Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Welcome to the John Lothian News daily Update podcast for July 29, 2024. I am your host, John Lothian. This podcast is brought to you by John Lothian News 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 My wife's birthday is this week, so on Saturday we went to the Barry Manilow concert at the all state arena in Rosemont, Illinois. Cheryl had seen the now 81 year old singer performer twice before we got married in 1989. Manilow put on an excellent performance, which was rather amazing given his age and the rather weak performance I had seen from another 81 year old that induced him to step down from running for president.
[00:01:01] At the end of his performance, Manlo spoke to his audience, particularly his younger audience members, and encouraged them to exercise their right to vote. One of the great things about being an american. It was not a partisan message by any means, though it stood in stark contrast to the one delivered by former president Donald Trump this week while speaking to an audience of christians at the Believer summit in West Palm Beach, Florida. At the end of his remarks, according to a story and the Independent. At a Friday event hosted by the conservative christian organization Turning Point Action, he told the audience, christians get out and vote. Just this time. You won't have to do it anymore. You got to get out and vote in four years. You don't have to vote again. We'll have it fixed so you're good. Not going to have to vote now. Given that he was in Florida and could have been talking to an audience of advanced age, the whole you won't have to vote again may have had to do with the audience's expected mortality rates. However, if it was something else, then it is something else. While America might be about to take a giant step backwards as a democracy, Chicago is taking a quantum leap forward as a technology center. The Chicago Tribune featured an opinion piece in its Sunday paper by Sameer Mayakar and Nadja Mason titled the Quantum Revolution is coming to Illinois. The commentary explains that the term quantum is expanding beyond scientific and pop culture contexts, signifying the development of powerful tools set to transform industries like healthcare and finance with significant economic implications. Recently, Illinois announced the creation of the Illinois Quantum and Micro Electronics park in South Chicago. Supported by Psi Quantum, the state, and up to $140 million from the federal government, the initiative is expected to generate a $20 billion economic impact and create thousands of jobs over the next decade. Illinois leadership in quantum technology is reinforced by Governor JB Pritzker's $500 million budget allocation to boost quantum computing. The new campus, located on a historically industrial site, aims to harness local talent from top engineering universities, including the University of Illinois and the University of Chicago. This development promises to advance quantum technology, enhance national security, and spur innovation. The initiative builds on the region's existing infrastructure, like the Chicago Quantum Exchange and the quantum accelerator duality, fostering a robust ecosystem similar to Silicon Valley and Boston.
[00:04:12] Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Junior this weekend offered the crypto crowd and its billionaires a huge bribe from the US treasury to back them. Trump wants to make the US the crypto capital of the planet and have it be mined, minted and made in the US. He must believe that bitcoins are real coins to be minted. Trump also said he would, quote unquote, sack the head of the SEC, Gary Gensler, and put in place regulators who love crypto rather than ones who hate it. This is a nice soundbite, but most agency heads resign when a new administration from the other party comes into office. Mister Gensler's commissioner term runs until 2026, so he could stay around and hate on crypto longer despite Mister Trump if he wanted. RFK Junior wants the US to buy bitcoin every day after he is president until it owns 4 million bitcoin, Bloomberg reported. Kennedy had said Trump wanted to build a Fort Knox for bitcoin and authorized the US to buy a million bitcoins. Kennedy upped the bid for the crypto crowds vote. It is a great way to get your election campaign funded by crypto billionaires, assuming you can win.
[00:05:39] JPX reported that the Tokyo Commodity Exchange, or Tokom, experienced a significant surge in electricity futures trading during the April to June 2024 period, with transaction volumes reaching 397 gigawatts, eight times higher than the previous quarter and the second highest quarterly volume ever recorded. This increase was primarily driven by the successful expansion of Tokom's market maker programs, which involved designated market makers continuously quoting reference prices, thereby facilitating more transactions. These futures allowed companies to hedge against price fluctuations on the Japan Electric Power Exchange, or JepX, having been trial listed in 2019 and permanently listed in 2022. Notably, the largest trading volume occurred in April to June 2022, driven by hedging needs amid fuel price volatility following the russian invasion of Ukraine. The recent expansion covered the July to September 2024 baseload electricity futures aimed at capturing summer hedging demand when electricity usage peaks. Market makers, including brokerage firms, benefit from discounted trading fees if they meet Tokom's conditions, despite this success, ensuring continued growth within transaction volumes remains a challenge for the future. The July 25 SGX FX futures reached a new milestone by achieving a single day record of $25.7 billion for the USD CNH futures contracts. The notional open interest for USD CNH contracts also saw notable increase of 3% to 213,814 lots approaching the historical highs that in June 2024, STX reported on LinkedIn.
