Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Welcome to the John Lothian News Daily Update podcast for December 19, 2024, where we share with you the highlights of today's John Lothian Newsletter. We are irreverent but never irrelevant. I am your host John Lothian. In today's episode, we'll explore the highlights from the Hits and Takes section, the first Reads section, and the top three headlines of today's JLN and more. Don't forget to subscribe to the John Lothian Newsletter and Follow us on johnlothiannews.com, marketswiki.com, linkedIn, Facebook, Instagram X and threads. Let's dive in. Here are the hits and takes chemists from Today's JLN the CFTC's Office of Customer Education and Outreach has issued a new advisory encouraging Americans to prioritize scam awareness as a New year's resolution for 2025. Titled Avoiding Fraud may be your best resolution, the advisory highlights the rising threat of online investment scams that exploit trust through fake profiles, testimonials and trading platforms stealing billions annually. It emphasizes three key resolutions to protect against fraud. First, individuals should be cautious about trusting online contacts and limit exposure to suspicious activities on social media. Second, investing time in learning about trading risks and relying on trusted sources is essential before committing any funds. Third, verifying the registration of financial professionals and promptly reporting suspicious activity are crucial steps to safeguard finances. The advisory underscores vigilance and education as vital tools for preventing financial loss, with resources for fraud reporting and educational materials available at www.CFTC.gov.
[00:02:10] north Korean affiliated hackers stole a record 1.34 billion billion in cryptocurrency in 2024, accounting for 2 thirds of global crypto thefts, according to Chain Analysis, the Financial Times reported. These funds, stolen across 47 incidents, reportedly help fund Pyongyang's missile and nuclear programs. One major heist involved the theft of 4,500 bitcoin, worth $305 million from Japan's DMM Bitcoin exchange. Despite a 21% rise in global crypto thefts to $2.2 billion, North Korean activity slowed after a strategic partnership with Russia in June as increased support from Russia potentially reduced its reliance on cybercrime.
[00:03:12] The UK Financial Conduct Authority has announced plans to overhaul EU inherited disclosure rules for investment products, aiming to simplify and make them more flexible, the Financial Times reported. The current overly prescriptive regime will be replaced with a framework focused on providing clear, accurate and comparable information. This change, welcomed by industry groups see, seeks to address investor confusion and improve decision making. The new rules will cover consumer composite investments impacting 12.6 million UK investors and represent the UK's biggest regulatory divergence from the EU since Brexit. Feedback is invited until March 2025, with final rules expected later in the year. The Financial Times has joined Time magazine in heaping praise on Donald Trump for his political comeback by naming him the FT Person of the Year. Evidently, Cantor Fitzgerald, CEO and Trump's Commerce secretary nominee Howard Lutnick is not going for the Washington, D.C. bachelor pad. While he stays in the nation's capital, Lutnick is set to buy Fox News anchor Brett Bernard bears Frenchateau style home in Washington, D.C. s Foxhall area, according to the Wall street journal. Listed at 28.995 million, the roughly 16,250 foot square foot property could set a D.C. sales record surpassing the 24 million Georgetown sale in 2007. Built in 2022 at a cost of $25 million, the home features luxury amenities such as a marble fountain, wine room, indoor sports court and putting green. The World Federation of Exchanges, in a letter, has warned the European Commission about the potential discriminatory impact of the EU's Digital Operational Resilience act, or DORA. While EU regulated services are exempt from being classified as Information and Communication Technology or ict services under DORA, third country regulated financial services are not. The WFE's letter, backed by its chief Risk and Information Services officers, calls for consistent application of the ICT service definition to avoid disruption for EU market participants and increased business costs. CEO Nandini Sukumar urged swift action to prevent harm to EU competitiveness and international cooperation, highlighting the need for regulatory clarity. Here are the headlines from in front of fow's Paywall from some recent stories Analysis LCH SA plans push into US Credit derivatives clearing trade body Latest to cite tech vendor discrepancy in Dora, DTCC focused on treasury clearing deadlines despite talk of delay.
