Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Welcome to the John Lothian News daily Update podcast for January 30, 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 Bloomberg reported that Ray Bradbury has become the president of ADM Investor Services this month during the shakeup of ADM management after the firm disclosed it had suspended its CFO.
[00:00:37] John P. Stott, the previous president of AdMis, was promoted to group vice president, CFO AG Services and oil seeds at ADM. Flutter Entertainment plc, which owns 15 global gaming brands, including Fanduel, sports, Bet and Patty Power Limited, among others, inaugurated its us listing and rang the opening bell on NYSE yesterday, punctuated by the flag waving four time Super bowl champion Rob Gronkowski, trailed by NYSE president Lynn Martin Flutter CEO Peter Jackson, a racist marching band and a chorus of company employees. Chief Communications Officer Ice and head of corporate affairs NYSE Josh King reported on LinkedIn.
[00:01:34] Abex Technologies, Inc. Today announced the successful closure of Abax Singapore's equity private placement, raising $27,323,013 in us dollars in gross proceeds. The offering included preferred shares for strategic partners like CbOE, TLW and Traxxas, along with ordinary shares and warrants. This funding will support the launch and growth of Abex Exchange and clearinghouse, facilitating smarter markets for energy transition related commodities in Singapore. Nancy Se, CEO of Abex Exchange, expressed her gratitude for the support of these strategic partners. The World Federation of Exchanges WFE announced its key priorities for 2024, aiming to enhance corporate governance across the financial ecosystem. The WFE will also focus on ensuring the stability of central clearing, addressing issues related to procyclicality, recovering and resolution, and transparency in capital rules. Additionally, the WFE plans to take a leading role in promoting ESG standards and reporting frameworks similar to the creation of the WFE green equities principles. Furthermore, the organization aims to expand its educational initiatives, including the market infrastructure certificate, and explore emerging technologies such as crypto, market design and AI's role in regulated exchange markets.
[00:03:23] CME Group reported it achieved all time high average daily volume and open interest records in 2023 for its mexican peso and brazilian real FX futures contracts, with increased client participation contributing to deeper liquidity and enhancing the CME's role as a primary source of price discovery in the broader FX market.
[00:03:50] Jason Morris, a trading technology industry veteran and former president of infusion, has been appointed the president of Liquidity Book, a provider of cloud native buy and sell side trading solutions. Today CbOE is holding a 60 minutes webinar titled New Report Buffer Protect indices and risk reduction, looking into a white paper on Sibo buffer protect indices for smoother returns. It features Olag Bandarenko, director of International center for Futures and Derivatives at the University of Chicago Dmitry Muriev, professor of finance at Michigan State University Bill O'Keefe, director of derivative sales at Sibo Global Markets and Matt Moran, head of index insights at Sibo Global Markets. Register with a link in today's newsletter an article co authored by CME Group's Adila McHitch and Premier Research's Hillary till on the topic of oil indexation and natural gas pricing was referenced by S and P Global insights. The updated version of their article was also published in September 2023 by Bay's Business School CID Commodity Insights Digest. You can access the article with a link in today's newsletter Euronext 2024 IPO Ready program for executives preparing for initial public offerings, IPos has launched. It provides valuable insights and networking opportunities with 160 plus companies from 15 european countries participating since 2015. More than 900 companies have joined this Preipo training program. Jim Esposito, the co head of Goldman Sachs global banking and markets unit, who announced he was leaving the bank after 29 years last week, has published a reflection of 2023 and his career on LinkedIn. The veteran CBOT trader Tommy Grassafi has been filling in for Scott Chaladay in the studios of RfD TV in Nashville, Tennessee to shoot the cow guy close the six state coalition Great Lakes Renew was named one of ten inaugural regional innovation engines by the National Science Foundation NSF, a project of current Chicago water innovation hub. Great Lakes Renew could now bring up to $160,000,000 to the Great Lakes region to accelerate technologies to extract valuable minerals and toxic forever chemicals from the region's wastewater. Read the announcement and watch a short video with the link in today's newsletter. Our most read stories from our previous edition of JLN options were adapting to climate change and central clearing risks, environmental footprint and enabling transition from Urex hedge funds lap up China stocks at fastest pace in five years, Goldman from Reuters and a popular option trade returns in 2024 as hedge funds short volatility from the tokenist. 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 an interview I did IMX CEO Jim Plant discusses the path forward after CFTC approval. This is a story and a video. Jim Plant, the CEO of IMX in a recent interview with John Lothia News, discussed the next steps for the healthcare focused futures exchange after receiving approval from the CFTC. IMX target launch is in the second quarter of 2024, and Plant said the next challenge is the ongoing process of onboarding Futures Commission merchants to the exchange. IMX is also working on finalizing its initial product offerings, which will undergo regulatory approval. Watch this video on johnlothiannews.com. We have an episode of Futures Discovery Futures discovery fundamentals of margin calls in episode five of futures discovery, we're peeling back the layers of the ever important world of margin calls, a topic that can shape the flow of your futures trading journey. In this episode, we're not just scraping the surface, we're delving deep into the fundamentals of margin calls. It's not just about the numbers on a screen. It's about deadlines, volatility and potential