First Read
Hits & Takes
JLN Staff
JLN Readers interested in the Crypto Evolved event in New York on June 27 from Viable Markets may receive a 10% discount when they register using THIS LINK before April 30th. Limit of 50 tickets at that price.~JJL
The SEC tracks the number of cyber actions it has taken since 2012. To date, it has opened 15 digital currency/ICO cases, 13 trading suspension cases, 4 hacking/insider trading cases, 4 market manipulation cases, 3 account intrusion cases and 2 customer information safeguard cases.~JK
Business Insider reported “Being outside can improve memory, fight depression, and lower blood pressure — here are 12 science-backed reasons to spend more time outdoors.” Now you know why I go camping. It is good for you!~JJL
ISDA’s 33rd Annual General Meeting in Miami has added new speakers. The conference is April 24-26, 2018.~JJL
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Cybersecurity and Technology Upgrades – John Davidson, OCC
JohnLothianNews.com
The OCC is in the process of making what is a big decision for a systemically important financial market utility (SIFMU) – how to best upgrade a tech stack responsible for clearing millions of options and futures contracts daily.
In this video from JLN’s annual series with industry leaders, OCC President and Chief Operating Officer John Davidson talks about how the OCC is weighing its cloud vendor options, addressing cybersecurity concerns and the regulatory initiatives on the road ahead.
Watch the video and read the rest here »
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Western & Southern Life First Insurance Company to Join and Trade on the AFX;
AFX also announced record trading day
AFX
The Western and Southern Life Insurance Company (Western & Southern Life) joined the American Financial Exchange (AFX), becoming the first insurance company to join and trade on the Exchange. AFX is an electronic exchange for direct interbank lending and borrowing for American financial institutions. AFX also announced a record day of trading on April 17, with $798 million transacted on the platform.
tinyurl.com/y6vx8tn2
**** Who can say no to Doc Sandor?~JJL
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Actual Delivery, Manipulative or Deceptive Devices; NY AG Sweep; ATS Breakdown
Gary DeWaal – Bridging the Week
A California federal court may be poised to dismiss an enforcement action brought by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission that could challenge the agency’s view of when financed sales of commodities to retail persons are subject to its oversight, as well as the circumstances when the Commission may bring an enforcement action against a person for purported fraud, relying on a Dodd-Frank provision of law that prohibits the use or employment of any manipulative device, scheme or artifice to defraud. Separately, the New York Attorney General’s office asked 13 cryptocurrency exchanges to disclose a trove of information about their operations, when only five of the enterprises have ever obtained authority to conduct a virtual currency business from or to persons in the state. As a result, the following matters are covered in this week’s edition of Bridging the Week:
bit.ly/15ZyR7H
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The Spread – Week of 4/16 to 4/20
JohnLothianNews.com
The options industry just got a new jewel – MIAX announced it would launch MIAX Emerald last week. For more on that and other stories from last week, check out this new edition of The Spread.
Watch the video and see the stories referenced here »
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Richard Jenrette, Co-Founder of DLJ Investment Bank, Dies at 89
Laurence Arnold – Bloomberg
Richard Jenrette, a co-founder of the first New York Stock Exchange member to go public, the investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette, has died. He was 89.
/jlne.ws/2qRzayt
***** A legend is lost.~JJL
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A Fake-News Warning From a Former Propagandist; Why readers shouldn’t underestimate the power of disinformation.
Faye Flam – Bloomberg
From pizza-parlor pedophilia rings to Sharia law in Florida, viral fake news stories often seem propelled by their own preposterousness. It’s a different matter for professionally produced disinformation. That, I learned from a former pro, requires a core of logic and verifiable fact.
/jlne.ws/2vCI2gb
***** Lying made into an art and business.~JJL
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Friday’s Top Three
Friday’s top read story was the FT’s piece Ion reaches £1.5bn deal to buy Fidessa. Second went to Bloomberg’s Deutsche Bank’s Bad News Gets Worse With $35 Billion Flub. Third went to Bloomberg’s Four Harvard Students Jump Into the Crypto Hedge-Fund Craze
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MarketsWiki Stats
124,163,969 pages viewed; 23,080 pages; 212,841 edits
MarketsWiki Statistics
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Lead Stories
A Former Top Wall Street Regulator Turns to the Blockchain
Nathaniel Popper – NY Times
Gary Gensler was one of the top financial regulators in the Obama administration, the finance chief for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and, before both of those jobs, a partner at Goldman Sachs.
