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John Lothian Newsletter
​ April 11, 2023 ​ "Irreverent, but never irrelevant"
 
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Hits & Takes
John Lothian & JLN Staff

My friend Thom Lant, formerly of the CME Group and LME and who now has his own consulting firm, is doing his part to help those in Ukraine impacted by the war. Here is his story and request for assistance:

Probably, like many of you reading this, I have been deeply affected by the current war in Ukraine. I have friends in Ukraine, and the village where I live is looking after a number of Ukrainian families, with children attending my son's school.

I can no longer sit and watch as millions of innocent children, women and men suffer through no fault of their own due to the unprovoked war. Me and my family have already donated money, equipment and resources, but feel we must do more.

I am working with a number of organisations in the UK and Ukraine to supply non lethal aid to help those that need it most. The money I raise will be spent entirely on purchasing a vehicle and filling it with aid. The vehicle is a type requested by the Ukrainians and will be donated on arrival as will the aid. I will drive the vehicle to Ukraine and then deliver the aid where it is required.

The fuel to drive there, insurances, paperwork, food, drink and return flights will be funded directly by me.

The vehicle will be a 4x4 pickup with a double cab and cost £4000-5000. This type of vehicle is invaluable to ferry vital aid and also provide evacuations from the towns near the frontline. Nearer the time of my trip, the organisations will specify their aid requirements, which I will source and purchase.

I hope to make the trip in May, the sooner the better to help.

As a way to raise money I have undertaken an 'Ice Barrel Challenge'. This involves taking an ice bath in water around -2°C daily for 30 minutes, for 30 consecutive days. Each day I try to wear a different hat and include a prop or two! Here is one from Easter Sunday, and you can see the others on my Facebook page.

If you can donate to help it would be much appreciated by me, and more so by the Ukrainians who will benefit from it: https://gofund.me/d24d93a1

I am also offering donated consulting days from my business. I consult global companies on brand, PR and marketing as my profession. You can donate directly or indirectly by purchasing consulting days from me, and I will donate 100% of the fee to this fundraiser. It's a great way to get business value and contribute to your ESG credentials in an easy way! To discuss this further and suggested donations, please email me directly at: [email protected]

Thanks for reading this and for your support.


We at JLN strongly urge your support of Thom's efforts. Help him meet his fundraising goal.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission gave Goldman Sachs a $15 million love tap (fine) yesterday to settle an investigation that Goldman "obscured the cost of derivatives that clients purchased to bet on or against an index of overseas stocks," The Wall Street Journal reported. According to the story, "The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Monday that Goldman in 2015 and 2016 didn't tell clients that it priced swaps in a way that put them in a disadvantageous position."

Wait a minute, isn't that the way bilateral trades are supposed to work?

A Chicago Gold Coast mansion built in 1877 owned since the 1980s by the late Richard Driehaus, and was seen in the movie "Ferris Bueller's Day Off," has sold. According to Dennis Rodkin of Crain's Chicago Business, in the movie, "the side of the house that faces Schiller Street, painted white at the time, was used as the exterior of Chez Quis, the snooty French restaurant where Bueller claimed to be Abe Froman, the Sausage King of Chicago."

Danny Ecker of Crain's Chicago Business is reporting that Ken Griffin's Citadel is cutting ties with developer Sterling Bay in the development of its Miami office tower. Citadel also has plans for a Manhattan office tower and has moved some of its real estate development work in-house, Crain's reported.

Speaking of real estate, I am really mad. Someone just built a nuclear power plant right next to my dream home in the metaverse. Now no one is going to want to buy my 30,000 square foot, 15 bedroom mansion with two swimming pools, two tennis courts and a nine-hole golf course. Argh! In the meantime, Bloomberg has a story titled "Whatever Happened to the Metaverse?"

The crypto business continues to heat up at the SEC and they need more hands on deck. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Division of Enforcement - Crypto Assets and Cyber Unit is looking to hire general attorneys in New York, NY; San Francisco, CA; and Washington, DC. For more information and to apply, click HERE.

Outgoing OCC CEO John Davidson is the latest FIA Futures Hall of Fame member to be featured by FIA on LinkedIn with the full-length video interview produced by John Lothian Productions.

Adam Morgan McCarthy and Frank Chaparro at The Block report that "Fidelity Crypto quietly went live, giving millions of retail customers access to bitcoin, ether."

Brendan Bradley has been appointed chairman of Tokenovate as they continue to develop their smart contracts technology for derivatives market infrastructure.

Trading Technologies is looking for someone to fill a role as a "Technical Documentation Writer - Trading Systems."

Ken McCracken is starting a new position as general counsel, chief regulatory officer, and corporate secretary at Nodal Exchange. He was previously the deputy general counsel at Nodal. He has also worked for FERC and Schiff Hardin LLP and was a chief trial attorney at the CFTC.

Have a great day and stay safe and treat people the same way you want to be treated: with respect, equality and justice.~JJL

****

Tattered, shredded souvenir T-shirts featuring artwork depicting bands, superheroes and movies are finding new lives in a collectors market, The Wall Street Journal reports. Thanks to the sewing skills of a photographer turned sewer, new parents are even having their ancient finds downsized to fit their kids. A vintage Method Man shirt is currently selling on eBay for $2,350 and a Nas bootleg is selling for almost $7,000, The WSJ reports. Read more about it here.~SAED

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Jeff Bolke of Eventus talks to John Lothian News about its latest advances in customer service and AML, and creating a culture of success.
JohnLothianNews.com

Jeff Bolke, the chief revenue officer at Eventus, was interviewed by John Lothian News at the FIA International Futures Conference in Boca Raton, FL. about its world of trade surveillance, market risk and anti-money laundering. Bolke discussed Eventus' three-pronged approach to success.