lifelines. Watch this video on johnlothiannews.com. Here's a story from CNN the headline ticket prices for this year's Super bowl might even make a billionaire like Taylor Swift blush. Ticket prices for this year's Super bowl matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49 ers might even make billionaire Taylor Swift blush. As of Monday, the February 11 game is the most expensive Super bowl on record, according to Tickpick, the average price hovering around $9,800, which is 70% more expensive than last year's big game. My comment the big questions are, will Taylor Swift make it to the game from a gig in Japan? And how is she going to swing the election to Joe Biden? Evidently, that is the latest right wing conspiracy theory. Here's another story, this one from Reuters. The headline encyclopedia Britannica publisher files us IPO Britannica Group, the company behind the 250 year old Encyclopedia Britannica and the Miriam Webster dictionary, said on Monday that it had confidentially filed for an initial public offering IPO in the United States. The number of shares to be sold in the IPO and the price range have not been determined, Britannica said. My comment Doug Ashburn's employer is going public. Does he get another bite at the apple? Here's another story, this one from Bloomberg. The headline Reddit flirts with Wall street and potential disaster. Public markets are where good social networks go bad. Can the last big holdout survive an IPo? The earliest mention I can find of Reddit Inc's ambitions for an initial public offering comes from a variety report in 2017. The online community's cofounder and chief executive officer Steve Huffman told a conference audience that taking the site public was the only responsible choice, but that the timeframe was pretty far out. More than six years later, with an IPo finally looking imminent, he was certainly right on that second point. That first one, however, is still in doubt. There's a reason the social network has taken so long to go public. There's a good chance it might all fall apart. My comment, things fall apart, was one of my favorite books when I was in school.
[00:11:40] Here are the top three stories from Monday's JLN our most read item on Monday was adapting to climate change and central clearing risks, environmental footprint and enabling transition from Eurex. Second was chinese regulators curb short selling as market downturn deepens from the financial times. Third was banker bonuses are down again, but it stings this time. From the Wall Street Journal here are the top five stories from the lead section of today's JLN. The first is from John authors of Bloomberg the headline Doctor Strangelove or how I learn to love markets. There's an awful lot of talk about World War II at the moment. A look at markets could help deescalate it. World War II is drawing near. Is Dr. Strangelove really back with us? The attack in Jordan that left three U. S. Soldiers dead, apparently perpetuated by Iran backed forces, has ratcheted global fears to a new level. Retired admiral James Staverdist's column for Bloomberg opinion makes clear that a us response of some kind is now unavoidable. Former president Donald Trump has proclaimed on social media that, quote, we are on the brink of World War II.
[00:13:04] Here's the next story, this one from Bloomberg. The headline ADM shuffles leadership of its crop and biofuel trading unit Archer Daniels Midland company is making leadership changes at its legacy crop trading business. Ray Bradbury, who has worked at the company for about two decades, became the president of ADM investor Services this month, according to a company website and people familiar with the moves. He previously was president of ADM's renewable fuels solutions unit and responsible for global commodity risk management.
[00:13:42] Here's another story, this one from bidden Thinga the headline mother of all data breaches, 26 billion records leaked users on LinkedIn X, Venmo and more panic over increased cybercrime risk.
[00:13:58] If you use a computer, your data likely got leaked in what researchers have called the mother of all data breaches, 20 brands have had over 100 billion leaked records, with the largest being Tencents, 1.5 billion brands more familiar to western consumers such as LinkedIn X, Venmo, Canva, Apollo and Adobe have also been hit. Cybernews head of security research Montez Saznakas summed up the scale of the shocking breach, saying probably the majority of the population have been affected. Here's another story, this one from Bloomberg. The headline ion markets delays $1.8 billion leverage loan sale to Friday commitments on the leverage loan deal originally due Tuesday transaction with lower rate on existing debt pay dividends. Ion Markets, a unit of Andrea Pignetaro's ion group, has extended the deadline for a new $1.825 billion leverage loan sale by three days, giving investors more time to decide whether to participate in the deal, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The delay comes at a time when borrowers have generally seen strong demand for new loan sales. It brings the official deadline for investors to submit their orders to Friday at 10:00 a.m. New York time, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing a private transaction. Here's another story, this one from Reuters. The headline Ice global and commodities derivatives open interest hits record high intercontinental Exchange said on Monday that its global futures and options markets, along with its derivatives in the commodities and energy segments, logged all time high open interest last week. ICE, which operates various stock and futures exchanges, said its global futures and options markets reached a record open interest of 87.2 million contracts on January 25. Its commodity futures and options market hit record open interest of 61.5 million contracts. We're grateful for your attentive listening to the John Lovia news daily update. Please consider spreading the word about our podcast among your friends. Moreover, if you haven't done so already, we would greatly appreciate 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 haven't subscribed to the Daily John Lothian newsletter, email yet you can enjoy a complimentary 90 day trial by visiting johnlothiannews.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.
