Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Welcome to the John Lothian News daily Update podcast for February 2, 2024. I am your host, John Lothian. This podcast is brought to you by John Lothian News. Thank you for joining us. Here are the hits and takes comments from today's JLN in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois Chancery division in the case of Sheldon Langer, Ronald M. Yurmack, Lance R. Goldberg, Robert Proze, Gerald Petro, Craig Reingruber, Stanton Miller, Ray Larson, Daniel Ryan, Carol Jorarison individually, on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated plaintiffs versus CME Group, Inc. A Delaware corporation and the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, a Delaware corporation defendants a hearing took place on the morning of January 30 in the Cook County Circuit Court Chancery division concerning the status of the defendant's motion that were originally due by January 31. The defendants requested an extension of time and additional page limits for their filing motions.
[00:01:19] The presiding judge granted an extension allowing them to submit motions for summary judgment with a maximum of 85 pages and set a new deadline for filing these motions by February 16. The defendants will be submitting three motions simultaneously. While the first two motions, namely a motion for summary judgment and a motion to decertify a class, were expected, the third motion, a motion to strike our expert witness, came as a surprise to the court. A JLN source shared, both parties intend to engage in mediation, but this will occur only after the aforementioned motions have been filed and thoroughly argued and if the CME loses the argument. Consequently, it appears that mediation will not commence until at least earliest May.
[00:02:20] CBOE Global Markets released its fourth quarter results and reported that it achieved remarkable results with a 33% increase in diluted EPS to $1.98. The full year was even more impressive as it saw a 226% surge in diluted EPS to $7.13. Adjusted diluted EPS for the third quarter and full year increased by 14% and 13%, respectively. Sibo also reported record net revenue for both the quarter at 499,000,000, up 9%, and the full year at 1.9 billion, up 10%. Looking ahead to 2024, the company aims for organic total net revenue growth of five to 7%, with data and access solutions targeting seven to 10% growth. To support these goals, Sibo has set an adjusted operating and expense guidance range of $798 to $808,000,000, emphasizing its commitment to long term revenue and earnings growth through continued investment trading, solution provider CQG announced it launched the new CQG profile charts and multileg Algo support, as well as an AlgO builder in CQG one. You can see the latest updates from CQG with the link in today's newsletter. Nicole Oskin announced on LinkedIn that she accepted a role as director Finops at the CME Group, moving from CME Data Services, where she was also a director. The World Federation of Exchanges announced on LinkedIn that us commodity Futures Trading Commissioner Summer Mersinger will be delivering a keynote address at the WFE clear conference. Defense acquisition University reached out to George Vukovtich to moderate a panel for the Department of Defense on AI. The panel is on February 21 at 12:30 p.m. Entitled Innovation Sparks episode six, building capability with DiU. George Vukutvich, PhD, is a visiting faculty member at DAu Fast Markets. Andrea Hotter will be on the smarter markets podcast tomorrow with host David Greeley to talk about what's going on.
[00:05:03] Our most read stories from our previous edition of JLN options were traders pile into bets on VIX soaring to 50 as Fed risks mount from Bloomberg Regulatory nod for us bitcoin ETF options may take months. Sources from Reuters SGX Group reports first half fiscal year 2024 net profits of 251,000,000 Singapore dollars from SGX Group subscribe to the free JLN Options newsletter with a link in today's JLN. Here are more stories from the first read section of today's JLN. Here's a story from Bloomberg. The headline Chicago's wealthy raised $66 million to fight against crime. Donors include the Crown and Pritzker Family foundations. The business community is all in, Hyatt CEO Hop Lamazian says. Chicago's wealthy families and top business leaders have raised $66 million to help fund the city's fight against crime. Donors, including the Crown and Pritzker Family foundations, contributed just over 30% of the 200 million that's required for an initiative to reduce gun violence, representing more than half of the 100 million the business community has pledged. The civic committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, which includes senior leaders from companies including McDonald's Corp. Ulta Beauty Inc. And Morningstar Inc. Is leading the fundraising efforts. My comment nice to see Chicago leaders step up. That is the right direction. Here's another story, this one from the Financial Times. The headline chinese investors buy gold as property and stock markets fall. Blistering demand from central banks also helps keep yellow metal above $2,000 per troy ounce. Chinese investors and households have been buying gold as a refugee from local property and stock market mayhem, helping to support record prices for the haven asset. China was the principal bright spot globally for gold, jewelry and investment flows in 2023, according to industry