[00:06:52] CME hits daily total return futures record in year end Flurry broadridge to upgrade ClearFi platform for my car compliance and European DORA registration of third parties within reach.
[00:07:12] I made it back home from New York last night about 9:30pm Safe as sound. We have another entry in the Frontrunner movie script which you can find below or on the auditions page. If you've not read the script yet, you can start at the beginning by clicking on a link in today's newsletter. Today's entry is found with a link right here in today's newsletter. And Beware floor traders use some language that could be described as blue. Our most Read stories from our previous edition of JLN Options were Bitcoin sets another all time high and climb towards $110,000. From Bloomberg lsag announces the launch of historical analytics available through Snowflake from Alseg and Bitcoin rally leaves the world's original crypto ETFs behind. From Bloomberg subscribe to the free JLN Options newsletter with a link in today's jln.
[00:08:20] Here are more stories from the first Read section of today's jln.
[00:08:25] Here's a video from our FIA Expo Broadridge advances futures execution platform with AI and partnerships In a recent interview at FIA Expo in Chicago, Dan Smalley, global head of business Development derivatives at Broadridge, outlined the company's strategy for innovation in the futures execution space. You can watch this video on johnlothiannews.com and then here's another story. This one is from Bloomberg. The headline Companies that spend billions on MA are now selling for Peanuts Companies that spent billions on poorly timed acquisitions in recent years are now offloading those assets at knock down prices. Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. Announced Tuesday it is going to sell Chinese department store chain in Time to a local Apparel Group for $1 billion. The price is around 30% of the company's valuation when Alibaba bought it during the heyday of 2017. The Internet giant, which has largely abandoned its acquisitive ways amid government pressure, said it will book a $1.3 billion loss on the transaction someday. The price of peanuts is going to go up and make this thing obsolete. Here's another story from Bloomberg. The headline MA drought leaves bankers at mercy of Private Equity Firms A multi year drought in MA has left Wall street banks at the mercy of private equity firms who are now calling the shots in the few deals that come to market. PE firms, also known as sponsors, rely on debt to fund their acquisitions, and lenders make some of the biggest profits from underwriting the deals. Demand for these transactions, called leverage buyouts, has been growing lately as risk appetite rises with falling interest rates. But there's also been a dearth of good opportunities for banks to get involved in.
[00:10:39] Maybe it would take an M and a drought to make the price of peanuts go up. Here's another story from Bloomberg News.
[00:10:48] Is Europe already at war with Putin's Russia? Call it shadow or hybrid, everything points to war. And the reluctance to call it that comes from decades of complacency on security.
[00:11:04] Mark Rut, the new head of NATO, spelled out what many Europeans have been in denial about. It's time to shift to a wartime mindset. Call it shadow or hybrid or even terrorism. Everything points to war in all but name with Vladimir Putin's Russia and the reluctance to call it that comes from decades of complacency on security as governments preferred energy deals and trade. A chorus of Cassandras along the military alliance's eastern frontier have been sounding the alarm for years. But military and intelligence agencies now see an escalating Kremlin campaign of attacks aimed at destabilizing Europe. They include alleged sabotage on aircraft and critical infrastructure in Germany, a plan to assassinate a defense company chief executive, and an alleged covert election interference in Romania and Moldavia. My comment Europe and the US have been at war with Putin's Russia for years. It has been fought in cyberspace and is now spilling over into the real world. Here's another story. This is an opinion piece from Bloomberg. The headline AI robots are coming and they'll be made in Asia as the region's tech companies are uniquely positioned to take the technology far beyond chatbots. Over the past year, I've noticed an overwhelming theme emerge when Asian tech leaders look at what comes next for artificial intelligence. There's been a marked desire to move beyond chatbots and software and into the future physical realm. We'll start to see much more AI enabled hardware and robotics, and it will be coming from Asia. The experience I've had in tuning into many executive chats and tech conferences could best be summed up by Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang's proclamation in Taipei in June, the next wave of AI is physical AI. He he said the era of robotics has arrived.
