The NYSE’s Owner Wants to Bring Bitcoin to Your 401(k)

First Read

The Mothering Type: JPX’s index suite shows strong July numbers and new-contract growth
By Jim Kharouf

It’s been a solid year for exchanges, with some welcome volatility and enough economic moves to keep it interesting. Those are common themes most markets have been able to capitalize on, and the Japan Exchange Group is well in that mix.
July futures volumes showed some solid strength across its index suite with its Topix futures up 22 percent in July with an average daily volume of 1.15 million contracts. Its Nikkei 225 futures volume rose almost 40 percent for the month to 72,820 contracts traded daily. The other notable is its fledgeling TSE Mothers Index futures, up 263 percent for the month on ADV of 2,195 contracts and an open interest record of 13,570 contracts.

To read the rest of this story, go here

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Hits & Takes
By JLN Staff

Former Deutsche Boerse/Eurex executive Heiner Seidel has officially been named as Head of the newly created Corporate Communication department at the ThomasLloyd Group.~JLN

Did you know that in 1878 the New York Central Railroad was the first U.S. company with a $100 million valuation? Visual Capitalist put out an infographic on all of the valuation milestones in the wake of Apple hitting $1 trillion. ~SD

For all you algorithm geeks, Interesting Engineering has a story on 15 of the Most Important Algorithms That Helped Define Mathematics, Computing, and Physics that goes from Ancient Babylon to JPEG. ~SR

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Wells Fargo blames computer glitch for customers losing homes
Emily Birnbaum – TheHill
Wells Fargo is blaming a computer glitch for more than 400 customers losing their homes between 2010 and 2015.
The bank revealed in regulatory filings last week that the technological error resulted in 625 customers being denied loan modifications, and about 400 costumers having their houses foreclosed on, CNN Money reported on Friday.
/jlne.ws/2vHelr4

****Oops.~JB

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Hiding Russian Money Was Easy. Quitting Was Harder.
Benedict Worsley, a self-created British ‘fixer,’ would do just about anything for his clients—until the offshore network he built came crashing down
Max Colchester and Margot Patrick – The Wall Street Journal
“If you are reading this, it is probable that you wonder who Ben Worsley is.”
Typing on his computer, Benedict Worsley felt surrounded. The plan, the Englishman told friends, was to work for the Russian financiers for a few years and then retreat to his gated pied-à-terre in the south of France.
/goo.gl/bHcdku

****In Russia money quits you.~JB

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Post-Trade Allocations; Exchange-Traded Products; Statutory Requirements
Gary DeWaal – Bridging the Week
For the second time this year, a Commodity Futures Trading Commission-registered futures commission merchant and National Futures Association member was sanctioned by both regulators for allegedly not supervising post-trade allocations of trades by a third party where the third party purportedly favored proprietary accounts over customer accounts. Separately, the Securities and Exchange Commission denied the application of the Bats BZX exchange to list and trade shares of the Winklevoss Bitcoin Trust because of its concerns regarding potential fraudulent and manipulative acts and practices in the underlying bitcoin market.
/jlne.ws/2vJ9iXb

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Friday’s Top Three
Friday’s top stories were led by Bloomberg’s piece [[https://jlne.ws/2AGWYfL|
Bitcoin Whale’s Bad Trade Leaves Counterparties Holding the Bag]]. Second went to The Wall Street Journal’s So Your Wife Embezzled $500,000 and the IRS Wants to Tax You. Third went to ICE’s announcement Intercontinental Exchange Announces Bakkt, a Global Platform and Ecosystem for Digital Assets

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MarketsWiki Stats
130,677,785 pages viewed; 23,229 pages; 214,464 edits
MarketsWiki Statistics

