First Read
Hits & Takes
JLN Staff
Robby Lothian is home from the hospital and doing well. Thank you for the notes and prayers.~JJL
My three nephews collaborated on a music video in support of the March For Our Lives movement. Here is Andrew Lothian’s “Good Guy with a Gun” music video.~JJL
Our first video from the FIA International Conference in Boca Raton, FL is with Garry Jones, the former CEO of NYSE LIFFE and the LME. Jones is now done with his garden leave and looking for his next challenges. We picked his brain about Brexit, bitcoin and China. See below.~JJL
Tom Flake, founder & chief marketing officer of Bcause LLC, recorded an episode of Futures Radio Show with Anthony Crudele in Boca.~JJL
JPX has added an “s” to their website address. They are migrating to HTTPS and their website address is now https://www.jpx.co.jp/english.~JJL
The March For Our Lives crowd in Washington, DC was bigger than that at Trump’s inauguration.~JJL
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Brexit, Bitcoin and Benchmarks – Garry Jones
JohnLothianNews.com
Former Liffe and LME CEO Garry Jones kicks off JLN’s annual series of interviews with industry leaders at FIA Boca. In this year’s series of some 20 videos, executives from exchanges, fintech companies and service providers give their outlook on the coming year and state of the industry.
Jones, no longer under his LME non-compete, talks about the challenge of Brexit, the hurdles facing cryptocurrency trading in Europe and the potential effects of new Chinese product launches on global benchmarks.
Watch the video and read the rest here »
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Howey; ICOs; Virtual Currencies; Actual Delivery
Gary DeWaal – Bridging the Week
The Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission opposed a motion to dismiss filed by a defendant named in a criminal indictment, charging him with offering and selling two types of digital tokens issued in initial coin offerings that the DoJ had alleged were securities without required registration. The defendant had argued that the digital tokens were not securities because they were currencies – albeit cryptocurrencies – , and in any case, were not investment contracts, as charged, under applicable law. Separately, over 95 comments were submitted in response to proposed guidance by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as to what constitutes actual delivery of a virtual currency to a retail client in a leveraged or financed transaction.
bit.ly/2ITzYu2
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The Spread – Week of 3/19 to 3/23
JohnLothianNews.com
The JLN team is back in Chicago to bring you a more conventional episode of The Spread. Thank heavens our teleprompter was back in action – ad libbing a poolside chat was wicked difficult.
You are likely up to date on the potential Biden v. Trump title fight that was in the headlines this week, but are you up to date on the week’s happenings in options?
Watch the video here »
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March Madness is driving down work productivity: study
Gregory Bresiger – NY Post
Put away that report your boss wants and focus instead on your team’s last-minute comeback.
/goo.gl/1AnbEz
***** Productivity in my office will improve now that Purdue has been eliminated, but the Loyola of Chicago story is special.~JJL
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Friday’s Top Three
Our top read story Friday was John Lothian’s column, Congressional CFTC Budget Decision Lacks Vision and Reason. Second was the link to the CME Lawsuit Langer v. CME Group, Inc.. Third was The New York Times’ How Nasdaq C.E.O. Adena Friedman Beat the Odds on Wall Street
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MarketsWiki Stats
122,537,253 pages viewed; 23,047 pages; 212,127 edits
MarketsWiki Statistics
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Lead Stories
Bank of America ‘systematically’ misled clients about stock trades
Matt Egan – CNN Money
Bank of America Merrill Lynch doctored paperwork on 16 million orders to fool institutional clients into thinking stock trades were taking place in-house when they were not, according to New York’s Attorney General.
/cnnmon.ie/2IMXMzH
China seeks to extend oil market clout with new contract; Beijing eyes bigger role for currency through renminbi-based benchmark
Anjli Raval – FT
China is set to launch its long-awaited renminbi-denominated oil futures contract on Monday, as the world’s largest crude importer seeks to extend its influence over the pricing of barrels sold into Asia. The Shanghai International Energy Exchange has set the opening price for the front-month of its crude futures contract at Rmb416 a barrel, about $66.