/jlne.ws/2HFVXqy
***** Gensler is also rumored to be headlining a new TV show “Dancing with Blockchain.”~JJL
Fidessa dumps Temenos in favour of £1.5bn Ion offer; Deal highlights private equity’s growing interest in financial trading assets
Philip Stafford – FT
Fidessa, the UK financial technology group, has ditched a deal with Temenos of Switzerland in favour of a higher offer worth £1.5bn from the privately owned Ion Investment Group.
/jlne.ws/2HFZtBg
Kraken Defies N.Y. Attorney General’s Cryptocurrency Inquiry
Matthew Leising – Bloomberg
AG requested information from 13 crypto exchanges this week; Crypto chief Jesse Powell dismisses request as ‘insulting’
Kraken, one of the longest-running cryptocurrency exchanges, said its New York registration as a money-services business won’t affect its decision to ignore a request from the state’s top lawyer for detailed information about its operations.
/jlne.ws/2HFyyp5
Life after Libor: BoE takes on Sonia benchmark oversight
Philip Stafford – FT
A regulatory push to wean London markets off the scandal-hit Libor interest rate benchmark entered a new era on Monday after the Bank of England took on the responsibility for overseeing its preferred alternative.
/jlne.ws/2qRejLD
Investors’ New Headache: It’s Getting Harder to Buy or Sell When They Want; Worsening liquidity comes as banks have reduced inventory of riskier assets and investors more closely track bond indexes
By Gunjan Banerji and Sam Goldfarb – WSJ
Investors are having a tougher time trading in a number of financial markets, a development that is weakening their ability to raise cash or to protect against big stock declines.
/jlne.ws/2qQCRUR
A secretive high-speed trader is providing college kids with a ‘launch pad’ to build cryptocurrency companies
Frank Chaparro – Business Insider
Jump Trading is making cryptocurrency a big focus for its venture capital spin-off in 2018, and is bringing in college kids as part of the effort.
/jlne.ws/2vCkV5j
The Man Who Could Eat Half the Profit in Fund Management; A Q&A with the former CEO of AllianceBernstein and pay-for-alpha proponent.
Mark Gilbert – Bloomberg
In June 2016, he laid bare the asset management industry’s dirty little secrets: actively managed products haven’t performed better than their benchmarks; firms have grown too big as they focus on gathering assets; and fees have been structured to benefit shareholders rather than clients. That message proved unpalatable. Within a year, Peter Kraus was out as chief executive officer of AllianceBernstein Holding LP.
/jlne.ws/2vDfMtU
Bond Traders Have Lost Their Legendary Nerve; Maybe all this inflation angst is misguided.
Robert Burgess – Bloomberg
Few things strike fear in the hearts of grizzled bond traders like the whiff of inflation. They can deal with rising interest rates — remember then-Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan’s conundrum? — but there’s nothing they can do to prevent faster inflation from eroding the value of their fixed-interest payments over time and making the bonds they hold worth much less.
/jlne.ws/2HKQIFW
Banks aim to secure London jobs with back-to-back trading; Investment banks more confident that European regulators will concede ground on where risk is managed
Laura Noonan and Patrick Jenkins in London – FT
London-based investment banks are increasingly hopeful the European Central Bank will allow them to use “back-to-back” securities arrangements to manage the majority of trades in EU operations out of their existing London bases.
/jlne.ws/2vCNcZB
Securities lending proves lucrative as investors aim for alpha; Some pension schemes see the complexities as inadequate for the risk
Chris Flood – FT
Think of a global industry that generated revenues of $9.2bn last year and that plays a critical role in ensuring the efficiency of financial markets but rarely merits a mention in the mainstream press.
/jlne.ws/2vySwNm
Exchanges, OTC and Clearing
NYSE: What’s a girl got to be scared of?
Jennifer Bissell-Linsk – FT
The thing about art is that you can read into it whatever you want.