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Lead Stories

The NYSE’s Owner Wants to Bring Bitcoin to Your 401(k). Are Crypto Credit Cards Next?
Shawn Tully – Fortune
Bitcoin could be on the verge of breaking through as a mainstream currency. At least that’s the goal of a startup that is soon to be launched by one of the most powerful players on Wall Street, with backing from some of America’s leading companies. This morning the Intercontinental Exchange—the trading colossus that owns the New York Stock Exchange and other global marketplaces—announced that it is forming a new company called Bakkt. The new venture, which is expected to launch in November, will offer a federally regulated market for Bitcoin. With the creation of Bakkt, ICE aims to transform Bitcoin into a trusted global currency with broad usage.
/goo.gl/hsAmqC

Goldman Close to Naming Esposito as Co-Head of Trading Unit
Sridhar Natarajan – Bloomberg
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is close to naming Jim Esposito global co-head of its trading arm, according to a person familiar with the matter. Esposito, an American based in London, would run the securities unit with Ashok Varadhan, according to the person, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. While Varadhan has been co-head of the division since 2014, his two peers — Pablo Salame and Isabelle Ealet — resigned in June and weren’t replaced.
/goo.gl/osBeSH

Global Heat Wave Toasts Wheat and Prices Soar;The increase in prices, which are at multiyear highs, could provide some relief for North American farmers
David Hodari and Benjamin Parkin
Global wheat prices have soared to multiyear highs as a heat wave sweeping across Europe and Asia slashes forecasts for this year’s harvest. The price rise could potentially provide some relief to North American farmers, who have largely avoided such scorching weather, just as Chinese tariffs sap demand for other crops like soybeans.
/goo.gl/fooyY2

The Stock Market Is Shrinking. That’s a Problem for Everyone.
Jeff Sommer – NY Times
The American stock market has been shrinking. It’s been happening in slow motion — so slow you may not even have noticed. But by now the change is unmistakable: The market is half the size of its mid-1990s peak, and 25 percent smaller than it was in 1976.
“This is troubling for the economy, for innovation and for transparence,” said René Stulz, an Ohio State finance professor who has written a new report on these issues for the National Bureau of Economic Research.
/goo.gl/KQgcT

Banker warns of Herculean task to escape Libor’s tentacles
Joe Rennison and Robin Wigglesworth – Financial Times
Moving global finance away from its reliance on Libor is a Herculean task that could be “bigger than Brexit”, according to bankers and analysts. Dixit Joshi, group treasurer at Deutsche Bank, said the “tentacles” of the disgraced interest rate benchmark stretched from big banks and asset managers all the way to consumers, making the task of moving away from its use more complicated than the UK’s exit from the EU.
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HS Markit completes $1.9 billion Ipreo takeover
Hayley McDowell – The Trade
IHS Markit has completed its $1.85 billion acquisition of data and analytics rival Ipreo from Blackstone and Goldman Sachs Merchant Banking Division.
/goo.gl/LnQ8dg

Exchanges, OTC and Clearing

Intercontinental Exchange to form startup, hopes to revolutionize cryptocurrency
Eric Mandel – Atlanta Business Chronicle
A startup being formed by Intercontinental Exchange is putting Atlanta at the center of the conversation on digital currencies. Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE: ICE), an Atlanta-based global exchange trader that owns the New York Stock Exchange, said Friday it plans to form a new company, Bakkt, which intends to “leverage Microsoft cloud solutions to create an open and regulated, global ecosystem for digital assets” such as Bitcoin.
/goo.gl/zqBeU3

ICE plans November launch for crypto platform, ecosystem
New digital asset platform and ecosystem business Bakkt due to go live in November, initial focus on Bitcoin trading.
John Brazier – The Trade News
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) has unveiled its planned digital asset ecosystem and platform project, due for launch in November.
According to ICE, the new platform named Bakkt, which will draw on support from non-financial organisations such as Microsoft and Starbucks, is planned to include “federally-regulated markets and warehousing along with merchant and consumer applications”.
/goo.gl/MGQr3S