Watch the video »

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Why Taiwan matters to the world; A dangerous rise in tensions with Beijing is a price worth paying to protect a flourishing Asian democracy
Gideon Rachman - Financial Times
Should the US defend Taiwan? This is not an abstract debate. Over the weekend, Beijing simulated bombing raids on the island, while its navy encircled Taiwan. In response to the steady escalation of Chinese military pressure on the island, President Joe Biden has promised - four times - that the US would defend Taiwan from an attack by China.
/jlne.ws/43nP0Bh

***** A world at peace is the best world for all. But peace comes at a cost.~JJL

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U.S. Deems WSJ Reporter Evan Gershkovich 'Wrongfully Detained' by Russia
Vivian Salama and William Mauldin - The Wall Street Journal
The State Department on Monday designated Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested by Russian security services last month, as "wrongfully detained," launching a broad U.S. government effort to exert pressure on Russia to free him. Mr. Gershkovich is held on an accusation of espionage that the Journal and the U.S. government vehemently deny.
/jlne.ws/3Uyje0z

***** Free Evan Now!~JJL

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Climate change adding 50 homers a year in MLB, study says
Seth Borenstein - AP News
Climate change is making major league sluggers into even hotter hitters, sending an extra 50 or so home runs a year over the fences, a new study found. Hotter, thinner air that allows balls to fly farther contributed a tiny bit to a surge in home runs since 2010, according to a statistical analysis by Dartmouth College scientists published in Friday's Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society. They analyzed 100,000 major league games and more than 200,000 balls put into play in the last few years along with weather conditions, stadiums and other factors.
/jlne.ws/3zO5buf

****** The latest statistics come from baseball and the climate study I mentioned last week.~JJL

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Monday's Top Three
Our top story Monday was Chicago Gets What It Voted For; Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson blames businesses for crime, by the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal. Second was Former FTX US President Reportedly Quit After 'Protracted Disagreement' With Bankman-Fried, from Coindesk. Third was Banks Are Closing Customer Accounts, With Little Explanation, from The New York Times.

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MarketsWiki Stats
27,283 pages; 244,131 edits
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John Lothian News (JLN) is the news division of John J. Lothian & Company, Inc. (JJLCO). The online media and financial services firm is staffed by derivatives industry, journalism and technology professionals.
 
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Lead Stories
Wall Street is Turning Water into Wealth, Leaving Californians Out to Dry; Groundwater Gold Rush; Banks, pension funds and insurers have been turning California's scarce water into enormous profits, leaving people with less to drink
Peter Waldman, Sinduja Rangarajan and Mark Chediak - Bloomberg
As storms battered California in March, the state's inland breadbasket erupted with almond blossoms. It happens every year. The Central Valley-the source of 40% of America's fruit and nuts-explodes in a riot of pink and white blooms. This year petals fluttered off branches into raging irrigation ditches that only a few months earlier had twisted across the dry dust like coils of snake molt.
/jlne.ws/3o3n0D2

Swiss Lawmakers Criticize Government on UBS-Credit Suisse Deal
Bastian Benrath and Allegra Catelli - Bloomberg
Swiss lawmakers voiced their discontent over the takeover of Credit Suisse Group AG, criticizing the government's use of emergency measures and blaming the bank's management. "Credit Suisse's leadership has to take responsibility for its actions, that's not only dictated by fairness," Hansjoerg Knecht, a member of the Swiss People's Party, told the upper house of parliament during a special session in Bern. "Tens of thousands of employees worry for their jobs."
/jlne.ws/43kZ5iy

Crises have left us stuck in a 'doom loop' of insuring risky behaviour; The state safety net is becoming dangerously distended with support for households and businesses as well as banks
Andy Haldane - Financial Times
After a decade of radical financial regulatory reform, designed to rid the world of institutions that were "too big to fail", this time was meant to be different. Alas, not. Not only the big (Credit Suisse) but the medium-sized (SVB) were found to matter, the safety net was again distended, and the best-laid regulatory plans perished in their first brush with reality.
/jlne.ws/3mpIHg4

Welcome to a new era of petrodollar power
The Economist
A pack of hungry headhunters has descended on Europe's financial quarters. Over coffee in the mid-morning lull, they tempt staffers at blue-chip investment funds with tax-free jobs, golden visas and gorgeous vistas at the firms' clients: sovereign-wealth funds in the Gulf. A decade in Doha was once a hard sell, but the roles are now juicy enough that many would-be recruits volunteer for desert-bound "business trips" to see headquarters. In October recruiters nabbed the second-in-command at Amundi, Europe's biggest money manager, to deploy artificial intelligence at the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (adia), which oversees assets worth $1trn. Now they are chasing others to invest in infrastructure for the Qatar Investment Authority (qia) and oversee finance for Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (pif). Together these two funds manage another $1trn.
/jlne.ws/3o5AzSd

Goldman Sachs Paying $15 Million to Settle Investigation of Swaps Business
Dave Michaels - The Wall Street Journal
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. agreed Monday to pay $15 million to settle regulatory claims that it obscured the cost of derivatives that clients purchased to bet on or against an index of overseas stocks. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Monday that Goldman in 2015 and 2016 didn't tell clients that it priced swaps in a way that put them in a disadvantageous position. The swaps contracts were tied to an index of stocks from Japan, Europe, Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand and Australia, the CFTC said.
/jlne.ws/3mw9Vl7

***** Here is The Trade's version of the story.~JJL

Singapore Oil Trader OK Lim on Trial in $3.5 Billion Case; Lim pleads not guilty on Tuesday to cheating, forgery charges; HSBC, DBS among banks which provided Hin Leong trade finance
Alfred Cang and Chanyaporn Chanjaroen - Bloomberg
Singapore businessman Lim Oon Kuin is on trial Tuesday for three charges related to cheating and forgery, after his collapsed oil firm Hin Leong Trading Pte. owed about $3.5 billion to banks. He pleaded not guilty. Prosecutors alleged that Lim, the 81-year-old founder of Hin Leong, had instigated an employee to fraudulently create a false electronic record, and deceived HSBC Holdings Plc. He faces as much as 10 years in jail for each of the three charges.
/jlne.ws/41fAo5o

FTX Lost Track of Its Money; Also Chatham, AMC APEs and Universa.
Matt Levine - Bloomberg
What a weird job John Ray has. I suppose that in general, if a company hires a new chief executive officer, the new CEO will have some disagreements with the previous CEO, and some incentive to make a meal of those disagreements. For one thing, CEOs are generally people with strong opinions. Also the new CEO was hired for a reason; quite possibly the old CEO did do something wrong.
/jlne.ws/3ZSx0fC

Harvard Hockey Star Who Ran Fidelity Dynasty's Family Office Leaves FMR; MacDonald had been CIO of FMR's diversified investments group; Hockey hall of famer played at Harvard, ran its PE portfolio
Tom Maloney - Bloomberg
Lane MacDonald, who was recruited by the family office of the billionaire dynasty behind Fidelity Investments, has left parent firm FMR. MacDonald, 57, confirmed he's on garden leave - or mandatory time away from the industry before joining a competing firm - after departing FMR, where he was president and chief investment officer of its diversified investments group.
/jlne.ws/43fEFr8