[00:07:50] The SEC report charting the course a systemic exploration of influences shaping money market fund growth by Daniel Hilpkin, dated July 26, 2024, examines the factors influencing the growth growth of money market fund mmfs. The report highlights that during market turmoil, institutional investors in particular shift to government mmfs considered low risk, leading to the industry's growth from 2.2 trillion to 6.2 trillion over two decades. In contrast, prime and tax exempt mmfs have declined by 30% since the 2008 financial crisis due to crisis and regulations regulatory changes. The analysis uses data from various sources, including from form NMFP, and covers factors like past crises, regulatory reforms, federal Reserve policies, and alternatives from mmfs. Key findings show the federal funds rate as a primary driver of long term growth during the 2023 banking crisis. About 40% of withdrawn deposits were redeposited into banks via mms purchasing FHLB securities and able more FHLB lending to banks.
[00:09:22] The New York Times features a lovely story about a stroll that led to the FTS Gillian Tatt to change her mind about dating and eventually marry the man. She went on to walk with Buck Hill Capital founder and managing partner Henrik Jones. The story, titled the Sunday Stroll, that changed her mind about dating as the subtitle. Gillian Tett was resolutely single until she met Henrik Jones three years ago. While on an introductory walk, she realized he was amazing and decided to extend the walk.
[00:10:02] Nouriel Robini is now a senior advisor at Hudson Bay Capital Management LP. He shared on LinkedIn, though he has been in the role for a while. He said Friday, I told a humorous story that some on the JLN team thought was oversharing, as it included a purported line from my wife yelling at me. Only part of the story was true, that I work from home, my wife is at the other end of the house, and that she seems to hear all my conversations. The part about the yelling or quote in all caps was a story. I wonder if Rodney Dangerfield has these problems. As a comedian, I get no respect.
[00:10:45] Speaking of humorous wife stories, at Henry Shaqens funeral that I attended on Friday, one of his daughters opened up her remembrance by telling one of Henrys favorite stories, which was from an episode of an old tv show, car 54. Where are you? The two policemen, Francis Muldoon and Gunther Tuti, want to go fishing, but Tutti must ask his wife first. He tells Muldoon he has, even though he hasn't. When Muldoon shows up to pick up Tutti to go fishing and his wife asks him why he is here. Knowing nothing about the fishing trip, she says, if 26 years of marriage mean nothing to you, then you can go. Tuti yells to Muldoon, who is out by his car. She says, I can go.
[00:11:37] Henry's favorite joke was the one about the guys in prison who assigned numbers to well known jokes, and a new prisoner shouts out a number and no one laughs. His cellmate tells him it's all in the delivery. Henry Saul Shatkin, and that is the shortened version of the name Henry gave himself, started his career in the futures industry at Almond grain for $25 a week. He left to go to the CME for $50 a week, but found it, quote, too shady, unquote. According to Rob Schatkin, CME chairman emeritus Leo Molamet, who was at the Friday service with his wife Betty, worked to make the CME less shady while Henry headed back to the CBOT and set up a self clearing firm, Schacht trading. Accumulating friendships, not things, Rob Shetkin said. He also said Henry was not a religious man per se, but God smiled on Henry and Henry smiled on all of us.
[00:12:45] Our most read stories from our previous edition of JLN options were Jim toes from Marcus Wiki and Patricia Schuller from markets Wiki and Ice in a small deal to boost options business from Reuters. 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 the independent Trump faces outrage after telling christian audience they won't have to vote again former president Donald Trump is facing outrage after appearing to suggest that he would end elections in the US if he's re elected while speaking. Speaking to a christian audience towards the end of his speech at the Believers summit in West Palm Beach, Florida on Friday, Trump said, christians get out and vote. Just this time you wont have to do it anymore. You got to get out and vote. In four years, you dont have to vote again. Well have it fixed so youre good and not going to have to vote. My comment I would love former President Trump to explain this in a debate unfortunately, it does not seem like we are going to get that chance unless the polls start to show him well behind.