/jlne.ws/2vEZHUk
Rusal and the London Metal Exchange: a relationship explained; Sanctions on Russian aluminium producer has posed tricky questions for the LME
Henry Sanderson – FT
The sanctions on Russian aluminium producer Rusal have led to a rush to withdraw metal from the London Metal Exchange, the world’s largest metals exchange.
/jlne.ws/2qTGdXl
VIX 101: How the Volatility Gauge Works; The Cboe Volatility Index has become well known in trading circles as Wall Street’s “fear gauge”
Gunjan Banerji – WSJ
The Cboe Volatility Index, or VIX, has become well known in trading circles as Wall Street’s “fear gauge.” The gauge is supposed to be a barometer of investor expectations for stock-market turbulence 30 days out in the future. Here’s how it works: it takes the prices for a wide range of S&P 500 index options contracts, then inputs the prices into a complex formula that generates its level.
/jlne.ws/2qR2sgv
Pivotal Software Marks IPO and First Day of Trading on New York Stock Exchange
iCE
Pivotal Software, Inc. (NYSE: PVTL) opened for trading today on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol “PVTL” following its initial public offering. Pivotal Software has a leading cloud-native platform, which accelerates and streamlines software development and modernizes legacy applications.
/jlne.ws/2qOUZ1G
EEX and IncubEx Extend Partnership to North America, Nodal Exchange to List Environmental Products
Business Wire
European Energy Exchange (EEX) and IncubEx are pleased to announce the expansion of their partnership into North America via EEX Group’s US-based platform Nodal Exchange. The global cooperation agreement between EEX and IncubEx, which started in August 2017, aims to build and improve liquidity in environmental and other contracts globally.
/jlne.ws/2HHNenB
Fintech
Fidessa withdraws from Temenos deal for £1.5 billion ION takeover; Fidessa has reached an agreement with ION Investment Group two months after it agreed to Temenos acquisition.
By Hayley McDowell – The Trade
Fidessa has agreed to terms of a £1.5 billion all cash offer by ION Investment Group’s ION Bidco subsidiary, overturning its earlier recommended acquisition by Temenos.
/jlne.ws/2qRKf2x
Fidessa launches next generation Solace integration; Bridges enterprise systems and Fidessa hosted infrastructure
Fidessa
As part of its new approach for top tier trading firms, Fidessa group plc (LSE: FDSA) today announced the availability of a native Solace adapter which boosts throughput and resilience between Fidessa applications and customer firms’ Solace messaging infrastructure.
/jlne.ws/2vywfzk
Crèdit Andorrà Financial Group Selects NICE Actimize to Strengthen its Global Anti-Money Laundering Solutions Strategy; Relying on NICE Actimize’s depth of global AML experience, Crèdit Andorrà is working to protect its network of institutions from reputational risk
Crèdit Andorrà Financial Group
Facing the complexities of global regulations, Crèdit Andorrà Financial Group has selected NICE Actimize, a NICE (Nasdaq:NICE) business and the leader in Autonomous Financial Crime Management, to strengthen its anti-money laundering solutions strategy. Crèdit Andorrà Financial Group, the benchmark bank in Andorra, will integrate a suite of NICE Actimize anti-money laundering solutions into its financial crime operations in order to more effectively address the world’s anti-money laundering regulations. Crèdit Andorrà’s holdings include financial institutions in Luxembourg, Panama and Spain, as well as a United States-based broker-dealer.
/jlne.ws/2qN0v4P
RegTech startup ClauseMatch raises EUR5 million
Finextra
RegTech startup ClauseMatch has raised $5 million to boost its mission to help financial institutions keep pace with the “broken” regulatory system, in a Series A round led by Index Ventures.
/jlne.ws/2HGRvYt
ION plans job cuts after beating Temenos with £1.5bn Fidessa offer; Trading technology is set for change with the combination of London-listed Fidessa and Ireland’s ION
By Samuel Agini – Financial News
Fidessa, the London-listed trading technology company, has accepted a deadline-day bid from Ieland-headquartered ION Group, breaking a previous takeover agreement with Swiss firm Temenos.