/goo.gl/ZuWGZy
Global Trading Giants Dip Toes in China Oil Futures on Debut Day
Bloomberg News
Nation’s first-ever crude futures end day at 429.9 yuan/barrel; Glencore and Trafigura are among foreign participants in debut
Two of the world’s biggest oil traders gave China’s crude futures contract a go on its long-anticipated trading debut.
/goo.gl/Nx9gfY
Big banks develop new platform for bond issuances; Financial institutions hope to cut costs by streamlining disjointed debt process
Eric Platt in New York and Robin Wigglesworth in Oslo – FT
JPMorgan, Bank of America and Citi are developing a new platform to overhaul the disjointed bond issuance process, hoping to solidify their control of the lucrative underwriting business that last year generated billions of dollars in fees for investment banks.
/goo.gl/hZy1H2
An exchange giant lays out its defense of a bitcoin product that could transform the cryptocurrency
Frank Chaparro – Business Insider
The exchange behind one of the two markets for bitcoin futures in the US is trying to mollify regulators’ concerns about an exchange-traded product tied to the cryptocurrency.
/goo.gl/VRSBK6
China aims to challenge Brent, WTI oil with crude futures launch
Meng Meng and Tom Daly – Reuters
The launch of China’s yuan-denominated oil futures will mark the culmination of a decade-long push by the Shanghai Futures Exchange (ShFE) aimed at giving the world’s largest energy consumer more power in pricing crude sold to Asia.
/reut.rs/2IMzYf7
The Growing Influence of Asia in Derivatives Trading
Christopher Fix – CME Group OpenMarkets
Asian markets have become increasingly important not only for investors from the continent, but also those from around the world. The need for seamless round-the-clock trading has come into sharper focus as global event risks occur with their impact on markets reverberating almost instantaneously throughout our increasingly interconnected world. With futures as a compelling hedging instrument, we have continued to see trading volumes growing in Asia, and more significantly, during Asia trading hours from not just Asia-based but also global participants.
/goo.gl/frN1Fh
BAML fined $42 million for ‘masking’ electronic order routing; BAML made agreements with HFT firms including Citadel Securities and Two Sigma to secretly route client orders.
Hayley McDowell – The Trade
Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) has been fined $42 million after it admitted to New York authorities that it sent orders electronically to certain liquidity providers secretly as part of a ‘masking’ scheme.
/goo.gl/utsCQ1
America’s Libor Replacement Is Ready for Its Debut
Alex Harris – Bloomberg
Regulators around the globe began work on replacements for Libor, the London interbank offered rate, well before the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority set to put the beleaguered interest-rate benchmark out of its misery. In the U.S., enter the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, or SOFR, a new reference rate being introduced next week by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in cooperation with the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Financial Research. The debut of SOFR is a critical step in a quest to wean more than $350 trillion of securities off Libor.
/goo.gl/VfxdpJ
IMF’s Lagarde Urges Euro Powers to Build Unified Capital Market
Francine Lacqua, Rainer Buergin – Bloomberg
Says Brexit heightens urgency for Germany, France to step up; Fund’s managing director comments in Bloomberg interview
International Monetary Fund head Christine Lagarde called on Germany and France to spur further euro-area integration, saying Brexit makes a capital-markets union on the continent more urgent.
/goo.gl/1XGPD7
The world’s biggest IPO might be limited to its 25th-largest stock exchange
Eshe Nelson – Quartz
For the past two years, there’s has been a behind-the-scenes battle rumbling between New York, London, and Hong Kong to secure the public listing of Saudi Aramco, the world’s largest oil company. In what promises to be a blockbuster IPO, the company would fetch a valuation as high as $2 trillion. (Apple, which is currently the world’s largest listed company, has a market cap of around $840 billion.) In addition to the prestige that would come from listing the world’s largest public company, Aramco’s IPO would generate a gusher of fees for banks, advisers, and one lucky exchange operator.
/goo.gl/t4UsSR
Exchanges, OTC and Clearing
TMX to launch cryptocurrency platform focusing on Bitcoin, Ether; TMX Group announced that its subsidiary, Shorcan Digital Currency Network, has entered into an agreement with Paycase Financial.
The Canadian Press
The TMX Group Ltd. says it’s launching a cryptocurrency brokerage service through the launch of its Shorcan Digital Currency Network subsidiary.