At FTX, Multimillion-Dollar Expenses Were Approved by Emoji; Report outlines control failures at the failed crypto firm
Caitlin Ostroff and Vicky Ge Huang - The Wall Street Journal
FTX's failures are rooted in "hubris, incompetence, and greed," the crypto exchange's new management team said in a report outlining scathing details about the lack of financial controls and record-keeping under founder Sam Bankman-Fried. Mr. Bankman-Fried's crypto hedge fund Alameda Research often had difficulty understanding what its positions were, let alone hedging or accounting for them, the report said.
/jlne.ws/3GAiemR

Bipartisan Congressional Leaders Rally Colleagues to Secure Freedom with Global Tech Security Strategy; Top Foreign Policy Lawmakers Unite Around Global Tech Security Commission
Business Wire
A group of distinguished bipartisan leaders in foreign policy and national security, including Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Todd Young (R-IN), and Bill Hagerty (R-TN), as well as Representatives Michael McCaul (R-TX) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), serving as Honorary Co-Chairs of the Global Tech Security Commission, have issued a call to their fellow Members of Congress to join the effort to develop a Global Tech Security Strategy to defend freedom against technological authoritarianism.
/jlne.ws/3KPxOxz

Tyson Foods Heir Looks to Help Right the Family Business After His Arrest
Patrick Thomas - The Wall Street Journal
John R. Tyson began Nov. 5 running 7 miles in a weighted vest. In the wee hours of the next morning, he was arrested by four police officers and taken to jail in his underwear. Since his arrest, the family-controlled Tyson Foods Inc. has stood by its chief financial officer, who is also the great-grandson of the company's founder and son of its current chairman, as Mr. Tyson's case played out in court and the media.
/jlne.ws/3o594br

Swiss lawmakers pick apart Credit Suisse woes ahead of deal
Jamey Keaten - Associated Press
Switzerland's parliament is opening a special session Tuesday to scrutinize the state-imposed takeover of Swiss bank Credit Suisse by rival UBS - and possibly considering strengthening the legal arsenal to better gird against financial blowups. The debate could run up to three days, with expectations that lawmakers will voice - and need to iron out - disagreements over the 3 billion Swiss franc ($3.25 billion) fusion of the country's top two banks, a thunderclap for a country that prides itself on finesse and acumen in finance.
/jlne.ws/3moXCX

Credit Suisse job cuts must be frozen, Swiss banks' employees leader says
Reuters
Credit Suisse and UBS must freeze any job cuts planned as part of their emergency merger, the Swiss Bank Employees' Association (SBPV) said on Tuesday, in an open letter to the country's parliament.
/jlne.ws/43oorvV

Credit Suisse pays back some emergency liquidity, central bank data suggests
Reuters
Credit Suisse has already paid back some of the emergency liquidity offered by the Swiss National Bank (SNB), data suggested on Tuesday, signaling an ebbing of the liquidity crisis which triggered the lender's fall.
/jlne.ws/3mptsnm

Bitget exchange starts US$100 mln fund to support 'next-generation' crypto projects
Danny Park - Forkast
Seychelles-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitget on Monday said it had launched a Web3 Fund with an initial investment of US$100 million to support the development of cryptocurrency projects. The announcement comes ahead of the Hong Kong Web3 Festival on April 12 to 15, focused on the namesake development of the next internet built around decentralized blockchain technology.
/jlne.ws/3GAfSUW

Wealthy families from Middle East, Europe keen to set up family offices in Hong Kong, UBS boss says
South China Morning Post
Wealthy clients from the Middle East, Europe and Asia are interested in setting up family offices in Hong Kong because of the government's new initiatives and opportunities in the Greater Bay Area, according to a top UBS executive. "From my trip to the Middle East in February, a number of investors that I met have shown interest in setting up their family offices here in Asia, particularly in Hong Kong, because they are drawn to the opportunities in the Greater Bay Area," said Amy Lo, co-head of wealth management for Asia-Pacific at UBS and Hong Kong CEO.
/jlne.ws/3mucfsP

China's super rich are voting with their assets - and fleeing Xi's regime
Cindy Yu - The Telegraph
It's now two months since Chinese billionaire Bao Fan "disappeared". The 52-year-old investment banker was one of Shanghai's most successful financiers. That didn't save him from being seized with no announcement; all Bao's company has said is that he is cooperating with government investigations.
/jlne.ws/3GARq5X

Deutsche FX Head to Retire
Colin Lambert - The FullFX
Change is imminent at the top of the FX business at Deutsche Bank, The Full FX understands, with Russell LaScala, global head of FX, set to retire. LaScala has been with Deutsche Bank since 2003, when he joined from Citi, and has worked in New York, Asia, and, as global head of FX, most recently, London. He was appointed co-global head of FX with Jonathan Tinker in 2017, and took on sole control of the business when Tinker left in 2021.
/jlne.ws/3GuPqwc



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Ukraine Invasion
News about the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and its military, economic, political and humanitarian impact
Exclusive-Russia starts fuel supplies to Iran by rail -sources
Reuters
Russia started fuel exports to Iran by rail this year for the first time after traditional buyers shunned trade with Moscow, according to three industry sources and exports data. Russia and Iran, both under Western sanctions, are forging closer ties in order to support their economies and to undermine Western sanctions which both Moscow and Tehran cast as unjustified.
/jlne.ws/3KkpDaQ

Russia 'destroys Ukrainian ammo warehouses'
George Styllis - The Telegraph
Russia has destroyed a depot containing 70,000 tonnes of fuel near the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, the Russian defence ministry said on Sunday. It also said Russian forces had destroyed Ukraine army warehouses storing missiles, ammunition and other artillery weapons in the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions.
/jlne.ws/3mkArOy

Russia's Diving Oil Exports Suggest Output Cut Beginning to Bite; Crude flows saw their biggest weekly drop since December
Julian Lee - Bloomberg
Russia's plans to cut oil production are finally starting to look like reality, with the nation's seaborne shipments collapsing last week. Flows from Russian ports dropped by 1.24 million barrels a day, the biggest weekly decline since storms hit two export ports in mid-December. That took them below 3 million barrels a day for the first time in eight weeks, according to tanker-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg. It's important to note that the prior week's shipments were extraordinarily high, but the less-volatile four-week average also declined.
/jlne.ws/3Ksz5JB








