Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Welcome to the John Lothian News daily Update podcast for February 27, 2024. I am your host, John Lothian. This podcast is brought to you by John Lothian News home of markets wiki and markets wiki Education. Thank you for joining us. Here are the hits and takes comments from today's ln I'm headed to downtown Chicago today with Robbie Lothian, who is in town to help me with a video shoot. I'm going to wear a short sleeve shirt and bring no jacket on this winter day in late February. That may break the record for the warmest day ever for February 27, according to Bloomberg. The all time February high for the Chicago area is 75 degrees fahrenheit, according to the National Weather Service. Bloomberg said this kind of weather makes you wonder whether you need to go to Florida in March, but in a few days we're expecting colder weather and perhaps some snow. The great thing about Chicago is that if you don't like the weather, just wait ten minutes. It will change.
[00:01:10] This is about the langer lawsuit in accordance with the court's order dated January 30, 2024, the exchange members, Plaintiffs and Defendants CME Group, Inc. And the Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc. Have agreed upon a briefing schedule related to the defendant's motions for summary judgment, class D certification, and exclusion of plaintiff's expert testimony. The timeline is as follows. Plaintiff's opposition due by the twelveth of April, 2024 defendants replies by the 14 May 2024, followed by a status conference on May 29, 2024 at 09:30 a.m. Via Zoom the CME Group is looking for an education content senior specialist in Chicago. The position requires having a background in writing various formats of educational content and being excited to explore how AI can accelerate content development and production. Ensuring the authenticity and integrity of luxury goods has become a vital consideration for both brands and buyers in the retail market, and our good friends at Nova Fori explore the role of auction technology in shaping consumer perceptions and driving industry trends in a blog post titled the role of auction technology in promoting Trust and Transparency at the Derivatives Forum Frankfurt 2024, at the Congress Center, Frankfurt, from February 20 829, veteran journalist Jeremy Grant will moderate a discussion about how index evolution propels further growth of derivatives in the index leader panel featuring Axel Lamholt from stock, Arn Stahl from Futsie Russell and Elseg business and Maya Behan from S. P Dow Jones indices.
[00:03:18] Nicholas Jegau, the CEO of Euronext FX, announced on LinkedIn the new leadership of Euronext FX sales team. He said Wyman Xing is the CEO of Euronex Markets Singapore Pte Limited, Euronext, Singapore based trading platform for spot and ndfs. Also, Stuart Paris is the new head of sales, with global sales coverage in New York, London and Singapore.
[00:03:50] In January, the worldwide volume of exchange traded derivatives surged to a record high of 16.79 billion contracts, marking a 10.7% increase from December 2023 and a 97.2% rise from January 2023, according to the latest data from FIA. Options also gained, with global trading reaching 14.49 billion contracts, a 128% surge compared to the previous year, predominantly driven by activity in the Asia Pacific region. Futures trading also saw growth, totaling 2.3 billion contracts in January, up 6.1% year over year. Total open interest at the end of January amounted to 1.2 billion contracts, reflecting a 13.2% increase from the previous year. The FIA makes data on futures and options trading available in two formats, a spreadsheet and a set of interactive visualizations called Fiat Tracker Access the FIA data tracker with a link in today's newsletter our most read stories from our previous edition of JLN options were how the rise of pod shops is reshaping the way markets trade from Bloomberg Options Industry conference agenda from OIC and Nvidia bets dominate us options market as AI fervor grows 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. We have a sponsored content contribution from our friends at Footsie. Russell Russell 2000 Index Quarterly chart Book, February 2024 the Russell 2000 Index provides live index tracking data with historical performance dating back to January 1984. Academic and practitioner research confirms that large cap stocks behave differently to small cap stocks and performance is variable. There are subperiods during which the Russell 1000 outperforms the Russell 2000 and vice versa. Quarterly performance assessments provide valuable data points for understanding market sentiment and us economic activity. View the report with the link in today's newsletter. Here's a press release from Vermiculus Financial technology Vermiculus delivers Veraclear clearing system to Nwam exchange, Nwam exchange and Vermiculus financial technology establish partnership to create technological core for central counterparty clearinghouses in Chile, Colombia and Peru. Construction of an integrated cloud native clearing system for the three clearinghouses have begun. While progress is being made in parallel to create the clearinghouse in Peru.