[00:14:05] Here's a press release from Stack Security Traders association of Chicago unveils 2024 Stack Fund College Fund scholarship recipients 21 local Chicago students receive awards to further their academic careers in finance. The Security Traders association of Chicago, or Stack, a membership organization for individual professionals in the securities industry in Chicago and an affiliate of the Security Traders association, or STA, today announced it awarded 21 college scholarships for the 2024 2025 academic year from its Stack fund, created to give back to deserving individuals and organizations in the Chicagoland community while encouraging financial awareness. The Stack Fund is a 501 organization that provides college scholarships to deserving Chicagoland students and makes grants to charitable and educational institutions. The Stack fund has made over 500,000 in charitable donations and scholarship awards over the past decade thanks to the generosity of stack members, sponsors and friends. 2024 stack fund scholarship winners include Andreas Akron, Aaron Appiah, Kubi, Anthony Baffy, Olivia Bansley, Patrick Connolly, Angel Escobedo, Shea Fitzgerald, Stella Fortino, Alicia Giacchetto, Hadi Comzi, John Massino, Henry Meinertshagen, Natalie Madura, Ayet Muzia, Liam Nolan, Leahy O'Connor, Molly, Raymond Nieuk, Kua Vegion Willis, Emma Whitmer, Vicky Wohratniak and Eliezer Zagorinhe. Nice work by Zach to support the Chicago community and grow financial awareness. Here are the top three stories from Friday's JLN our top red story was Bloomberg's Wall street blockchain pioneers are torn over cryptos gray zone. Second was the New York Times I've tried hundreds of wines this year. These are the bottles I buy again and again. Third was you inherited an IRA. Here's how to avoid a huge tax bill from Barron's. Here are the top three stories from the leads section of todays JLN. The first story is from the Financial Times. The headline Euronext to strike with further acquisitions. Head of Europes biggest stock exchange operator says group would consider combination with any large regional rival. Europes biggest stock exchange operator, Euronext, is on the lookout for more acquisitions as it seeks to entrench its position in the region's capital markets. Stefan Buzhner, chief executive, said combining Euronext with any large exchange in Europe could create a lot of synergies.
[00:17:29] We are monitoring all sorts of situations and we are ready to strike or jump on any situation that becomes actionable, quote, he told the Financial Times. Here's another story from the Financial Times, an opinion piece the headline software crash exposes tensions between security and competition. Regulators like to rein in tech giants, but a European Commission requirement on Microsoft was partly responsible for the outage. Who is to blame for the CrowdStrike software outage that took down millions of computers across the every industry sector over all the world last week? As is often the case with cybersecurity incidents, there's plenty of blame to go around. CrowdStrike failed to properly vet the channel file. It pushed out to customers crashing their Windows computers, and it also appeared to roll out that file to everyone all at once, rather than starting with a small number of customers to identify any problems before releasing the update widely.
[00:18:37] Here's another story, also from the Financial Times. The headline Larry Fink's stately search for successors the head of the giant asset manager has been grooming a top team for more than a decade. Some worry he is taking too long. Blackrock's Larry Fink wants everyone to know that he still loves his job. Though the chief executive and chair of the world's largest investment manager once talked of retiring in the early two thousand twenty s, the seventy one year old now shows no sign of wanting to let go of the firm he helped found 36 years ago. Over the past seven months, he has been in 14 countries and spearheaded two deals worth close to $16 billion combined that further push Blackrock into private markets, an area that the firm has highlighted for strategic growth. We're grateful for your attentive listening to the John Lodia news daily update. Please spread the word about our podcast among your friends. We would greatly appreciate it if you could spare a moment to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform upon which you access this podcast. Your reviews play a crucial role in introducing our content to new listeners. Also, if you havent subscribed to the Daily John Lothian newsletter, email yet you can enjoy a complimentary 90 day trial by visiting johnlothianews.com trial. Have a great day and stay safe. Treat people the same way you want to be treated, with respect, equality and justice. This has been. John Lothian Goodbye. This podcast has been produced by Andrew Lothian.