[00:13:28] You can tell the AI robots from Asia by their tattoos.
[00:13:35] Here's another story. This is from the Wall Street Journal. The headline what the Science actually says about Fluoride in drinking water. Do you need to be concerned about your tap water? Few of us have spent a lot of time thinking about fluoride until recently. Now it has become a lightning rod of controversy. Public health officials are sparring over conflicting studies weighing the benefits and risks of fluoride, especially for young children. Most everyone agrees it is important for our dental health. The question is, how much fluoride do we need to protect our teeth without risking possible cognitive harm? Recent analysis suggests some evidence that high levels of fluoride might harm the brains of children and developing fetuses. Other studies have found no such evidence, and there is no indication that fluoride hurts adult cognition.
[00:14:34] I have exhausted my list of things to be concerned about and am starting all over again. Here's one More story this one's from Nuclear bunker sales are booming despite expert warnings that they aren't going to provide protection.
[00:14:55] Private bunker sales are on the rise globally, from small metal boxes to crawl inside of to extravagant underground mansions. But critics say there are better ways to prepare for nuclear threat.
[00:15:10] There's a nuclear bunker in the next neighborhood that is part of a public park and is now a sled hill. At least some good came from its creation. Here are the top three stories from Wednesday's JLN. Our most read story Wednesday Nigeria arrests nearly 800 in crypto romance scan that targeted Americans Europeans. From John Lothian News. Second was it pays to have long hair and a beard in Utah. Jesus models are in demand. From the Wall Street Journal. Long hair stories seem popular. Third was in loving Lance Goldberg from Shalom Memorial. Here are the top three stories from the lead section of today's jln. The first story is a Bloomberg editorial, Trump should reform financial watchdogs. Here's how simplifying oversight of markets and banking would make the system safer. It won't be easy. News that President Elect Donald Trump's team wants to hack away at the forbidding tangle of US bank regulation is welcome in the abstract. In practice, though, much will depend on the details. The goal should be simplifying financial oversight more broadly, not just defanging a tough watchdog. No doubt the current system is unwieldy at the federal level, excluding an array of separate state regulators. Three entities oversee banks, two supervised markets. One aims to protect consumers and another defends against financial crimes. Many large institutions must submit to all of them. Senior managers of an average bank today spend some 42% of their time on compliance related tasks. Worse, such fragmentation at times allows risks to fall through the cracks. Here's another story, this one from Bloomberg. The headline what to know about bird flu and pandemic fears. For influenza viruses, imperfection is a strength. They constantly mutate, producing new strains that challenge immune systems primed to fight earlier varieties. That's what makes flu a lifelong threat to humans and the animal species, mainly birds that are vulnerable to it. Since 2020, a strain of highly pathogenic avian influenza called H5N1 has been decimating both wild and domestic birds. Now it's spreading among US Dairy cows and has infected dozens of people, mainly US Farm workers exposed to sick cattle and poultry. In December, a patient was hospitalized in Louisiana with bird flu, the first severe human case in the country. California, the biggest US Milk producer declared a state of emergency to help expedite a response as the outbreak sweeps through its dairy herds.
[00:18:25] And then one more story, this one also from Bloomberg. The headline New York City's Top Offices Spark a Wall Street Frenzy as others sit empty in the midst of an office market slump. Some Manhattan buildings are so competitive to get into that tenants are battling for space. There's rarely been a better time to own a top quality office building in Manhattan. The richest financial companies are battling for space, bidding each other out and driving rents into the stratosphere at the best of the best towers. For properties at the other end of the spectrum, the picture is much bleaker and the difference has never been so stark. Many of the most in demand buildings are on Park Avenue in Midtown, where Ken Griffin's Citadel has staked its claim to thousands of square feet of offices and JP Morgan Chase and company is finishing up its new headquarters skyscraper.
[00:19:29] This podcast is brought to you by John Lothian News, the home of Market Zwicky and Marcus Wiki Education. Thank you for joining us. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a review on your preferred listening platform. Have a great day and stay safe and 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 John Lothian.