/jlne.ws/2HM7bd5
Cryptocurrencies
Cryptocurrencies Like Bitcoin Can’t Replace the Dollar, Says New York Fed Chief Nominee; As the price of Bitcoin jumps, San Francisco Federal Reserve President John Williams says its not a currency. Rob Kim Getty Images
Lucinda Shen – Fortune
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey predicted that Bitcoin will eclipse all the world’s currencies in around 10 years .
/jlne.ws/2vAdhsd
LedgerX’s Bitcoin Derivatives Trading Is Up 7X Since Launch
Nikhilesh De – Coindesk
Bitcoin trading platform LedgerX has seen a sevenfold increase in volume in the six months following its launch of cryptocurrency derivatives.
/jlne.ws/2vIL3LI
Blockchain: an overview; Blockchain, like the internet, is a revolutionary technology that is most likely here to stay, writes Demelza Hays
London School of Economics and Political Science
During the late 1990s, investors were eager to invest in any company with an Internet-related name or a “.com” suffix. Today, the word “blockchain” has a similar effect. Like the Internet, blockchains are an open source technology that becomes increasingly valuable as more people use it due to what economists call “the network effect”. Blockchains allow digital information to be transferred from one individual to another without an intermediary. Bitcoin was the first use of the blockchain technology. However, the volatility, transaction fees, and uncertain legal framework have stalled bitcoin’s widespread adoption.
/jlne.ws/2vI1GHG
Blockchain: Opening the Door to a New Media Era
Medium
We are entering an exciting new era where businesses founded on blockchain technology are disrupting existing ecosystems and creating new business models. According to recent Deloitte research and analysis, one industry experiencing significant disruption in today’s digital arena is media. This comes as a result of the increasing “commoditization” of content, which is being undermined by the rise in digital piracy. In the new crypto-economy such challenges can now be met with micropayment-based transaction models, airtight security protocols, monetization of P2P content sharing and the ability to link media usage to specific content.
bit.ly/2HGfWW9
‘The market is robust:’ Goldman Sachs-backed Circle doubles minimum bitcoin trade size to $500,000
Frank Chaparro – Business Insider
Trading activity at one of the largest cryptocurrency trading shops is picking up despite a lull across exchanges that trade crypto.
/jlne.ws/2HInLuo
‘Uncertain’ Crypto Mining Demand Sees Taiwan Chipmaking Giant Lower Revenue Estimates
Gerelyn Terzo – Yahoo Finance
Uncertainty in the cryptocurrency mining market has led to the world’s leading chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor, to lower its revenue forecast for the year. Adding insult to injury, weakness in demand for Apple’s iPhone, for which Taiwan Semi is the supplier, is also weighing on this year’s expected sales.
Meanwhile, bitcoin mining was the champion of 2017, helping to drive Taiwan Semi’s 2017 revenue results higher by 6%, including a 10.1% increase in the fourth quarter alone. Now volatility in the bitcoin price, which has cut into miners’ profits, is taking its toll.
/yhoo.it/2HGhrUh
The Blockchain on the High Seas; You can’t revolutionize the shipping industry if everyone’s using a different blockchain system.
Matt Levine – Bloomberg
Here’s a story about how the shipping industry, which “still relies on millions and millions of paper documents,” is pushing to get shippers, customers, banks, insurers, port authorities and others to stop filling out forms on paper and start filling them out on websites instead:
/jlne.ws/2qSkLC1
Third Centra Tech Founder Faces Charges Over Coin Offering
Christie Smythe, Chirs Dolmetsch – Bloomberg
Raymond Trapani arrested in fraud and conspiracy case; Cryptocurrency launch was promoted by boxer Floyd Mayweather
The co-founder of cryptocurrency firm Centra Tech Inc. was arrested on charges that he duped investors into committing more than $25 million to the company by lying about an initial coin offering.
/jlne.ws/2HG1Q78
Wikileaks Claims Coinbase Has Shut Down Its Online Store’s Bitcoin Account
David Z. Morris – Fortune
Wikileaks’ official online merchandise store claims that its account with Coinbase has been suspended by the cryptocurrency exchange. Wikileaks, a leaked documents depository that was central to a long string of international scandals even before the 2016 presidential election, is now calling for a boycott of Coinbase.