Exchanges, OTC & Clearing
Top news from exchanges, clearing, settlement and trade execution facilities
NSE Indices launches India's first ever REITs & InvITs Index
NSE
NSE's index services subsidiary, NSE Indices Limited today launched India's first ever Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs) & Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvITs) Index - Nifty REITs & InvITs Index. The Nifty REITs & InvITs index aims to track the performance of REITs and InvITs that are publicly listed and traded (listed and traded or not listed but permitted to trade) at the National Stock Exchange. The weights of securities within the index are based on their free-float market capitalization subject to a security cap of 33% each and aggregate weight of top 3 securities is capped at 72%. The Nifty REITs & InvITs Index has a base date of July 01, 2019, and a base value of 1000. The index will be reviewed and rebalanced on a quarterly basis.
/jlne.ws/3KqXmzt

Nasdaq March 2023 Volumes and 1Q23 Statistics
Nasdaq
Nasdaq (Nasdaq: NDAQ) today reported monthly volumes for March 2023, as well as quarterly volumes, estimated revenue capture, number of listings, and index statistics for the quarter ended March 31, 2023 on its investor relations website. A data sheet showing this information can be found at: http://ir.nasdaq.com/financials/volume-statistics.
/jlne.ws/41Be5HB

EEX Group Monthly Volumes - March 2023
EEX Group
EEX Group reports its March 2023 volumes with the following highlights: Power. Overall trading volume in the global EEX Group Power Markets in March 2023 was 7% above the same period of 2022, registering a total of 760.1 TWh. This is the first time in 12 months with a growth on a year-on-year basis, indicating increasing confidence and the return of previous trading levels.
/jlne.ws/3MuKyec

Addition of "Paid Data Services Search" Function
JPX
JPX Market Innovation & Research, Inc. (JPXI) has added a search function to the "JPX Data Catalog" page on the JPX website where various data services are provided by Tokyo Stock Exchange, Inc., Osaka Exchange, Inc., JPXI, and partner companies for a fee ("Paid Data Services").
/jlne.ws/41hGkdZ

TMX Group Equity Financing Statistics - March 2023
TMX Group today announced its financing activity on Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV) for March 2023. TSX welcomed two new issuers in March 2023, compared with 14 in the previous month and 11 in March 2022. The new listings were two mining companies. Total financings raised in March 2023 increased 183% compared to the previous month, but were down 81% compared to March 2022. The total number of financings in March 2023 was 30, compared with 36 the previous month and 69 in March 2022.
/jlne.ws/3KN9CvI

Special Change in KRX ESG Social Index for KH FEELUX
KRX
Since KH FEELUX(033180) has been designated as "Administrative Issue" on April 10st, 2023, KRX will remove the constituent from KRX ESG Social Index.
/jlne.ws/3zLRk7R




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Fintech
A roundup of today's market tech news and a look at tomorrow's disruptors
Tellus Earned Silicon Valley's Biggest Prize. The FinTech Misled Many Along the Way; Tellus' generous accounts and disruptive business model have won serious backing.
Jacob Adelman - Barron's
After Silicon Valley Bank's implosion, Tellus disavowed any connection to the failed bank. Instead, the finance start-up called out its connections to two of the nation's biggest financial institutions, suggesting that client funds were safe from the banking panic. After Silicon Valley Bank's implosion, Tellus disavowed any connection to the failed bank. Instead, the finance start-up called out its connections to two of the nation's biggest financial institutions, suggesting that client funds were safe from the banking panic.
/jlne.ws/3zP5SDv

China's payment association warns over risks of using AI products like ChatGPT
Reuters
China's payment & clearing industry association warned on Monday against using Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT and similar artificial intelligence tools due to "risks such as cross-border data leaks." "Payment industry staff must comply with laws and rules when using tools such as ChatGPT, and should not upload confidential information related to the country and the finance industry," the Payment & Clearing Association of China said in a statement on Monday. The association is governed by the China's central bank.
/jlne.ws/3MylanG

The fintech founder who won over Jamie Dimon; Plus, Hong Kong's elite feels the squeeze from Beijing and Teck chief calls Glencore hostile bid a 'non-starter'
Financial Times
/jlne.ws/3o2eEeV



Vermiculus



Cybersecurity
Top stories for cybersecurity
FTX's Cybersecurity Was Hilariously Bad
Lucas Ropek - Gizmodo
FTX, the once beloved crypto exchange that went down in a ball of financially flames last November, appears to have spent very little effort protecting its customers' vast reserves of digital assets. The company's latest bankruptcy report reveals that, in addition to managing its finances like a Jim-Beam-swigging monkey, the disgraced crypto exchange also had some of the worst cybersecurity practices imaginable.
/jlne.ws/40ZyVAh

Leaked Pentagon documents claim that hackers breached a Canadian gas network. Here's what to know.
Tim Starks, Ellen Nakashima and Amanda Coletta - The Washington Post
A Russian government-connected hacktivist group's claims that it got into the networks of a Canadian gas pipeline company, brought to light in recently leaked classified U.S. government documents, sounds potentially alarming echoes of the 2021 Colonial Pipeline hack and raises concerns about Russia's capabilities to disrupt critical infrastructure.
/jlne.ws/3ZX4hX6

The Buck Stops Here: Why The National Cybersecurity Strategy Is Our Biggest Opportunity Yet To Thwart Threat Actors
Pieter Danhieux - Forbes
How many data records do you believe were compromised in 2022? You would be on the right track if you guessed somewhere around half a billion. Based on publicly available breach data, approximately 480,014,323 records were stolen last year alone, but the number is likely far greater. In any case, that's a sobering statistic.
/jlne.ws/3o3zBGk





Cryptocurrencies
Top stories for cryptocurrencies
FTX CEO Slams Exchange for Keeping Private Keys on Amazon Web Services
Stacy Elliott - Decrypt
He didn't write it that way in the interim report he filed yesterday, but it's not hard to imagine FTX CEO John Ray III, who's overseeing the company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy restructuring, chastising its use of AWS the same way he did its use of QuickBooks for accounting. "Nothing against QuickBooks. Very nice tool," Ray said while testifying before the House Financial Services Committee in December. "It's not for a multibillion dollar company."
/jlne.ws/3KtYVfZ

U.S. SEC committee urges 'aggressive enforcement' on crypto, says most tokens are securities
Danny Park - Forkast
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) Investor Advisory Committee sent a letter to SEC Chair Gary Gensler on April 6, urging the federal agency to continue its aggressive enforcement on crypto players that offer unregistered securities. The letter also clarified that the committee believes "virtually all" crypto tokens to be financial securities.
/jlne.ws/3Uyc9NG