[00:07:09] NAM exchange, the entity resulting from the integration of the Lima, Santiago and Columbia stock exchanges, announced a partnership with Vermiculous Financial technology, a technological solutions vendor for the financial industry to implement a modern, flexible technological core for the central counterparty clearinghouses CCP in Chile, Colombia and Peru. With Vermiculus as a partner in developing the NOM exchange post trade systems, we are marking a new milestone for the unification of our markets. In addition to gaining a cutting edge technological partner, we envision the possibility of enhancing our customers'experience through dynamic technological architecture in line with the needs of the integrated market, said Juan Pablo Cordoba, CEO of the NOM exchange. My comment Vermiculus continues to make progress one deal at a time. Here's another story, this one from fortune. The headline Warren Buffett says the stock market is increasingly casino like and young investors need to remember this one fact of financial life to avoid the mess. Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett shared a moving tribute to his fallen friend and right hand man Charlie Munger, in his annual shareholder letter over the weekend. The Oracle of Omaha lauded Munger as the architect of Berkshire's success, eulogizing the abominable no man by discussing some of his favorite whipping posts, including his comparison of the modern stock market to a casino. For whatever reasons, markets now exhibit far more casino like behavior than they did when I was young, Buffett wrote, adding that though the stock market is massively larger than it was in our early years, today's active participants are neither more emotionally stable nor better taught than I was in school. My comment Warren and Charlie don't like speculators. Here's another story, this one from the Financial Times. The headline FCA to name firms under investigation in uk deterrence drive agency has historically published little about probes until they're resolved, only commenting in exceptional circumstances. The UK Financial Conduct Authority is planning to name firms under investigation more frequently and at a much earlier stage in an effort to increase the deterrence effect such probes can have on the market. The new approach, outlined in a consultation paper set to be published on Tuesday, would mainly apply to firms rather than individuals due to legal constraints around privacy, the FCA said. My comment shame can be a powerful regulatory tool. Here are the top three stories from Monday's JLN our top click story on Monday was agenda for the options industry conference to take place this year from April 30 to May 2 in Asheville, North Carolina. Second was a tie between DRW's CMCO on thought leadership, AI and why mentors matter from DRW and two years of war in Ukraine has changed the way armies think from Bloomberg. Third was a tie between you say bitcoin is digital gold. Maybe it's digital pearls from the Wall Street Journal and women in listed derivatives announcement on LinkedIn that they appointed Maura Durkin as board president and elected three new members to the board of directors. Here are the top five stories from the lead section of today's JLN. Here's the first story, this one from the Financial Times. The headline how UK regulators are missing a chance to make the best of Brexit leaving the EU was supposed to liberate Britain's commerce and approval system and unlock new industries. What is going wrong? The smell of fried pork permeates the kitchens of Hoxton farms in east London, and yet no pig was slaughtered to make the dish sizzling away on the HoB, thanks to advances in biotechnology. The meat on this pork belly is plant based, but the fat is identical to the real thing, only cultured from cells at the company's office. In a trending block for life science startups, Ed Steele, the mathematician who cofounded Hoxton Farms with synthetic biologist Max Jimley in 2020, believes that lab grown fat is the secret to creating tasty meat alternatives because, as the company's website puts it, the fat is where the flavor is at. Here's another story, this one from Bloomberg. The headline bankers will see three quarters of the workday transformed by AI Accenture says banking sector has more to gain than any other. AI offers opportunities for firms to reevaluate ways for working. Artificial intelligence is likely to replace, or at least lend a hand in tasks that take up almost three quarters of the time bank employees now spend working. That's the conclusion of a new analysis by consultancy Accenture, which said banking has the potential to benefit more from the technology than any other industry. Just 27% of employees time currently has a low potential of being transformed, according to the analysis. Here's another story, this one from the Financial Times. The headline investors poured $4 trillion into us etfs over the past decade. Mutual funds saw net outflows of $950,000,000,000 over the same period. Over the past decade, ETF assets have surged substantially more quickly than the money sitting in mutual funds, data shows. In fact, when looking at the ten largest providers of both products, assets and etfs have ballooned three times as quickly over the past decade as the money sitting in mutual funds, according to an ignite's analysis of data from Morningstar Direct. Combined, the ten shop had $12.1 trillion in open end mutual fund assets at the end of 2023, up 114% from a decade earlier, the data shows.
[00:13:59] Here's another story, this one from coin market cap the headline Hong Kong based crypto exchange Bitforex disappears after $56.5 million withdrawal, Hong Kong based cryptocurrency exchange Bitforex has abruptly shut down, leaving users in a state of confusion and fear. The exchange ceased all operations on February 23 with no prior warning or explanation and has gone silent on all official communication channels. This sudden closure has sparked concerns of a potential exit scam, as significant outflows of digital currency were detected from Bitforex's hot wallets before its closure.
[00:14:47] Here's another story, this one from Bloomberg. The headline crypto market cap swells to $2 trillion on back of bitcoin rally ETF inflows microstrategy purchases bolster the token bitcoin is outshining traditional assets. So far in 2024, the combined value of the cryptocurrency market has jumped to around $2 trillion for the first time in almost two years. On the back of the ETF fueled rally in bitcoin, the largest digital asset, which data from coinmarketcap.com shows accounts for about 52% of the entire market, rose as much as 5.1% to $57,443 on Tuesday. Bitcoin has surged around 12% already this week and is trading at the highest level since December 2021. The value of the crypto market reached around $2.7 trillion a month earlier, when token prices were at all time highs. Bitcoin price has increased 32% since the turn of the year, extending a prolonged rally that has also stoked speculative appetite for smaller tokens like ether and Dogecoin. We're grateful for your attentive listening to the John Lothian 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 on which you access this podcast. Your reviews play a crucial role in introducing our contents and the 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, with respect, equality and justice. This has been. John Lothian Goodbye. This podcast has been produced by Andrew Lothian.
