Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Welcome to the John Lothian News daily Update podcast for August 5, 2024. I am your host, John Lothian. This podcast is brought to you by John LothiaNews, the home of markets wiki and markets wiki Education. Thank you for joining us. Here are the hits and takes comments from today's JLN. There is a bear emerging and I am not talking about the dead bear cub. Robert F. Kennedy junior dropped off in Central park markets are down, with Japan dropping in the biggest route since the 1987 stock market crash, it is an ugly morning. Fasten your seat belts, Fridays option volume hit a record 71.4 million contracts as markets fell after a weak jobs report and intel layoffs. C bos Henry Schwartz shared on LinkedIn over the weekend. The first hour saw 22 million contracts, surpassing the 2019 daily average by nearly 3 million. As the VIX reached levels unseen since March 2023, traders moved into crisis mode, pushing index option volume to a record 8 million contracts above normal. Single stock options traded 38 million contracts, 42% above average and ETF's 25,000,033% above average, with volatility doubling since early July and SPX put call skew rising from historic lows to 6.5 points.
[00:01:48] Do you want to take a look at the data from trading from the first half of 2024? FIA is hosting a webinar on August 7 that will provide insights into trading activity in the global listed derivatives market in the first half of the year. Guest speaker Scott Klipper, a portfolio manager for Gresham Quant, the systemic arm of Gresham Investment Management, will join FIas will ackworth to discuss trends in trading activity. Register with the link in today's newsletter. The Eurex three month euro stirrer futures have traded more than 15 million contracts since their launch in January 2023 and sport a market share of 60% and record open interest of 137,750 contracts. Yurok's shared on LinkedIn IEX is launching a new series of short episodes titled Boxes and Lines Lite, starting with a discussion on 24/7 trading. In this episode, John Ramsey and Ronan Ryan explore the implications of round the clock trading as retail brokers like Robinhood and interactive brokers already offer 24 hours trading on weekdays, and a new startup seeks to SEC approval for an always on exchange. Tune in to hear their insights and share your thoughts on these shorter episodes in the comments. Full length episodes with guests will continue as usual. GH Financials, or GHF, has appointed Raymond Wong as managing director of GH Financials Hong Kong Limited effective September 2 the firm shared on LinkedIn. Currently based in London, Wong will relocate to Hong Kong to lead the firm's growth in the Asia Pacific region. Hwang joins GHF after eight years at Hong Kong Exchange and clearing, where he was head of EMEA business development. He previously worked as an equity derivatives broker at Quantex Capital Markets and vantage capital markets, beginning his career in 2006. Merrick's capital markets has joined LCH Swapclear as the first non bank FCM clearing member as a diversified global financial services platform. Merrick's now will offer OTC client clearing services for interest rate swaps on LCH's swap clear. Merricks will benefit from LCH swap clear services including trade compression, portfolio margining and the ability to post various types of collateral.
[00:04:46] Ian Maudslay is starting a new position as head of international business development at Broadridge. He shared on LinkedIn here are some news excerpts from fow from in front of its paywall the European Energy Exchange reported a spike in July power derivatives trading driven by its european and japanese markets. The Depository trust and Clearing Corporation is optimistic about the UK's readiness for the upcoming european market infrastructure regulation, citing successful execution in the EU and strong uk firm engagement. Merics cleared its first interest rate swaps, marking a significant step in its sector ambitions. Former BNP CoO Ki Meng Tan joined London based AI firm Turin Tech as COO. GH financials appointed Raymond Wong, former HKEX european head, as managing director, effective next month. As we mentioned earlier, CBO Global Markets anticipates increased international demand for its us options products. CME reported a 24% increase in July trading volume, setting a record for the fourth consecutive month. The role in futures markets in the transition to net zero is the editors pick from the World Federation of Exchanges. WFE August issue of Focus magazine. Written by Monique Bell, commodities product manager at the Australian Securities Exchange or Aslanhouse, the article discusses the way exchanges are ideally situated to provide the necessary products transparency and connectivity for customers to manage transitional price risks. By building on its core australian and New Zealand electricity market, ASX intends to deliver an integrated transitional ecosystem across electricity, gas and environmental products to help the market manage uncertainty and risk. To support this, ASX is waiving fees on all environmental futures transactions from July 29 to October 31, 2024. You can read the article and other WFE news on the website. Focus Dot World Dash exchanges.org issue Forward Slash August 2024 there you go. Our most read stories from our previous edition of JLN options were frenzied. Options Trading offers minimal benefits. Sebi's Anath Narayan from Mint Flex trade VP Rob Brogan discusses AI zero day options and algo invasions at Options conference from John Lothian news and VIX surges to 15 month high as jobs report sparks recession worries from TheInvesting.com subscribe to the free JLN Options newsletter with a link in todays JLN. Here are more stories from the first reads section of todays JLN.