/goo.gl/ChLWDB
Brazilian B3 exchange sets its sights on Asia
Louisa Chender – Global Investor Group
Brazilian exchange B3 is setting its sights on Asia to expand its network of foreign investors looking to trade in emerging markets.
According to Sergio Gullo, B3’s chief representative for EMEA & APAC, China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and Singapore have been identified as initial targets, with the latter three already proving successful.
bit.ly/2IPubFU
Tokyo Stock Exchange REIT Core Index Launches
JPX
The Tokyo Stock Exchange today announced the launch of a new REIT index called “Tokyo Stock Exchange REIT Core Index” to satisfy the diverse needs for stock price indices in the market.
/goo.gl/16ExmD
Fintech
Banks deploy ID software for client verification; But customer authentication tools face a challenge from EU data protection rules
Aliya Ram – FT
The historic failures of big banks including BNP Paribas and HSBC to comply with international sanctions and anti-money laundering rules ushered in a tougher regulatory regime on customer identification. The fallout from those cases has extended beyond financial penalties: watchdogs have increased pressure on banks to spot malpractice through background checks and monitoring transactions.
/goo.gl/BXYHsu
Cryptocurrencies
This New Blockchain Platform Aims to Give Gold a Digital Edge
Kristine Owram – Bloomberg
Goldcorp, Royal Canadian Mint also part of new U.S. venture; ‘Most important thing’ to hit gold market in decades: Sprott
Cryptocurrencies and the blockchain were thought by some to replace gold as the ultimate haven against financial calamity. Now the gold market is using blockchain to kick back at crypto and bring precious metals into the digital age.
/goo.gl/NVRDSf
China leads blockchain patent applications; Rush to protect technological ideas leads to patent applications trebling in 2017
Laura Noonan in Dublin – FT
China was the most active filer of blockchain patent applications last year as the country’s technology and financial services groups rushed to claim exclusivity on the “mutual distributed ledger” that could revolutionise finance and other supply chains.
/goo.gl/rRySG6
Big Banks Could Eventually Warm Up To Bitcoin And Ripple
Panos Mourdoukoutas – Forbes
Big banks want to crush Ripple and Bitcoin. At least, that’s the impression one gets by listening to speeches of high profile bankers, attacking the very premise and the valuation of Bitcoin.
/goo.gl/jgoiDh
Crypto projects that raised hundreds of millions of dollars are being ‘intentionally non-transparent’
Oscar Williams-Grut – Business Insider
Startups that raised hundreds of millions of dollars last year issuing their own digital coins are being “intentionally non-transparent” with their investors, according to a new report.
/goo.gl/4kwgBX
This Startup Is Using Blockchain to Fight Art Forgers
Vivianne Rodrigues, Rob Urban – Bloomberg
Registry would create image-based records of artworks; Blockchain seen bringing trust to anemic online art market
Contemporary artist Philip Colbert, whose colorful, high-spirited art is finding buyers around the world, had been toying with the idea of creating his own catalog system to prove the authenticity of his expanding body of work.
/goo.gl/6WoAgH
Enough About Cryptocurrency. Let’s Talk About Virtual Cats
Eric Newcomer – Bloomberg
We spend way too much time talking about digital currencies and not nearly enough time on digital cats.
/goo.gl/ZqEQqa
Telegram On Track to Push Its Cryptocurrency Sale to $1.7 Billion
Ilya Khrennikov, Nour Al Ali – Bloomberg
Token price triples in second funding round, people say; Investor demand said to be less after Bitcoin led market lower
Messaging service Telegram Group Inc., which smashed the world record for selling a new cryptocurrency in February, is on track to raise another $850 million as its initial coin offering extends toward a third month, according to three people familiar with the matter.
/goo.gl/KLPKsT
Politics
Dow dreamers show Trump’s war on elites is pure fantasy
Thomas Frank – The Guardian
Observers of the thousand-man wrecking crew now smashing up America’s executive branch often grouse about the many ways in which it violates the “norms” of our country’s politics. What impresses me as I observe the unfolding Trumptacular is the opposite: how familiar it sometimes is.