group the World Gold Council's quarterly report, as local property and equity and currency markets disappointed following the country's exit from Covid-19 lockdowns. My comment chinese investors buy gold, not the new gold, but the old gold. You know, gold, the metal. Here are the top three stories from Thursday's JLN our most clicked item Thursday was the LinkedIn Post commemorating the 20th anniversary of crystal clear communications from Ellen Resnick, the president of Crystal Clear Communications. We wish her a very happy 20th anniversary. Second was US disrupted chinese hacking operation that targeted routers from Bloomberg. Third was it will take years for the oil and gas market to recover from the mother of all shocks, Harvard economist says from Business Insider here are the top five stories from the lead section of today's JLN. The first story is from Bloomberg. The headline pig butchering scam kits are for sale in underground markets Defi savings latest iteration of fraud targeting vulnerable pig butchering operations started in China but now spreading cybercriminals are selling the latest evolution of pig butchering schemes in ready to go kits on the dark web, lowering the barrier to entry for scammers around the world, according to a report published Friday by cybersecurity firm Sophus. In traditional pig butchering scams, which originated in China and blew up during the pandemic, criminals pretend to cultivate a romantic or personal relationship with victims through dating apps or social media. After gaining their trust over weeks of virtual conversations, the fraudsters manipulate them into investing in phony cryptocurrency investments. Once the criminals squeeze as much digital currency as they can out of the victims, they take off with the funds, sometimes robbing innocent people of their life savings. My comment if you're wondering what pig butchering is, check out the pig butchering page on markets wiki. Here's a story from Reuters. The headline LME Clearinghouse reshuffles management the London Metal Exchange LME Clearinghouse has reshuffled its management team with the appointment of a new chief operating officer, chief risk officer and head of clearing risk, it said on Friday. The clearinghouse of the world's largest and oldest metals markets appointed former Euroclear manager as chief executive officer in October. Here's another story, this one from Bloomberg. The headline markets don't know what to expect anymore, and that's good. A greater diversity of economic forecasts can lead to a richer discussion and help expose previously unseen risks and weaknesses. When it comes to financial markets, nothing is certain for much of the last few decades, however, it was easy to convince yourself otherwise. Interest rates mostly went in one direction, down, and high inflation was a thing of the past. The pandemic economy and the policies in response to it changed all that. Not only did they bring back higher inflation and interest rates, they also altered expectations. And while the consensus is that the US economy will stick a soft landing, there is a wide variation among investors, consumers and professional forecasters about future inflation rates and bond yields. Here's another story, this one from Coindesk. The headline finance freezes 4.2 million in XRP tokens stolen from Ripple executives wallet over $120,000,000 in XRP was stolen from Ripple Labs executive chairman Chris Larson earlier this week.
[00:11:29] Crypto exchange finance froze $4.2 million worth of XRP tokens last week tied to this week's $120,000,000 exploit, CEO Richard Teng said in an X post. Teng said XRP ledger developers who maintain the blockchain that uses XRP had flagged the exploit to exchanges and asked them to look out for deposits related to exploiter wallets. We will continue to support ripple in their investigations and their efforts to retrieve back the funds, including closely monitoring the majority of the funds still in the exploiters external wallets in case they deposit to binance, Teng said. Here's another story, this one from CNN. The headline chinese stocks are melting down again after worst week in years chinese stocks have had a very bad week despite recent attempts by Beijing to shore up confidence in the economy and stem a protracted stock market slump that has wiped out $6 trillion in value in three years. Investors are still rushing for the exit. The Shanghai Composite index fell 6.2%, its biggest weekly loss since October 2018, while the Shenzhen Component index shed 8.1%, its largest drop in three years. The indexes have lost more than 8% and 15%, respectively, since the start of the year. We're grateful for your listening to the John Lothian news daily update. Please consider spreading the word about our podcasts among your friends. Moreover, if you haven't done so already, we would greatly appreciate it if you could spare a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform on which you access this podcast. Your reviews play a crucial role in introducing our content to new listeners. Also, if you haven't subscribed to the Daily John Lo the newsletter email yet you can enjoy a complimentary 90 day trial by visiting johnlowthiannews.com trial. Thank you for your valued support. Have a great day and stay safe and treat people the same way you want to be treated it, with respect, equality and justice. This has been John Lothian. Goodbye. This podcast has been produced by Andrew Lothian.