Buying Your Starbucks Fix With Bitcoin Is Now Closer to Reality
Nick Baker and Lily Katz – Bloomberg
Exchange giant ICE teams up with Starbucks on crypto venture; Bakkt aims to more tightly integrate Bitcoin into the economy
It’s hard to buy coffee with Bitcoin, but Starbucks Corp. may be poised to make that easier. The beverage retailer is teaming up with one of the world’s biggest exchange operators, Intercontinental Exchange Inc., which just created a venture called Bakkt designed to more tightly integrate digital currencies into global commerce.
/goo.gl/KgZqUt

Acquisition of the ISE helps drive revenue at Euronext
Colin Gleeson – Irish Times
The acquisition of the Irish Stock Exchange drove listing revenue at Euronext, the pan-European stock exchange, up 20.3 percent during the second quarter of the year. Euronext, which has 1,300 listed issuers on its books and completed its acquisition of the Irish Stock Exchange earlier this year – now known as Euronext Dublin – said revenue increased by 14.6 per cent to EUR 157.3 million.
/goo.gl/jmdytj

SGX amends Listing Rules after MAS accepts Corporate Governance Council’s recommendations
SGX
Singapore Exchange (SGX) will make amendments to its Listing Rules following the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s (MAS) acceptance of the Corporate Governance (CG) Council’s recommendations to amend the Code of Corporate Governance and the rules.
/goo.gl/gMjxSX

Fintech

Survey finds fintech sector ready to deal with talent crunch
Li Yan – Ecns.cn
China is facing an acute shortage of professional fintech (financial technology) talent, a survey by recruitment company Michael Page China found.
About 92 percent of the fintech companies surveyed agreed they face a shortage of talent, and 38 percent of them view the quality of talent as critical to the sustained success in the industry, according to the latest China Fintech Employment 2018 Report by Michael Page China.
/jlne.ws/2vIGTR1

KPMG Report on Fintech: 2018 Started with a Bang as Fintech Investment Gained Momentum
JD Alois – Crowdfund Insider
KPMG has published their Pulse of Fintech report highlighting global Fintech activity for the first half of 2018. According to KPMG, global investment in Fintech is going gangbusters as “Fintech market activity worldwide gained momentum during the first half of the year as the geographic diversity and reach of Fintech investment continued to expand.”
/jlne.ws/2vGnnVi

Atlanta is becoming the high-tech hub other cities dream about
Atlanta Business Chronicle
Atlanta’s transformation into a high-tech hub for fintech has helped foster its development, say top executives with Regions Securities.
Business is booming for financial technology companies; nearly one-third of the country’s high-growth companies are in technology. So it’s no surprise that cities nationwide are opening accelerators, incubators, and seed funds aimed at nurturing technology startups. And Atlanta appears to be ahead of the pack, the executives say.
/jlne.ws/2vEHlzH

Arizona opens first fintech sandbox in the US
Finextra
The Arizona Attorney General’s Office has opened the first fintech sandbox in the United States, enabling financial services startups to bypass red tape and begin testing their products with live consumer data.
Currently, navigating state regulatory requirements can take several months and cost a startup company tens of thousands of dollars in fees.
/jlne.ws/2vGeWJu

Cryptocurrencies

Traders Are Talking Up Cryptocurrencies, Then Dumping Them, Costing Other Millions; ‘Pump groups’ fuel millions in trading activity, with price rises followed by quick falls
Shane Shifflett and Paul Vigna – WSJ
Dozens of trading groups are manipulating the price of cryptocurrencies on some of the largest online exchanges, generating at least $825 million in trading activity over the past six months – and hundreds of millions in losses for those caught on the wrong side, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis. In a review of trading data and online communications among traders between January and the end of July, the Journal identified 175 “pump and dump” schemes involving 121 different digital coins, which show a sudden rise in price and an equally sudden fall minutes later.
/goo.gl/A7m4JB

Goldman Sachs: Bitcoin is never coming back
Graham Rapier – Business Insider
Despite headline-making plans to open a bitcoin trading desk earlier this year, Goldman Sachs still isn’t sold on the virtual currency. In a midyear economic-outlook report, the bank’s investment strategy group says the price of bitcoin is likely to decline even further than the 45% it has in the first seven months of 2018.
/goo.gl/bG6w6P