MiCA: What Europe's New Crypto Rules Mean for the Industry
Alys Key - Decrypt
After more than two and a half years of discussions and adjustments, the European Union looks set to pass its landmark crypto regulations. The comprehensive suite of new rules is slated for a vote on the week of April 17.
/jlne.ws/41APLFN

Ex-chief of HKMA heads Hong Kong's new Web3 institute
Tom Zuo - Forkast
Norman Chan, chief executive of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority from 2009 to 2019, will head the Institute of Web 3.0 Hong Kong, set up to aid development of the next-generation Internet built around blockchain, artificial intelligence and Internet of Things, according to a report by Hong Kong China News Agency.
/jlne.ws/3UrcRw0

Winklevoss Twins Lend $100 Million to Their Gemini Crypto Platform; The twins made the loan after trying to raise external funds; Gemini suffered several setbacks during the crypto downturn
Hannah Miller, Vildana Hajric and Olga Kharif - Bloomberg
Billionaires Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss dipped into their own pockets to support their crypto exchange Gemini Trust Co., which has faced numerous setbacks during the yearlong market downturn for digital assets. The twins made a $100 million loan to Gemini recently, according to two people familiar with the matter, who did not wish to be identified discussing private information.
/jlne.ws/3Uplozo

Whatever Happened to the Metaverse? Apple may struggle to launch its headset in a market still unconvinced by Mark Zuckerberg's virtual reality ambitions
Parmy Olson - Bloomberg
When you first glide into Horizon Worlds, the virtual reality app from Meta Platforms Inc., you're greeted with a vivid cityscape and portals into worlds with labels like "adventure" and "comedy." On a recent visit to the "adventure" world, I zoomed around a town in the Wild West toting a Colt single-action army revolver and occasionally trading shots with three other avatars dashing between a saloon and a bank. The avatars sported sun glasses and multicolored hair, but were sans legs, a limitation Meta doesn't appear to have solved yet.
/jlne.ws/3MQVcMH




FTSE



Politics
An overview of politics as it relates to the financial markets
China building socialist AI that 'will not overthrow' Xi Jinping - latest updates
Matt Oliver - The Telegraph
Xi Jinping - Ding Haitao/Xinhua via AP
China has decreed that all artificial intelligence (AI) in the country must be socialist. AI chatbots must reflect "the core values of socialism", authorities in Beijing have said, amid a crackdown on the emerging technology. Under China's cyber security laws, all chatbots will be required to censor politically sensitive topics and are forbidden from spreading information that calls for "overthrowing the socialist system" or "inciting to split the country"
/jlne.ws/3zLvKQT

Local officials are poised to send expelled Tennessee lawmakers back to state House
Emma Bowman - NPR
Impending local meetings could pave the way for former Reps. Justin Jones of Nashville and Justin Pearson of Memphis to return to their posts in the Tennessee state legislature, at least temporarily. The two former Democratic lawmakers, who were expelled by Republican colleagues after they staged a protest on the House floor calling for gun law reforms, say they want their seats back.
/jlne.ws/41jZkIH

Swiss parliament holds emergency session on Credit Suisse rescue
Noele Illien and John Revill - Reuters
Since Switzerland's authorities last month pulled out all the stops to rush through a rescue of Credit Suisse, a storm has been brewing in the normally tranquil country. Many Swiss parliamentarians have criticised the shotgun marriage, which saw Credit Suisse taken over by rival UBS for 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.3 billion) and propped up with over 250 billion francs in guarantees and support.
/jlne.ws/3Upsiok

India Is Encouraging the Heatwaves That Will Cripple It; The government's increasing protectionism of coal at the expense of cleaner energy is condemning citizens to live under hotter and hotter temperatures.
David Fickling - Bloomberg
India might have hoped that its punishing 2022 heatwave season, which pushed the mercury as high as 49.2 degrees Celsius (121 degrees Fahrenheit) in the capital Delhi, would be followed by a breather. It's not looking that way. Most of the country outside the southernmost states is forecast to suffer more heatwave days during the most intense April-June season, the India Meteorological Department said at the weekend.
/jlne.ws/3KP0man



Regulation & Enforcement
Stories about regulation and the law.
China's banking regulators are caught between Beijing and its regions; The rules for resolving financial crises expose the tensions between central and local government
Cheng Leng - Financial Times
Last summer in Henan, with China's zero-covid policies still in place, thousands of enraged depositors took to the streets when they discovered that four local banks had frozen Rmb40bn of their money. The freeze was imposed after a year-long fraud, during which the banks' owners had extracted cash and escaped overseas.
/jlne.ws/3mpfmm2

CFTC Orders Goldman Sachs to Pay $15,000,000 for Violations of Swap Business Conduct Standards; Swap Dealer Failed to Disclose Pre-Trade-Mid-Market Marks and Failed to Communicate in a Fair and Balanced Manner
CFTC
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission today issued an order simultaneously filing and settling charges against Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC (Goldman) for violations of the CFTC's Business Conduct Standards applicable to swap dealers. Specifically, the CFTC found that Goldman failed to disclose dozens of pre-trade-mid-market marks (PTMMM), in violation of Regulation 23.431, and failed to communicate to clients in a fair and balanced manner based on principles of fair dealing and good faith, in violation of Regulation 23.433.
/jlne.ws/3MtPPTi

Norway counts the cost of its new wealth tax as billionaires flee to Switzerland
Charlotte Gifford - The Telegraph
"A difficult choice has been made. I've moved from Asker, Norway, to Lugano in Switzerland," Norway's biggest taxpayer, and the largest shareholder of investment firm Aker ASA, Kjell Inge Røkke wrote to the rest of the board in an open letter last September. Mr Røkke, an industrial tycoon with an estimated net worth of Nkr 19.6bn (£1.5bn), is among 50 billionaires and millionaires to have left Norway over the past year as they were hit with higher rates of wealth tax.
/jlne.ws/43qlviz

SEC Obtains Judgment After Executives Settle Case Alleging an Inflated Truck Pricing Scheme
SEC
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced the resolution of its accounting fraud action against former Celadon Group Inc. executives William Eric Meek and Bobby Peavler. Meek and Peavler agreed, without admitting or denying the allegations, to the entry of a final judgment that requires them to each pay a $50,000 civil penalty and bars them from acting as an officer or director of a public company for a period of three years.
/jlne.ws/3MEzxXX