/jlne.ws/2HIMej3
Meet the crusader who is trying to convince the world that cryptocurrency is necessary
Chris Carter – City AM
Charles Hoskinson is a peculiar protagonist for a revolution. The American does not look much upon introductions. When one envisions a billionaire, an image not dissimilar to a sharp-suited Gordon Gekko of Wall Street ordinarily springs to mind. In Hoskinson’s case, he seems positively the opposite.
/jlne.ws/2HIYOz2
India’s central bank has been taken to court over its cryptocurrency crackdown
Nupur Anand – Quartz India
India’s complicated relationship with virtual currencies and firms dealing with them has now reached the courts.
/jlne.ws/2HEg1cX
Kraken’s Position on Regulation
Kraken
Since 2011, Kraken has been a leader in the industry, actively developing and driving multiple self-regulatory organizations (DATA, JADA), and working with regulators to enact fair and effective rules to govern the evolving blockchain industry. In fact, had we not laid off half the team in 2014, our legal bills would have bankrupted the company. As a startup (and hodler), lawyers are the last thing you want to be spending money on but we started this business because we wanted to do things differently. We left our cushy jobs as founders of another successful company out of an ideological motivation to build that legitimate, professional exchange which would be capable of bridging crypto with traditional financial institutions and bringing it to the mainstream. That is still our mission today. It is a mission that we can’t accomplish without working with regulators.
/jlne.ws/2qRvsox
Someone transferred $99 million in litecoin — and it only cost them $0.40 in fees
Oscar Williams-Grut – Business Insider
A huge litecoin trade is turning heads in the cryptocurrency community. $99 million-worth of litecoin was sent between two cryptocurrency wallets in a single trade on Thursday, attracting attention on Reddit. The identity of the parties involved in the transaction is not known.
/jlne.ws/2qRCzxh
Russian Farmer Alters Rural Economy With Virtual Currency, as Moscow Watches Warily; Cryptocurrency begun by ‘agro-anarchist’ becomes a tender for transactions from milk to tractors in a region Russia’s energy boom left behind
Thomas Grove – WSJ
Farmer Mikhail Shlyapnikov says the best way to revive the ailing economy in this remote village is cutting financial ties to Moscow.
/jlne.ws/2qXelll
Politics
Sean Hannity Isn’t A Journalist And Fox News Isn’t News
Neil J. Young -Huffington Post
Earlier this week, Fox News declared its “full support” for Sean Hannity after it was revealed the conservative commentator was also a client of Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s personal attorney.
/jlne.ws/2vAcebL
Wells Fargo Fine Puts Fresh Focus on Power of Trump Tweets
Jesse Hamilton – Bloomberg
President threatened risk of ‘substantially’ increased penalty; Regulators he appointed came through with $1 billion sanction
For years, Republican lawmakers and regulators have groused about big corporate fines, arguing that they mostly punish blameless shareholders, not the executives who are responsible for misconduct.
/jlne.ws/2vFDrdb
Targeting specific trade deficits is a game of whack-a-mole; It is a fallacy that countries lose out unless their exports exceed their imports
Maurice Obstfeld – FT
Fears of escalating trade disputes hung over last week’s IMF-World Bank spring meetings.
/jlne.ws/2qQXRLg
Trump Stress-Tests the World Economy; The biggest risk to global growth comes from the U.S.
Editorial Board – Bloomberg
Taking stock of the global economy as finance ministers and central-bank governors gathered in Washington for its spring meetings, the International Monetary Fund found reason for concern. “[R]isks beyond the next several quarters clearly lean to the downside,” it reports.
/jlne.ws/2vDj5RQ
U.S. grants more time to wind down business with Rusal
Reuters Staff
\Americans engaged with United Company Rusal PLC have until Oct. 23 to wind down their business with the aluminum giant amid U.S. sanctions, the U.S. Treasury Department said on Monday in a statement extending the time period.
/jlne.ws/2qXtLWL
Regulation
The SEC Wants Wall Street to Treat Clients Better. What’s at Stake?
Benjamin Bain – Bloomberg
To nix broker conflicts, SEC unveils ‘best interest’ standard; Proposal has prompted confusion, even among some SEC officials
Wall Street is known for making money by selling risky investments with complicated names. Some examples: equity indexed annuities, structured notes and leveraged inverse exchanged traded funds.