JPMorgan Will Use Blockchain ‘for a Whole Lot of Things’: CEO, Jamie Dimon
John Peters – Crypto Gazette
The CEO of JPMorgan Chase, Jamie Damon reiterated his bullish stance on Blockchain technology but shied away from making comments on cryptocurrencies.
The bank executive who has always been a critic of Bitcoins said fiat payment apps are “the biggest potential disruption to our business”.
/jlne.ws/2vG6YQx

Crypto Bulls Pile Into ICOs at Record Pace Despite Bitcoin Rout
Benjamin Robertson – Bloomberg
This year’s selloff in virtual currencies has done little to dent investor enthusiasm for initial coin offerings, which attracted a record $12 billion in the first half.
/goo.gl/3JHPyj

Cryptocurrency Regulation, From A(ntigua) to Z(ambia)
Mark Toner – Thirtyk.com
As the regulatory picture for cryptocurrencies in the United States continues to come into focus, nations around the world are similarly grappling with the impact of crypto and the blockchain technology that underlies it.
/jlne.ws/2vFTy7b

Blockchain States Lure Citizens with Political Nostalgia and Voting Rights
Lubomir Tassev – Bitcoin.com
If you’ve ever thought of acquiring a digital, virtual citizenship, there are a couple of new options on the table – a ‘Satoshi Nakamoto Republic’ and a ‘Soviet Land’ on blockchain, among others. True, ‘crypto passports’ often come with coin offerings that you might not necessarily be interested in — But the blockchain republics also promise social justice, new or forgotten models of governance, voting rights for every citizen.
/jlne.ws/2vDIUxO

Politics

How a Pair of Kentucky Pols Are About to Legalize Hemp; The non-hallucinogenic sister plant of marijuana is a favorite with farmers, and it will get a lot easier to grow if Congress removes it from the list of banned drugs. The DEA is not happy.
James Higdon – Politico Magazine
On nights that Congress is in session, Rep. James Comer, a farmer from Kentucky, lays down on a fold-up mattress in his office on the fifth floor of the Longworth building and hits the lights by 10:30. Before he does, he reaches for a small bottle of CBD oil (made from Kentucky hemp) and squeezes a couple of drops onto his tongue
/goo.gl/aHNL2k

There’s no end in sight for Trump’s trade war with China because ‘both sides are more inclined to elevate tension than blink’
Bob Bryan – Business Insider
President Donald Trump’s trade war with China is entering its sixth month, and there are no signs it will end anytime soon. Both Trump and China continue to issue new threats of tariffs. And negotiations have been scarce, increasing the possibility of a drawn-out fight.
/goo.gl/vpCDSu

The WTO has become dysfunctional
Trade rules must acknowledge the benefits of divergent economic models such as China’s
Dani Rodrik – The Financial Times
How will the world trade regime handle a large, increasingly powerful country such as China that apparently plays globalisation by different rules? This is the question that keeps US and European policymakers awake at night. The fever runs highest in the US, where the Trump administration has blamed China for engaging in economic aggression and has declared trade war in response. The US president’s methods may be frowned upon, but the view that something has to be done about China’s trade and industrial practices is widespread among mainstream policy elites.
/goo.gl/WR4VF9

From Natural Gas to Chicken Breasts — China Commodity Tariffs
Tina Davis – Bloomberg
Beijing proposes 25 percent duty on LNG imports from U.S.; Copper also targeted, while petroleum is spared for now
China’s proposal to add a new round of tariffs on $60 billion worth of goods it imports from the U.S. — retaliation for expanding planned tariffs by the Trump administration — is only hitting one commodities sector hard: liquefied natural gas shipments.
/goo.gl/R14xdB