Investing & Trading
Today's top stories from equities, indices and FICC (fixed income, currencies and commodities)
Europe's biggest Spac to be wound up; Shell company backed by Bernard Arnault and Jean Pierre Mustier fails to find suitable target
Sarah White and Adrienne Klasa - Financial Times
The biggest blank-cheque company in Europe, backed by LVMH founder Bernard Arnault and former UniCredit chief Jean Pierre Mustier, is set to be wound up after failing to find a target in the financial services sector. Pegasus Europe has announced that it will cease operations and is preparing to return capital to its investors at the beginning of May, subject to approval by shareholders.
/jlne.ws/3mmFNZs

Sugar Extends Surge to Highest in a Decade on Shortage Worries
Mumbi Gitau - Bloomberg
Sugar extended its surge to the highest in more than a decade in London on mounting worries about tight global supplies, threatening to maintain pressure on global food inflation. White-sugar futures jumped as much 4.3% on Tuesday, touching the highest since 2011. Prices of the sweetener used in everything from soft drinks to chocolate have jumped on prospects for limited exports out of key shipper India and lackluster supplies from other countries including Pakistan and Thailand.
/jlne.ws/400SaIi

Glencore Sweetens Offer for Teck Resources With Cash Component
Thomas Biesheuvel - Bloomberg
Glencore Plc has proposed adding a cash element to its previous all-share offer for Teck Resources Ltd., stepping up its pursuit after the Canadian miner rejected an earlier proposal to buy the company and then spin off both their coal businesses.
/jlne.ws/3GyzAkb

Bond Investors Shouldn't Gamble on the Inverted Yield Curve; Reaching for yield during inversions misses the bigger driver of total return, namely the path of interest rates, which is difficult to predict with precision.
Nir Kaissar - Bloomberg
Long-term bonds usually pay a higher yield than shorter-term ones to encourage investors to lend for longer. But sometimes the so-called yield curve inverts, as it has now, and short-term bonds offer the highest yield. When that happens, it's tempting to move money to short-term bonds, or even cash, to grab that extra yield. Now that the yield on cash is nearly 5%, why bother with long-term bonds offering 3.5%?
/jlne.ws/400pZcL

M&A Drought in Europe Forces Merger Arb Fund to Take More Risks; Trium's Khartes bets on more complex deals, ups US exposure; European M&A slumped almost 60% in the first quarter of 2023
Alexandra Muller - Bloomberg
European M&A activity has turned so lackluster this year it's forcing a merger arbitrage fund to take bigger risks for returns. Trium Capital LLP's Felix Lo is telling investors to expect more portfolio volatility this year, as he increases exposure to so-called complex deals, which face risks such as regulatory hurdles before completion.
/jlne.ws/3ms4iVd

Gold Giant Newmont Raises Newcrest Bid to $19.5 Billion; Record deal would create the world's biggest gold miner; Denver-based gold giant would also increase exposure to copper
James Fernyhough and Jacob Lorinc - Bloomberg
/jlne.ws/3UtjQEF




Qontigo




Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance
Stories about environmental, social and governance investing
Miami and New Orleans face greater sea-level threat than already feared; Twin studies reveal that 'acceleration' of sea-level rise under way, leaving southern US cities in even greater peril
Richard Luscombe - The Guardian
Coastal cities in the southern US, including Miami, Houston and New Orleans, are in even greater peril from sea-level rise than scientists already feared, according to new analysis. What experts are calling a dramatic surge in ocean levels has taken place along the US south-eastern and Gulf of Mexico coastline since 2010, one study suggests, an increase of almost 5in (12.7cm).
/jlne.ws/41gYQ6b

Deepening Florida Drought Hits Ranchers, Growers; About two-thirds of the state is under moderate to extreme drought conditions
Arian Campo-Flores - The Wall Street Journal
Florida is contending with an intensifying drought that is one of its worst in the past decade, crimping cattle ranchers and growers and prompting state officials to warn of an early start to the wildfire season. About two-thirds of Florida is under moderate to extreme drought conditions, mainly in the central and southern parts of the state, according to the most recent weekly report by the U.S. Drought Monitor, a joint effort of academic and government institutions. By comparison, about 21% of the state was under such conditions a year ago.
/jlne.ws/3zMniRt

Billionaire founder of Paul Mitchell and Patron invests in man-made coral reefs
Diana Olick - CNN
They are majestic and beautiful and critical to the world economy. Coral reefs, often called the "rainforests of the sea," support roughly 25% of all known marine species. They are vital not just to sea life, but to human life. And the planet has lost half its coral reefs since the 1950s due in large part to climate change. The total economic value of coral reef services for the united states alone, including fisheries, tourism, and coastal resilience, is over $3.4 billion annually, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
/jlne.ws/3KNwefC

Climate Change Wiped Out Thousands of the West's Most Iconic Cactus. Can Planting More Help a Species that Takes a Century to Mature? Heat, drought and an invasive grass are driving wildfires killing the giant saguaros in Arizona, raising concerns about how the cactus will recover without human intervention.
Wyatt Myskow - Inside Climate News
Jerry McHale dug a small hole with a shovel near the base of a Palo Verde tree and placed a cactus a few inches tall in it. The saguaro was just old enough to sprout the needles it needs to keep desert rats and jackrabbits from devouring it. One by one, McHale and a small group of volunteers planted the young cactuses under "nursing plants" that will help them grow, some to nearly 40 feet tall, over the coming centuries at the Tucson Audubon Society's Mason Center.
/jlne.ws/3UtsJOx

Green Groups Target Japan Megabanks on Climate Action
Shareholder proposals submitted with six firms including MUFG
Activists want firms to disclose Paris Agreement-aligned plans
Shoko Oda - Bloomberg
/jlne.ws/41n2609

Export Restrictions May Threaten the Green Transition, OECD Says; Curbs on critical raw materials increased five-fold in decade; OECD says dependency on some countries 'warrants scrutiny'
William Horobin - Bloomberg
/jlne.ws/41dafnu

Climate emergency is the biggest health crisis of our time - bigger than Covid
Pascal Soriot - The Guardian (opinion)
/jlne.ws/3mjXDfR

World's Top Uranium Miner Sees Clients Switching From Russia; Some Eastern European power plants seeking uranium contracts; Kazatomprom is looking to open new trade route via China
Nariman Gizitdinov - Bloomberg
/jlne.ws/3zOoaVz