/goo.gl/4zBhRj
Wall Street wonders how long Kudlow will last in Trump’s White House
John Aidan Byrne – NY Post
Even though Larry Kudlow has not officially started as the director of the National Economic Council at the White House, Wall Street is already wondering when he will hear, “You’re fired.”
/goo.gl/LpVJnJ
Trump Veers Into Uncharted Trade Territory as China Waits
Andrew Mayeda – Bloomberg
Investors await details of China tariffs and levies on steel; Analyst sees a ‘huge amount of uncertainty’ over next steps
The Trump administration is under growing pressure to explain the details of its trade policies after fears of a tit-for-tat economic conflict between the U.S. and China sent stocks tumbling last week.
/goo.gl/epbr1Y
What Should Worry Americans Most About Trump; His tweets on the FBI, the law and the press show a singular disrespect for U.S. institutions.
Cass R. Sunstein – Bloomberg
President Donald Trump has shown little or no respect for the independence of the nation’s institutions. That lack of respect is what distinguishes him from his recent predecessors, both Republican and Democratic, and above all it is what demonstrates an authoritarian disposition.
/goo.gl/LgeA4F
Regulation
TRACE Ratings Source
FINRA
Beginning Tuesday, April 3, 2018, FINRA will update the way it sources rating information for TRACE-eligible securities. This update will occur as part of FINRA’s regular maintenance for the analysis of the TRACE Grade (Investment Grade or High-Yield) it places on these securities.
/goo.gl/jhH9EZ
Holiday Reminder Regarding TRACE Market Data
FINRA
In observance of Good Friday, the TRACE system will be closed on Friday, March 30, 2018. As stated in the data feed interface specifications, FINRA may send out unmarked test data via its data feeds on market holidays. Direct data feed subscribers, including recipients of TRACE data via the Bond Trading Dissemination Service (BTDS), Agency Trading Dissemination Service (ATDS), Structured Products Dissemination Services (SPDS) and/or 144A Trade Dissemination Services (144A) feed(s) should take the necessary precautions to prevent data corruption. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Please contact FINRA Operations at (866) 776-0800 if you have any questions.
/goo.gl/2kNFjk
Holiday Reminder Regarding ORF Market Data
FINRA
In observance of Good Friday, the ORF System will be closed on Friday, March 30, 2018. As stated in the data feed interface specifications, FINRA may send out unmarked test data via its data feeds on market holidays. Direct data feed subscribers, including recipients of the Trade Data Dissemination Service 2.0 (TDDS 2.0) and Bulletin Board Dissemination Service (BBDS) feed(s) should take the necessary precautions to prevent data corruption. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Please contact FINRA Operations at (866) 776-0800 if you have any questions.
/goo.gl/xELbNa
SEC Stops Ponzi-Schemer Targeting Retail Investors and Obtains Preliminary Injunction SEC
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges and a preliminary injunction and asset freeze against Niket Shah, a New Jersey resident who stole more than $250,000 in a Ponzi scheme in which his friends and coworkers invested.
/goo.gl/8K2jE2
Mifid’s calm start belies research ‘devils in detail’; Institutions are grappling with rules around carve-outs and inducements
Hannah Murphy – FT
The January launch of Mifid II — the sprawling European legislation that runs to 1.7m paragraphs and touches banks and brokerages, as well as institutional investors and exchanges — passed without the financial Armageddon that some had predicted.
/goo.gl/7uYwF2
Regulators Split Over How to Keep Banks Out of Trouble; Ten years after the financial crisis, Washington’s bank regulators don’t agree on best way to examine financial firms
Ryan Tracy – WSJ
Should bank examiners work every day inside the offices of banks they oversee, or not? Two federal banking regulators have opposite answers, showing how 10 years after the 2008 bailouts, regulators are still trying to figure out the best way to stop bankers at Wells Fargo WFC -2.95% & Co. and other firms from causing trouble.
/goo.gl/uMEFR4
Sebi plans new buyback rules, maximum limit likely to be capped at 25%; Under the proposal, the maximum limit of any buyback would be 25 per cent or less of the aggregate of paid up capital and free reserves of the company
Press Trust of India
Markets regulator Sebi is considering to come out with new norms on share buyback programme, under which maximum limit for share repurchase will be 25 per cent of the company’s paid-up capital and other reserves.