/jlne.ws/2qRyCIV
Wells Fargo CEO Faces Scrutiny of Unit He Ran
Laura J. Keller, Hannah Levitt – Bloomberg
Wholesale unit struggling to fix lapses by deadline, WSJ says; CEO Tim Sloan faces shareholders at annual gathering Tuesday
Wells Fargo & Co.’s struggle to shore up money-laundering controls in its division serving companies may prove awkward for Chief Executive Officer Tim Sloan as he faces shareholders Tuesday.
/jlne.ws/2HLKMNf
Mifid II forces fund managers into sharp research cuts; European groups rein back on analysis produced by banks and brokers
Jennifer Thompson, Attracta Mooney and Chris Flood – FT
Asset managers have cut the number of investment banks and brokerages they use after a regulatory shake-up forced them to show how much they pay for research.
/jlne.ws/2vyOBjC
Corporate access: death of the go-between?; Investors and portfolio companies increasingly prefer to arrange meetings directly
Owen Walker – FT
In the months just before the introduction of Mifid II — the wide-ranging markets regime put in place in Europe in January — much of the discussion among asset managers was about the treatment of research payments.
/jlne.ws/2vBDTcr
Court of Appeal dismisses ASIC’s appeal in AWB case
ASIC
The Victorian Court of Appeal has dismissed ASIC’s appeal from a judgment of the Supreme Court of Victoria made by Justice Robson on 15 December 2016.
/jlne.ws/2HJ9UUI
ASIC and DJSB sign Memorandum of Understanding for enhanced co-operation
Dept Jobs And Small Business Stacked Asic Coporate Logo Standard Version Colour 3
ASIC
The Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) and the Australian Government Department of Jobs and Small Business (DJSB) have today announced the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU).
/jlne.ws/2HEq7un
SEC Charges Additional Defendant in Fraudulent ICO Scheme
SEC
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced additional fraud charges stemming from an investigation of Centra Tech Inc.’s $32 million initial coin offering. In an amended complaint filed today, the SEC charged one of Centra’s co-founders, Raymond Trapani, in a fraudulent scheme related to Centra’s 2017 ICO, in which the company issued “CTR Tokens” to investors. Earlier this month, the SEC and criminal authorities charged Centra’s two other co-founders, Sohrab “Sam” Sharma and Robert Farkas, for their roles in the scheme.
/jlne.ws/2qRagyO
An Eye to the Future – IQ April 2018
ISDA
It’s not possible to predict the future with any certainty. In this ISDA annual general meeting (AGM) issue of IQ, which focuses on the future of the derivatives market, we don’t even try. Instead, we explore some of the challenges market participants face, and the steps that are being taken now to prepare for possible future outcomes.
/jlne.ws/2qQTcJd
Investing and Trading
Treasury 10-Year Yield Sets 2018 High, Traders Focus on 3%
Liz McCormick – Bloomberg
Treasuries traders have a new level to focus on: the pivotal 3 percent mark on 10-year notes.
After the benchmark yield plowed to a new 2018 peak just shy of 2.96 percent on Friday — its highest since January 2014, chart watchers are turning their gaze to the next round number on the horizon. Investors including Jeffrey Gundlach at DoubleLine Capital and Scott Minerd at Guggenheim Partners have previously highlighted a 3 percent 10-year yield as a critical level for the bond market.
/bloom.bg/2F4mgkE
Michael Bloomberg to write $4.5 million check for Paris climate pact
Reuters Staff
Former New York mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg said on Sunday he will write a $4.5 million check to cover this year’s U.S. financial commitment to the Paris Climate Agreement.
/jlne.ws/2qRAVM5
Bond Traders’ Respite From Flattening Curve May Prove Fleeting
Brian Chappatta – Bloomberg
Combined auctions of 2-, 5, 7-year notes to tally $96 billion; Sales seen as ‘dress rehearsal’ for Treasury financing plan
Bond traders agonizing over the flattening U.S. yield curve got a bit of a break last week. But with a flood of Treasury supply about to hit the market, they’ll have little time to catch their breath.