Corporate America hikes contributions to key Democrats
Theodoric Meyer – Politico
Corporate PACs are increasing their contributions to several Democrats who are in line to lead powerful committees if their party retakes the House in November, another sign of the burgeoning expectations for Democrats’ showing in the midterms. The uptick comes as tensions grow in the party between lawmakers who rake in money from corporate PACs and the activists who decry such contributions as a corrupting influence.
/goo.gl/KFuSMW

President Admits Trump Tower Meeting Was Meant to Get Dirt on Clinton
Michael D. Shear and Michael S. Schmidt – The New York Times
President Trump said on Sunday that a Trump Tower meeting between top campaign aides and a Kremlin-connected lawyer was designed to “get information on an opponent” — the starkest acknowledgment yet that a statement he dictated last year about the encounter was misleading.
Mr. Trump made the comment in a tweet on Sunday morning that was intended to be a defense of the June 2016 meeting and the role his son Donald Trump Jr. played in hosting it.
/goo.gl/5FBdY2

Regulation

SEC Drops Probe of Exxon’s Climate-Change Disclosures
Dave Michaels and Bradley Olson – WSJ
Securities regulators dropped an investigation into whether Exxon Mobil Corp. misled investors about its accounting practices and the risks that climate change and greenhouse-gas regulations posed to its business.
/goo.gl/44mNSy

Euronext CEO Expects MiFID II Changes
Shanny Basar – MarketsMedia
Stéphane Boujnah, chief executive and chairman of the managing board of Euronext, expects regulators to make changes to MiFID II if the objective of increasing lit volumes is not met.
Boujnah said on the Euronext first half results call today that MiFID II, which went live in the European Union at the start of this year, had the ambitious aim of shifting volumes from over-the-counter to lit markets but this has not yet happened. The chief executive continued that one area that regulators will focus on is systematic internalisers.
/goo.gl/GaM8UJ

Investing and Trading

Morgan Stanley Says Traders Finally Hearing Bearish Tech Call
Ksenia Galouchko – Bloomberg
Morgan Stanley, which recommended selling U.S. tech stocks a month ago, says traders are finally starting to take heed.
The Nasdaq Composite has lost as much as 4.2 percent since reaching a record high on July 25 as investors fled the likes of Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and Netflix Inc. following disappointing earnings. And while Apple Inc. breached the historic $1 trillion value mark last week, Morgan Stanley warns that this could actually be a signal of the rally in tech reaching a top, posing risks for the broader market.
/jlne.ws/2vGbSNr

Call for big oil groups to reveal crude-peak risk; Asset manager warns of long-term threat to viability of the industry
David Sheppard – Financial Times
The world’s biggest oil companies are systematically over-valuing their assets based on excessively optimistic forecasts of future prices, according to a leading investor. UK asset manager Sarasin & Partners has asked the oil companies in which it invests, BP, Shell and Total, to reveal the full risk they face should demand for crude peak as the trend towards decarbonisation grows.
/goo.gl/RiATo5

U.S. equity traders to receive bigger bonuses this year: study
Reuters
Equities traders on Wall Street are expected to take home bigger bonuses this year, compared with their industry peers, as a global rally in stocks shows little signs of slowing, according to a report by compensation consulting firm Johnson Associates.
/goo.gl/HWnN5d

Bearish bets on coffee push Brazilian growers into stand-off
Andres Schipani and Emiko Terazono – Financial Times
Carlos Alberto Paulino da Costa has news for the funds that have amassed a record bet against the coffee price. “If the price is not attractive to producers, the coffee stays in the bags,” sighed Mr da Costa, president of Cooxupé, the Brazilian producer which handles almost 14 per cent of the country’s coffee output and counts Nespresso, Illy and Starbucks as customers.
/goo.gl/sJ86Bz

US pension fund suffers big losses on forestry land
Ben Foldy and Robin Wigglesworth – Financial Times
Calpers, the biggest US pension fund, has lost hundreds of millions of dollars from mistimed investments in US forestry land during the months before the 2008 financial crisis, a Financial Times analysis shows.
/goo.gl/ngZzws