/goo.gl/1M2Tw7
Japanese regulator warns major cryptocurrency exchange for operating without a license, bitcoin falls
Evelyn Cheng – CNBC
Japan’s Financial Services Agency issued a warning Friday to major cryptocurrency exchange Binance for operating without registration in the country.
/goo.gl/cgCwxz
Investing and Trading
The Big Interview: Jonathan Clark; Former global head of trading at BlackRock and CEO at Luminex Trading & Analytics, Jonathan Clark, discusses block trading trends, his time on the buy-side and the decision to add conditional orders to Luminex’s platform.
Hayley McDowell – The Trade
Hayley McDowell: What is driving block trading in the US and how has it evolved in recent years?
/goo.gl/5Pk54g
Bond Traders Face Gut-Check in Record $300 Billion U.S. Auctions
Brian Chappatta – Bloomberg
Short-term Treasury yields had rare drop last week after Fed; But largest 2-year sale since 2014 brings supply back in focus
Bond bulls who enjoyed a rare rally in short-term Treasuries last week might not want to get too comfortable: The world’s biggest debt market is about to be inundated with an unprecedented wave of issuance.
/goo.gl/AQid3J
Oil Trader Vitol to Post 25% Profit Drop as Market Shifts
Andy Hoffman, Javier Blas – Bloomberg
Income from asset sales fails to offset weaker trading; Vitol Chairman Taylor has said oil trading is ‘bloody tough’
Vitol Group, the world’s biggest independent oil trader, suffered a 25 percent drop in annual profit as income from assets sales failed to offset weaker trading results.
/goo.gl/vk5bQP
The World’s Most Controversial Interest Rate Is Haunting Us Again
Tracy Alloway, Joe Weisenthal – Bloomberg
Remember LIBOR? The London Interbank Offered Rate measures the cost of money when banks borrow from each other. It famously blew out during the financial crisis, but for a long time since then it’s been dormant. Only lately it’s started to creep higher again. On this week’s Odd Lots podcast, we talk to Scott Peng, the founder, CEO and CIO of Advocate Capital Management, who warned in early 2008 that there was something fishy about the way the measure was being priced. In the post-crisis period, it was discovered that the rate — which helps price trillions of dollars worth of other assets — was being gamed or manipulated by traders. Peng walks us through the history of the rate, what it’s telling us now, and what may ultimately replace it.
/goo.gl/fC3HnM
Wall Street’s beloved FANG stock quartet may be breaking up
Noel Randewich – Reuters
The quartet of technology stocks that has driven Wall Street indices to record highs in recent years may be breaking up, possibly undermining one of the best growth stories in a nine-year bull market.
/goo.gl/QaLU7m
Could the Libor Mystery Be All about Taxes?; The U.S. tax bill has penalized U.S. branches of foreign banks for borrowing cash from their headquarters, which could explain the money market’s strange behavior
Jon Sindreu – WSJ
Investors are scratching their heads about why a key measure of distress in financial markets is at its highest level since the financial crisis in 2009, even though there isn’t any panic about banks’ health.
/goo.gl/Aa6PKx
Sliding Silver Sends Scary Signal; Gold is priced 82 times higher than silver, the highest such discrepancy in two years and seen as a negative economic indicator
Amrith Ramkumar – WSJ
Investors have soured on silver to start 2018, after prices rose over the last two years—a possible warning signal to the broader market.
/goo.gl/bqN32t
Institutions
What’s wrong with AQR – Part II
RCM Alternatives
We went into depth about a year ago on what was wrong with AQR’s behemoth of a mutual fund: the AQR Managed Futures Strategy Fund (AQMIX), when their trailing 1yr returns as of last April were down about -10% and the NAV sitting around $9 years after starting out at $10 (although that doesn’t include dividends paid out). We spoke of their size, of their skew towards financials, and of the overall poor environment for their type of strategy perhaps meaning nothing was really wrong – it was just doing what it does. And, as it turned out, all those were on point – with our contrarian headline powers a little early, but still, spot on as AQMIX rallied about +11% a few months after we wrote about it.
bit.ly/2IMjS5n
Hardworking Hedge Funds Might Have the Upper Hand; Funds that accessed Edgar filings performed better than ones that didn’t, but the data isn’t so clear-cut.
