkins's last line as Hannibal Lecter in the Oscar-winning film Silence of the Lambs. The eerie music rises as Jodie Foster playing Clarice Starling speaks with a slight lisp into the phone with increasing urgency: "Dr. Lecter, Dr. Lecter, Dr. Lecter." Cut to Hannibal's nemesis on his unwitting way to the dinner date. It's a great denouement to an edge-of-the-seat film.
/jlne.ws/3MuKMkG
Ackman Urges Suspensions at Harvard to Tackle Antisemitism
Janet Lorin - Bloomberg
Harvard alumnus and hedge fund manager Bill Ackman called on university president Claudine Gay to take immediate steps to reduce antisemitism on campus, a situation he called "dire" after meeting with students and faculty last week.
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