ICE hails BondPoint growth and outlines plans for TMC Bonds
ICE says BondPoint platform and recently acquired TMC Bonds business are well-positioned for automation in fixed income.
Hayley McDowell – The Trade News
Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) is continuing its push in fixed income as the exchange operator hailed double digit growth in connection to its BondPoint platform and outlined plans to integrate the recently acquired TMC Bonds business.
/goo.gl/MbMzvf

Institutions

How Your Brokers Can Make 10 Times More on Your Cash Than You Do It pays to pay attention to what your brokerage is doing with your cash P
Jason Zweig – WSJ
When some investment firms say they will treat your money as if it were their own, they mean it – all too well. If the Securities and Exchange Commission wants to make good on its promise to compel brokers to act in their customers’ best interest, it should shine a klieg light on how brokers treat investors’ cash. Investors invest, but of course they leave billions in cash in brokerage accounts, too. At Morgan Stanley, $6.3 billion of that cash is in a money-market mutual fund yielding 1.8%. On Aug. 13, the firm will shut that fund and sweep its clients’ idle cash into bank accounts that, after a transition period, could yield much less.
/goo.gl/gGVApu

She’s Joining Goldman’s Most Elite Tier, as Its Youngest Banker
Sridhar Natarajan – Bloomberg
Stephanie Cohen among four named last week to management panel; Promotion follows ascent through M&A world dominated by men
The venue was the Gotham Club — an exclusive den inside the San Francisco Giants’ home stadium. It’s the ultimate man-cave. It was here on an evening last December when roughly 100 women from the investment banking world gathered at an event billed as a leadership dinner. The caucus started as a small gathering a decade ago organized by Stephanie Cohen — then an up-and-coming banker at Goldman Sachs, who was vexed by the chummy boys network that’s long dominated the business of guiding mergers and acquisitions.
/goo.gl/NiW6xL

In ‘Confidential’ Letter, Hedge Fund Elliott Skewers ‘Secretive’ Label
Rachael Levy – WSJ
One of the world’s largest hedge funds, Elliott Management Corp., doesn’t want to be called “secretive.” It made that argument this week in an investor letter stamped “confidential.” “This bothersome word is usually appended, like some chrome automobile hood ornament, to the words ‘hedge fund,'” the $35 billion fund firm said in the July 31 letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. “It is rarely appended to ‘government,’ ‘tech company,’ ‘central bank,’ ‘president’ or ‘board of directors.'”
/goo.gl/DJ7WRh

Collaboration in the Financial Advisory Sector Is Important
TheStreet
My first exposure to the independent advisory sector was in the mid-1990’s when as a tenured Wall Street financial professional I attended a regional conference of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA). What impressed me most about that event, on top of the quality of the financial planning education I received, was the fact that members, who were in some cases competitors, all collaborated in order to raise the competency of the group as a whole.
/goo.gl/pP93Si

Regions

Argentine Central Bank Is Considering $5 Billion Repo Loan
Ignacio Olivera Doll, Carolina Millan and Pablo Rosendo Gonzalez – Bloomberg
Argentina’s central bank is said to be discussing a repo loan of as much as $5 billion with foreign banks, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The talks with banks including HSBC Holdings Plc, UBS Group AG and Nomura Holdings Inc. are expected to continue into next week as the central bank considers its options to secure financing, said the people, who could not be named because discussions are still private.
/goo.gl/cP1Z6s

Iranians Hoard Gold Ahead of U.S. Sanctions; Gold prices in the country soar as precious metal becomes protection against a weakening currency and the impact of sanctions
Asa Fitch in Dubai and Aresu Eqbali – WSJ
Iranians are hoarding gold as a safeguard against a collapsing local currency and soaring cost of living as the U.S. is poised to impose economic sanctions on Iran, pushing the metal’s price to records in Tehran. On Tuesday just after midnight U.S. Eastern time, the Trump administration is set to bring back a first wave of restrictions that had been waived under the Iran nuclear deal, an Obama-era agreement that gave Iran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program.
/goo.gl/sXcr7w