[00:08:31] Heres a video from our coverage from the OIC conference Steve Soznick of interactive brokers discusses trends and risks in the options market at the Asheville conference in a recent interview at the Options industry conference in Asheville, North Carolina, Steve Soznick, chief strategist at interactive brokers, shared his insights on the evolving landscape of the options industry with John Lothian News the interview, part of the JLN industry Leader video series sponsored by OCC, highlighted several key trends and concerns shaping the market. You can watch this video on johnlothiannews.com.
[00:09:19] we also have our videos in todays newsletter. Former ABN AMRo executive Mike Dennis discusses market trends and opportunities in crypto and fixed income at options conference, and also flextrade VP Rob Brogan discusses AI zero day options and algo innovations at Options conference. Here's a story from Bloomberg. The headline Nasdaq 100 features indicate gauges worst open in four years the Nasdaq 100 is set for its biggest opening drop in more than four years, with investors bracing for days of volatility amid rising concerns, overdose, a slowing us economy and overheated gains in the tech sector. Contracts on the Nasdaq 100 fell as much as 6.5% before pairing losses to about 4.5%. That puts the tech heavy index on track for its worst open since the pandemic days of March. Futures were down 2.7%, while those tracking the Dow Jones industrial average declined 1.6%. My comment Mondays.
[00:10:41] Here's another story. This is a press release from StA from Jim Hyde the headline Sta Arizona a growing national footprint we are thrilled to officially announce the launch of the Sta Arizona chapter, Sta Z. Formed through the collaboration of local and national leaders in the Sta community. We're excited to bring this meaningful opportunity to engage with STA on a regional level to those in the Arizona area. STA Z will initially operate as a committee under the Sta umbrella, with the goal of becoming an independent affiliate in the future. This transition from committee to affiliate will be led by Vinny Lamacchia, managing director at Canaccord Genuity and an Arizona resident for over 20 years. Vinnie will be joined by a five person board composed of senior leaders from some of the biggest names in financial services. My comment Arizona is joining Sta what took so long?
[00:11:53] Here's another story, this one from the Financial Times. The headline the battle over who makes the rules for us companies, lawyers, judges and legislators are locked in a war of words in Delaware, the legal home of more corporations than any other state.
[00:12:13] In October 2022, Tesla founder Elon Musk grudgingly completed the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, a transaction he had spent the summer trying to wriggle out of. Chancellor Kathleen McCormick, a Delaware judge who adjudicated in the dispute between Musk and Twitter shareholders, was lauded for her finesse in guiding the litigants to settle a resolution between themselves without recourse to an expensive trial. The efficiency of the Delaware Court of Chancery, where the Twitter merger contract stipulated any disagreement between the parties must be heard, meant that within just a few months, Musk got his day in court, and then Twitter shareholders got their money, as per the original terms of the buyouthenne. My comment this story highlights the growing tension between Delaware's corporate friendly legal system and recent court rulings that have challenged established practices, potentially threatening the state's dominance as a preferred incorporation location for major us companies. Here are the top three stories from Friday's GLN. Our top story Friday was the John Lithia news video interview. Former ABN AMRo executive Mike Dennis discusses market trends and opportunities in crypto and fixed income at options conference. Second was this 23 floor Manhattan office building, just sold at a 97.5% discount from the New York Times. Third was Ceebo Global Markets reports results for second quarter 2024, a Ceebo press release. Here are the top three stories from the lead section of today's JLN. The first story is from Bloomberg. The grim milestones pile up as Asia bears brunt of stock sell off Asia equities tumbled as fears of a deeper us economic slowdown and an extended route in japanese shares sapped risk appetite, with matters made worse by a violent rotation away from heavyweight tech stocks. Many equity indexes across the region hit bleak milestones on Monday, with those in export reliant markets of Japan, Taiwan and Korea suffering the most. Their benchmarks sank more than 10% each. Intraday circuit breakers temporarily suspended trading of futures for the topics, as well as the Nikkei 225 averaged multiple times, while trading was also briefly halted for the Kospi and the Kasdaq. Cash and futures markets in Seoul here's another story, this one from Reuters Japan's Nikkei sees biggest route since 1987 Black Monday japanese stocks collapsed on Monday and their biggest single day route since the 1987 black Monday sell offs, driven by last week's plunge in global stock markets. Economic concerns and worries investments funded by cheap yen were being unwound. The Nikkei share average shed a staggering 12.4% as Fridays dismal jobs data highlighted heightened worries of a possible recession and as the yen rallied to seven month highs versus the dollar. This was the index worth showing in percentage terms since the October 1987 crash. Here's another story, this one from Reuters. Magnificent seven set to shed $1 trillion in value led by Apple and Nvidia Apple and Nvidia led a sell off in technology stocks on Monday as US recession fears and Berkshire Hathaways decision to cut its stake in the iPhone maker punctured a month long rally in the sector. High performing shares of Alphabet, Amazon meta platforms Microsoft and Tesla fell as much as 12.2% in pre market trading. The losses in the magnificent seven stocks were set to wipe out nearly $1 trillion from the combined market value of the companies.
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[00:17:40] This podcast has been produced by Andrew Lothian.