/jlne.ws/2HIbxlq
What Global Finance Chiefs Are Saying About the Global Economy
Enda Curran, Andrew Mayeda – Bloomberg
Trade tensions dominate amid little sign of progress; Policy makers flag several near term downside risks to growth
“Things are good, but they’re getting risky.” That’s how David Lipton, first deputy managing director at the IMF, characterized the global economic state of play in a Bloomberg Television interview.
/jlne.ws/2qXh7XN
US shale companies strike cash on higher crude prices; Landmark moment as leading producers become self-financing and boost investor hopes
Ed Crooks and Nicole Bullock in New York – FT
US shale oil companies have started to generate free cash thanks to the rise in crude prices, a landmark moment for an industry that has until now relied on an inflow of capital to support its growth.
/jlne.ws/2HHsOLK
How Windmills as Wide as Jumbo Jets Are Making Clean Energy Mainstream
By STANLEY REED, CARSTEN SNEJBJERG and RASMUS DEGNBOL – NY Times
At the northern end of Denmark’s Jutland peninsula, the wind blows so hard that rows of trees grow in one direction, like gnarled flags.
/jlne.ws/2HJdXjL
MiFID II sees more than 60% of UK-fund managers reduce broker lists; Survey of UK-based fund managers focusing on small and mid-sized companies suggests MiFID II has negatively impacted liquidity and research coverage.
By Hayley McDowell – The Trade
More than half of UK fund managers focusing on small and mid-sized companies have reduced the number of brokers they engage with just four months into the new MiFID II regime.
/jlne.ws/2qR7Y2I
FlexTrade unveils new multi-asset MiFID II compliant EMS; FlexNOW execution management system includes OMS integration and in-built TCA functionality for MiFID II purposes.
By Hayley McDowell – The Trade
FlexTrade has launched a new broker-neutral, MiFID II-compliant and multi-asset trading execution management system (EMS) for hedge funds and mini-primes.
/jlne.ws/2HKwI6y
Institutions
HSBC CEO Says Overhaul Strategy ‘Is Working’; At annual shareholders meeting, Flint says U.K. bank needs ‘to keep evolving’
Margot Patrick – WSJ
HSBC Holdings HSBC 0.43% PLC Chief Executive John Flint spent the past seven years watching the bank undergo a radical overhaul under former boss Stuart Gulliver. On Friday, he signaled much of the heavy lifting is done and that his leadership will be a period of evolution not revolution.
/jlne.ws/2vFDJAN
Low profile hedge funds post high returns in year after New York Sohn conference
David Randall, Svea Herbst-Bayliss – Reuters
One of the year’s most popular events for fund managers, the Sohn Investment Conference, will be held in New York on Monday, but if history is any guide, some of the industry’s lower-profile managers will probably provide the most profitable ideas.
/jlne.ws/2vI274M
For UBS, the Best Isn’t Yet To Come; A jump in trading revenue can’t hide the sense the best is past.
Lionel Laurent – Bloomberg
UBS Group AG CEO Sergio Ermotti is running out of goodies to sustain the Swiss bank’s premium valuation.
/jlne.ws/2qR14dM
UBS’s Freshly Combined Global Wealth Management Disappoints
Patrick Winters, Jan-Henrik Foerster – Bloomberg
Wealth, asset management misses eclipse investment bank gains; Shares fall as much as 4.4% in Zurich before paring losses
UBS Group AG’s freshly-combined wealth management unit didn’t get off to the best start.
/jlne.ws/2qR61Dp
John Paulson Seeks Big Fees While Risking His Money
Miles Weiss – Bloomberg
Managers can lose their whole investment chasing fees of 55%; Topwater, Prelude, Boothbay provide traders with capital
After most of his clients have fled, billionaire John Paulson has embarked on a strategy to raise assets and generate big fees at the risk of losing his own capital.
/jlne.ws/2vG1gS2
Amanda Staveley raises damages sum sought from Barclays to £1.5bn
Lucy White – City AM
The sum which businesswoman Amanda Staveley is seeking to wring from Barclays has risen to £1.5bn, the high street bank revealed in its annual report.
/jlne.ws/2qSmpUi
Regions
London voted top financial centre above New York for the first time in five years, according to a Duff & Phelps report
Lucy White – City AM
London has been voted by finance professionals as the world’s top financial centre for the first time since 2013, according to a report released today.