Australia’s drought is like a cancer eating away at farms and families
David B Gray – Reuters
From ground level, Australia’s drought looks like a featureless, brown dustbowl, but from the air it transforms into an artistry of colour and texture as the land cracks under a blazing sun.
/goo.gl/9yhr9H

Lira hits all-time low as Erdogan warns of ‘economic war’
Ayla Jean Yackley and Federica Cocco – FT
The Turkish lira fell to a record low against the dollar as Ankara sought to contend with US sanctions against the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who says his country is facing “economic war”.
/goo.gl/CQk66G

Brexit

A top London startup’s CEO flags the biggest Brexit threat to his industry
Victor Reklaitis – MarketWatch
Brexit worries have spurred pharmaceutical giants in the U.K. to stockpile drugs, and startups have their concerns as well.
Britain’s plan to leave the European Union in March could bring about a talent shortage, according to Kristo Kaarmann, CEO of TransferWise, a London-based startup that offers money transfers.
/jlne.ws/2vJbON7

Europe Should Help the U.K. to Cancel Brexit
Bloomberg
U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May’s meeting on Friday with President Emmanuel Macron of France is part of a wider effort to sell her Chequers plan for Brexit to European Union heads of government – and to loosen the grip of Michel Barnier, the unyielding civil servant who’s conducting the negotiations on their behalf. Her campaign is failing.
/jlne.ws/2vFWaSx

Sterling sinks to 11-month low after Fox says no-deal Brexit likely
Reuters
The pound sank to an 11-month low on Monday as comments by officials about Brexit stoked fears among currency investors that Britain could soon crash out of the European Union without securing a trade agreement.
/jlne.ws/2vDKj7y

Rich, reckless Brexit zealots are fighting a new class war
John Harris – The Guardian
We now know it beyond doubt: however we leave the European Union, the result is likely to be damage that Britain is in no position to absorb. Job losses are certain. A stack of Brexit impact reports from local authorities obtained last week by Sky News identified a catalogue of dire consequences, from farms in Shetland that could be plunged into impossible losses, through social care services in East Sussex already being hit by labour shortages, to the M26 being turned into a giant lorry park. With his characteristic emollience, the trade secretary, Liam Fox, says a no-deal Brexit is now more likely than a negotiated deal; Jeremy Hunt reckons we could fall off the same cliff-edge “by accident”, and reports about stockpiled food and medicines attest to the awfulness of any such prospect.
/jlne.ws/2vIVZWD

What would happen if Britain left the EU with no deal?
The Economist
Brexit is due to happen on March 29th 2019, two years after Theresa May invoked Article 50, the withdrawal provision of the EU treaty. Britain and the European Union are working towards a withdrawal treaty and a framework agreement for future trade. But the gap between the two sides is large. And there is a possibility that, even if a deal were agreed, the British Parliament might reject it. Yet Article 50 provides that withdrawal will happen automatically unless there is unanimous agreement to extend the timetable. So Britain could leave next March with no deal at all: a cliff-edge Brexit. What would that mean?
/jlne.ws/2vGaDOh

Brexit Property Bargains Are Only for the Rich
Lionel Laurent – Bloomberg
There’s a price for everything, even in Brexit Britain. London’s absurd property bubble is a case in point: Even with the threat of foreign investment drying up, financial-sector jobs heading abroad and emerging-market cash under scrutiny, rich bargain hunters are stirring once more. It’s less a bullish appraisal of Brexit, more a dive for pearls among the wreckage.
/jlne.ws/2vIX3K7

Miscellaneous

Technology helped America’s economy way more than we thought
Lydia DePillis – CNN
At the end of July, when the Bureau of Economic Analysis released its blockbuster 4.1% economic growth rate estimate for the second quarter, few noticed another announcement from the statistical agency: A total revamp of its gross domestic product calculations, going back decades.
/goo.gl/k6bk6C

The post The NYSE’s Owner Wants to Bring Bitcoin to Your 401(k) appeared first on John Lothian News (JLN).