Matt Levine
Public companies in the U.S. have to make public filings — annual and quarterly reports on Form 10-K and 10-Q, announcements of material events on Form 8-K, descriptions of trading by insiders and big shareholders, etc. — on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Edgar website. Should you read them? For amateur investors that is perhaps a difficult question: There is an obvious conventional wisdom that you should read them so you can be informed about the companies you invest in, but there is also an argument that reading SEC filings gives casual retail investors merely the illusion of competence. After all these filings are publicly available and you are competing with professionals whose only job it is to analyze stocks; surely those professionals are also reading the filings and then also doing a lot of other research that you just can’t do.
/goo.gl/QaJyUj
JPMorgan Brings Amazon’s Alexa to Wall Street Trading Floors
Hugh Son, Katherine Chiglinsky – Bloomberg
Voice-activated assistant can now send reports from analysts; Other firms such as New York Life using it to help employees
“Alexa, ask JPMorgan what the price target for Apple is.” It’s a request that JPMorgan Chase & Co. institutional clients can now get quickly answered through Amazon.com Inc.’s ubiquitous voice-activated assistant. The bank and the e-commerce giant have partnered to provide JPMorgan’s Wall Street users with another way to access its research. Alexa is able to send analysts’ reports and related queries, and the bank is testing other features, like providing prices on bonds or swaps, according to David Hudson, global head of markets execution for the New York-based bank.
/goo.gl/uCi9S3
JPMorgan Sees Market Overcoming Stock Rout, But Beware Trade War
Joanna Ossinger – Bloomberg
Asset allocation stays geared toward growth in second quarter; A risk premium for ‘bad policies’ to threaten global trade
Despite a harrowing week for U.S. stocks, market conditions are looking favorable heading into the second quarter, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co.
/goo.gl/VXJoh7
Regions
China’s Oil Futures Soar on Debut; Beijing takes on global oil markets with launch of yuan-denominated futures
WSJ
China’s yuan-denominated crude-oil futures surged on their long-awaited debut Monday, indicating positive initial sentiment toward the new market, which Beijing hopes will eventually give the country an oil benchmark to rival those in the U.S. and Europe.
/goo.gl/nKtrnM
Turning Sour on China’s Oil Benchmark; Shanghai futures are off to a good start, but they’re at the mercy of an illiquid currency.
David Fickling – Bloomberg
How serious is China about setting up its new Shanghai crude oil futures as a challenger to Brent and West Texas Intermediate?
/goo.gl/cKjwCA
China steps up effort to avert US trade war; Beijing set to ease foreign investment rules and buy more American semiconductors
Tom Mitchell in Beijing and Sam Fleming in Washington – FT
Chinese officials are rushing to finalise new regulations by May that will allow foreign financial groups to take majority stakes in securities companies as they seek to avert a looming trade war with the US.
/goo.gl/NKCjow
China to Join Major Global Bond Index for First Time; Chinese bonds will represent 5.49% of the Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Index
Saumya Vaishampayan and Shen Hong – WSJ
Bloomberg LP said Friday it will add Chinese bonds to its Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate Index next year, the first such major global benchmark to include debt from the world’s second-largest economy.
/goo.gl/BHc9TM
Brexit
Brexit ‘Leave’ Camp May Have Broken Spending Rules, Observer Says
Viren Vaghela – Bloomberg
Directing how funds are spent flouts rules, whistleblower says; Foreign secretary Johnson calls story ‘utterly ludicrous’
The main group that campaigned for Britain to leave the European Union, which included Boris Johnson among its advocates, may have broken campaign spending laws, according to the Observer newspaper, which cited comments by a whistle-blower.
/goo.gl/3Bw9rA
Brexit delivers longer blow to bank sentiment than global crisis – survey
Emma Rumney – Reuters
The prospect of quitting the EU has hurt sentiment in Britain’s finance industry for longer than the global financial crisis that plunged economies into recession and destroyed some of the world’s biggest banks, a survey found on Monday.
/goo.gl/NnkwJt
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