/jlne.ws/2vIVDmi
Engineers Are Leaving Trump’s America for the Canadian Dream; The long wait for green cards was bad enough. Antagonism toward immigrants is pushing skilled foreigners across the border.
Karen Weise, Saritha Rai – Bloomberg
Vikram Rangnekar grew up in Mumbai, studied computer science at the University of Delaware, and by the waning days of the Obama administration had been working in Silicon Valley for almost six years. Through his job as a software engineer at LinkedIn Corp., Rangnekar secured an H-1B, the temporary visa for high-skilled workers, and the company began the process of sponsoring his green card way back in 2012. But he had dozens of senior colleagues from India who’d been waiting a decade or more for their green cards and still didn’t have them. “Some said it’d take 20 years for my turn,” Rangnekar remembers.
/jlne.ws/2qQJOoX
How China Is Buying Its Way Into Europe
Andre Tartar, Mira Rojanasakul and Jeremy Scott Diamond – Bloomberg
For more than a decade, Chinese political and corporate leaders have been scouring the globe with seemingly bottomless wallets in hand. From Asia to Africa, the U.S. and Latin America, the results are hard to ignore as China has asserted itself as an emerging world power. Less well known is China’s diffuse but expanding footprint in Europe.
/jlne.ws/2HKvPLd
U.S. Sanctioning Russian Oligarchs Sparks Exodus of Cash From Latvia
Aaron Eglitis – Bloomberg
Regulator says banks were forced to end some relationships; Foreign money is already fleeing Baltic nation after scandals
U.S. sanctions targeting Russian billionaires have sparked a further exodus of cash from Latvia, a Baltic nation whose banking system has already been shaken by a string of money-laundering scandals.
/jlne.ws/2vCTjwT
Aluminium groups warn Rusal sanctions risk smelter closures; European companies hunt for new suppliers after US action against Russian group
Henry Sanderson and Neil Hume – FT
European aluminium producers are warning that US sanctions against Russian producer Rusal could leave them unable to keep their smelters running at full capacity and lead to severe shortages of the metal.
/jlne.ws/2vCHbMo
Brexit
Hiring tumbles at UK fund houses as Brexit plans kick in; Asset managers cut back on London appointments and bolster European bases
Owen Walker, Asset Management Correspondent – FT
Fund managers have cut the rate at which they are hiring in London by as much as half since the UK voted to leave the EU in June 2016.
/jlne.ws/2HIlFe0
Why the EU capital markets union matters for ECB policy; The EU needs deeper capital markets to help replace emergency ECB funding for businesses
Huw van Steenis – FT
The crisis taught us the importance of good financial plumbing. Enormous progress has been made but the minutes of the European Central Bank’s March meeting “stressed the need to make progress on the completion of the banking union and the capital markets union (CMU)”. So what should investors and bankers make of the EU’s announcement of plans to fast-track its CMU programme by 2019, due to Brexit?
/jlne.ws/2vI68Go
Miscellaneous
What Happened to Matthew Mellon; A proud father. A brilliant friend. Lucky in love. Inherited wealth. And an opioid addict, dead at 54.
Katherine Rosman and Jonah Engel Bromwich – NY Times
Four years ago, Matthew Mellon was living in an art-filled apartment in the Pierre hotel with his young second wife, Nicole Hanley. He had three young children, the eldest of whom lives with his first wife, Tamara Mellon, a founder of Jimmy Choo.
/jlne.ws/2vFL4jK
$7 Million of Wine Sold in Massive Burgundy Auction
Guy Collins – Bloomberg
Henri Jayer 1990 Cros Parantoux magnum sells for $45,410; Three-liter Jeroboam of Grands-Echezeaux 1990 fetches $26,290
A three-bottle lot of Romanee-Conti 2012 Domaine de la Romanee-Conti and a magnum of Henri Jayer 1990 Vosne-Romanee, Cros Parantoux each fetched $45,510 at a Hart Davis Hart Wine Co. Burgundy sale in Chicago that totaled over $7 million, its largest ever auction from the region.
/jlne.ws/2qSkX4d
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