BP buys stake in UK carbon capture project; Harbour Energy scheme aims to meet up to a third of Britain's annual target
David Sheppard - Financial Times
/jlne.ws/3MBcWLS








Banks, Brokers & Managed Funds
The latest from banks, brokers, hedge funds and managed futures
What Next for Banks?; The wider reverberations from the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank will be felt for some time, and investors are watching for new signs of trouble.
Andrew Ross Sorkin, Ravi Mattu, Bernhard Warner, Sarah Kessler, Michael J. de la Merced, Lauren Hirsch and Ephrat Livni - The New York Times
The S&P 500 has rebounded by 6.5 percent since the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank last month, and there are encouraging signs that deposit outflows are slowing at regional lenders. But Wall Street does not think the banking crisis is anywhere close to being over. "Even when it is behind us," Jamie Dimon, the C.E.O. of JPMorgan Chase, warned last week, "there will be repercussions from it for years to come."
/jlne.ws/3Gy1QDi

Banking tremors leave a legacy of credit contraction
Mohamed El-Erian - Financial Times
Let's start with the good news. The flashing red light resulting from a speed-of-light run on the US banking system, or what economists broadly refer to as financial contagion, is behind us. Yet it is too early for policymakers to declare mission accomplished. Instead, red has become a flashing yellow due to the slower-moving economic contagion whose main transmission channel, that of curtailed credit extension to the economy, increases the risk not just of recession but also of stagflation.
/jlne.ws/3o28n2B

Jes Staley must face Jeffrey Epstein claims alongside JPMorgan, judge rules
Joe Miller - Financial Times
Jes Staley, the former JPMorgan Chase executive who is being sued by the bank for allegedly failing to disclose his participation in Jeffrey Epstein's sex crimes, must face trial alongside his former employer, a New York judge has ruled. Staley on Monday lost his bid to have the claims by the bank separated from two lawsuits brought against JPMorgan by an alleged Epstein victim and the US Virgin Islands, where the late paedophile had a home.
/jlne.ws/41kuNui

Sweden's biggest pension fund fires chief executive over 'unusually inept' bank investments
Matt Oliver - The Telegraph
The chief executive of Sweden's biggest pension company has been fired after it lost £1.5bn in the recent US banking crisis. Magnus Billing is leaving Alecta with immediate effect, the company said. His abrupt exit comes after the pension provider last month revealed it had lost 19.6bn Swedish crowns (£1.5bn) on investments in Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), First Republic Bank and Signature Bank, three lenders at the heart of last month's US banking crisis.
/jlne.ws/3KuXgaf

***** Here is the Financial Times version of this story.~JJL

Influencers help drive Taiwan ETF assets to record highs;l Nearly 50% of young people found to be investing in the funds in 2022, survey shows
Sinyi Au - Financial Times
/jlne.ws/411AiP8

Credit Suisse's Risky Bond Wipeout Hurts Asia's Rich; Private bankers from UBS and other international banks actively pushed AT1 securities to their wealthy clients for years
Rebecca Feng - The Wall Street Journal
/jlne.ws/3o1sm1I




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Work & Management
Stories impacting work and more about management ideas, practices and trends.
Laid-Off Tech Workers Launch 'Revenge Startups' Just as Money Dries Up; New entrepreneurs are on the hunt for venture capital as investors are pulling back
Yuliya Chernova - The Wall Street Journal
Venture-capital investors, as recently as last year, used to seek out founders who were quitting their tech jobs to launch their own businesses. Now that mass layoffs are pushing many people down the entrepreneurial path, venture investors have grown stingier. More than 330,000 people have lost their jobs at tech companies since early 2022, with some 168,000 job losses this year, according to data tracker Layoffs.fyi.
/jlne.ws/3mw3lep

Artificial Intelligence May Steal Your Job - and Your Boyfriend
Jessica Karl - Bloomberg
Sometimes you'll see things on the internet that really make you question reality. Are those leaked Pentagon documents authentic? Is this woman truly upset about a poached egg? Are Timothee Chalamet and Kylie Jenner actually dating? Nobody could blame you for not knowing the answer to these questions (for the record, that lady's poached egg rage is definitely satire). In the age of misinformation, it's natural to second-guess everything we're reading and watching.
/jlne.ws/3UsjE8x

People Working in the Office Spend 25% More Time on Career Development; New data from a team of economists back up some business leaders' calls that workers spend more time in the office.
Matthew Boyle - Bloomberg
Workers in the office spend 25% more time in career-development activities than their remote counterparts, according to new data from a team of economists who have analyzed working from home since the pandemic began. Those who came into work devoted about 40 more minutes a week to mentoring others, nearly 25 more in formal training and about 15 additional minutes each week doing professional development and learning activities, according to WFH Research, a group that includes Stanford University economist Nicholas Bloom.
/jlne.ws/3zOGLRy

Top Colleges for High-Paying Jobs in Finance; A new ranking puts MIT at No. 1 and the University of Virginia first among public schools; MIT finance graduates earn over $48,000 a year more than the median B.A. graduate in the field, according to the Burning Glass Institute.
Kailyn Rhone - The Wall Street Journal
Graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who go into finance earn higher salaries than other schools' graduates in the field, according to a ranking compiled by the Burning Glass Institute, a nonprofit that researches employment trends. The top public university for finance salaries in the new ranking is the University of Virginia.The ranking aims to answer the question: If the choice of career and the number of years in the field are the same, what effect does the school somebody went to have on their salary?
/jlne.ws/3GyyBAd

Your Gen Z Co-Worker Is Hustling More Than You Think; Ambitious 20-somethings are trying to knock down the stereotype that they aren't into hard work
Lindsay Ellis - The Wall Street Journal
Being young and ambitious right now often means proving that you can be both of those things at the same time. That applies even to 25-year-old Charu Thomas, who earned an engineering degree in 3½ years after completing high school in three years. She founded supply-chain software firm Ox at age 18, raised $3.5 million in funding and, in 2020, made it onto Forbes's 30 Under 30 list.
/jlne.ws/3o1MNvt

Businesses face more and more pressure from investors to act on climate change
Michael Copley - National Public Radio
Every spring, shareholders in publicly-traded companies get to weigh in on how they're run. It's a chance for investors to vote on proposals to shape corporate policies for things like executive pay and political spending. But as the Earth heats up, annual shareholder meetings have become a battleground for activist investors who are pressing companies for more aggressive action on climate change. This year, shareholders filed around 540 proposals as of mid-February asking companies to address environmental, social and corporate governance issues, according to Proxy Preview. Resolutions focused on climate change accounted for about a quarter of this year's total, with the number increasing by about 12% from the same point in 2022.
/jlne.ws/3nUHq0O








Wellness Exchange
An Exchange of Health and Wellness Information
Research with exotic viruses risks a deadly outbreak, scientists warn
David Willman and Joby Warrick - The Washington Post
When the U.S. government was looking for help to scour Southeast Asia's rainforests for exotic viruses, scientists from Thailand's Chulalongkorn University accepted the assignment and the funding that came with it, giving little thought to the risks. Beginning in 2011, Thai researchers made repeated treks every year to remote caves and forests inhabited by millions of bats, including species known to carry diseases deadly to humans.
/jlne.ws/40UVlCI








Regions
Stories of local interest from the Americas, EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions
Poorest countries find finances under pressure from higher rates; Debt burdens as a proportion of government revenues at highest level since 1998, research shows
Jonathan Wheatley - Financial Times
Low-income countries will face their biggest bills for servicing foreign debts in a quarter of a century this year, putting spending on health and education at risk. Repayments on public debt owed to non-residents for a group of 91 of the world's poorest countries will take up an average of more than 16 per cent of government revenues in 2023, rising to almost 17 per cent next year, according to a study by debt campaign group Debt Justice that is due to be published on Tuesday.
/jlne.ws/3ZYjNlm

Singaporeans likely to invest in crypto, even if they can't explain it: Survey; While three out of five surveyed said they were "likely" to buy crypto in the next few years, nearly half were not confident in explaining crypto.
Timothy Kang - Yahoo Finance
Most Singaporeans are enthusiastic about personally investing in cryptocurrency despite many not being able to understand cryptocurrencies or blockchain technology, according to a recent report by consulting firm CT Group.
/jlne.ws/41iWgwI

Hong Kong Is Courting Crypto. What's Behind the Switch.
Craig Mellow - Barron's
Cryptocurrency isn't in favor with global authorities right now, to put it mildly. Fallen FTX wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried sits under house arrest in California, facing a lifetime's worth of fraud and bribery charges. Do Kwon, the mastermind behind collapsed "algorithmic coins" Terra and Luna, was arrested in Montenegro at the request of his native South Korea. The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission last month charged Binance, the world's largest crypto bourse, with operating an "illegal" exchange and "sham" compliance.
/jlne.ws/3UuU2Iu

Smaller Chinese banks cut deposit rates on squeezed margins
Reuters
Several small and mid-sized banks in China have lowered their deposit interest rates, a move that could help ease costs as loan growth faces more pressure amid rising economic risks. Rural commercial banks and credit unions in Hubei and Henan provinces cut rates on a range of deposits over the weekend, following cuts at some regional lenders in the southern province of Guangdong last week, statements from the lenders showed.
/jlne.ws/3Kup66f

Australia reaches deal with China in barley dispute as trade ties improve
Alasdair Pal and Dominique Patton - Reuters
Australia has reached an agreement with China to resolve their dispute over barley imports, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Tuesday, a latest sign of improving ties between the major commodity trade partners.
/jlne.ws/3KtEqjz

Norway counts the cost of its new wealth tax as billionaires flee to Switzerland
Charlotte Gifford - The Telegraph
"A difficult choice has been made. I've moved from Asker, Norway, to Lugano in Switzerland," Norway's biggest taxpayer, and the largest shareholder of investment firm Aker ASA, Kjell Inge Røkke wrote to the rest of the board in an open letter last September. Mr Røkke, an industrial tycoon with an estimated net worth of Nkr 19.6bn (£1.5bn), is among 50 billionaires and millionaires to have left Norway over the past year as they were hit with higher rates of wealth tax.
/jlne.ws/43qlviz

Iraqi Oil to India Gets Cheaper as Competition From Russia Bites
Ben Sharples - Reuters
The cost of Iraqi oil to India dropped in February as a steady flow of Russian cargoes undercut other suppliers. The price of crude from Iraq averaged $76.19 a barrel, compared with $78.92 in January, according to data published by India's ministry of commerce and industry. Russian supplies averaged $72.14, marginally lower than January.
/jlne.ws/3msTWV1

Seas have drastically risen along southern U.S. coast in past decade
Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis - The Washington Post
Scientists have documented an abnormal and dramatic surge in sea levels along the U.S. gulf and southeastern coastlines since about 2010, raising new questions about whether New Orleans, Miami, Houston and other coastal communities might be even more at risk from rising seas than once predicted. The acceleration, while relatively short-lived so far, could have far-reaching consequences in an area of the United States that has seen massive development as the wetlands, mangroves and shorelines that once protected it are shrinking.
/jlne.ws/3mlH6YL








Miscellaneous
Stories that don't quite fit under the other sections
Citadel Splits From Sterling Bay on New Miami Waterfront Tower
Felipe Marques and Amanda Gordon - Bloomberg
Ken Griffin's Citadel is cutting ties with Sterling Bay, the developer that it partnered with on its new Miami headquarters. Citadel will handle some of the work related to the $1 billion waterfront office tower in Miami's Brickell neighborhood itself, while searching for another partner on the project, Zia Ahmed, a spokesman for Citadel, said in a statement. The building, which could end up one of the tallest in the city, with a marina and a helipad, was a key project for Chicago-based Sterling Bay.
/jlne.ws/401rBTv

The Man Who Brings Vintage T-Shirts Back From the Dead; Threadbare, stretched-out and torn? Doesn't faze tee-repair specialist Jose Hernandez, whose elite resurrection skills have collectors lining up; From exactly color-matching threads to splicing together replica sleeves, restoring a rare vintage T-shirt can take hours-and cost hundreds.
Julia Duarte - The Wall Street Journal
Jose Hernandez is the David Blaine of repairing T-shirts. Send this mild-mannered father of two a hole-laden, sleeveless, collar-stretched-like-Silly-Putty Def Leppard tee from the 1980s and presto magnifico, he'll make it look fresh off a Reagan-era rack. "It's like magic," said Rodrigo Zenteno, the owner of CrazyLokoVintage in Toronto, who has sent 30 or so tees to Mr. Hernandez for repair. "He tries to match the same fade of the material, the same color, the same fabric," said Mr. Zenteno. "I don't know anyone that does that."
/jlne.ws/3My86ic







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