DB1 takes total control of CLTX…and more as closure of NYMEX floor is (finally) announced.
…while last minute additions to the ICDA Blockchain conference include LME CEO Garry Jones & a brief keynote from ione Patrick L Young…To qualify for a GBP 320 discount ticket (normal price GBP 695) use the code “YOUNG320” to claim your discount here.
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Public Markets
EEX Acquires 100% Of Cleartrade Exchange
MondoVisione
DB1’s European Energy Exchange (EEX) will acquire the remaining shares in the Singapore-based Cleartrade Exchange (CLTX) from Freight Investor Holdings. The transaction will take effect as of 15th April 2016.
Freight Investor Holdings (FIH), the founder & shareholder of CLTX since 2010, will fully assign its CLTX shares to EEX. FIH, the London based brokerage business owned & operated by John Banaszkiweicz, will continue its cooperation with EEX Group as a customer.
CLTX will retain its headquarters in Singapore.
EEX has held the majority of the shares (52%) in CLTX since January 2014.
ASX Earnings Update For The Nine Months To 31 March 2016
ASX
The following unaudited results are relative to the prior corresponding period (pcp – nine months to 31 March 2015): statutory profit after tax $317.4 million, up 6.2%, underlying profit after tax, up 5.9%.
CME To Close Its NY Trading Floor At Year’s End
Myra P. Saefong – MarketWatch
CME announced Wednesday that it plans to shut its New York trading floor at the end of the year because open outcry options volume on the floor represent only 0.3% of the company’s overall energy and metals trading volumes. The options products will be listed and available for trading on CME Globex. Last summer, CME ended virtually all open outcry futures trading in both New York & Chicago. CME’s Chicago trading floor will remain open for trading of options on futures contracts and S&P 500 futures contracts.
ESMA Announces EU-Wide Stress Tests For CCPs
MondoVisione
ESMA has announced the publication of its first EU-wide stress test exercise regarding CCPs on 29 April 2016. ESMA is mandated to conduct stress tests of CCPs under EMIR. The stress test assesses the resilience and safety of the European CCP sector and aims to identify possible vulnerabilities.
Mercuria Cuts Out The Futures Middleman (subscription)
Gregory Meyer – Financial Times
Mercuria has become a member of the European clearing house run by ICE and plans to join the clearing house of CME, executives said. In doing so, it will no longer use outside clearing brokers.
FAO: In 2014 Mercuria Energy Group has completed the acquisition of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co Physical Commodities Business.
Private Markets
Vietnam Plans Merger Of Stock Exchanges To Boost Market
Thanh Nien News
Vietnam’s stock regulators are planning to merge its two bourses in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in an effort to increase local market’s transparency and attract more foreign investors.
QV Premium: Vietnam Exchanges Merger Brief.
HC Backs Forced Exit Of Calcutta SE
N Sundaresha Subramanian – Business Standard
The high court in Kolkata has ruled in favour of market regulator Sebi in the matter of de-recognition and exit of the Calcutta SE (CSE).
The decision, unless challenged, could mark the beginning of the end of the 186-year bourse, once the country’s second largest, with about 2,200 companies listed.
FAO: In October 2015 Calcutta SE moved the high court against Sebi’s directive to close to down its operations. QV Premium: Indian Exchanges Shutdown – Brief.
Daniel Ren – SCMP
The “new third board”, the mainland’s biggest OTC equity market, has become a magnet for cash-hungry small companies now the securities regulator has shelved plans to create a new board for emerging industries and also delayed the implementation of a registration-based system for new share offerings.
DGCX Ties Up With Chinese Banks
Reuters
DGCX has agreed with Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) and Agricultural Bank of China to cooperate on product development.
Kraken To Receive Investment From Japan’s Money Partners Group
Carlo Thomas – CoinReport
Special Section: FTI, NSEL, India at the Crossroads
Markets closed: Dr.Baba Saheb Ambedkar Jayanti.
FTIL Board Removal Case: CLB Sets May 6 As Next Hearing Date
K R Srivats – The Hindu Business Line
The Company Law Board (CLB) has set May 6 as the next hearing date in the FTIL board removal case. This emerged at a CLB hearing on Tuesday in the capital.
The Madras High Court had recently agreed to CLB continue hearing the case beyond the earlier set deadline of March 11.
QV Premium: NSEL Scandal Brief – Part 16 and NSEL-FTIL Merger Brief.
Technology
Inside the Nondescript Building Where Trillions Trade Each Day
Matthew Leising & Annie Massa – Bloomberg
It’s a critical node in the U.S. financial system: The 49 different exchanges that lease space at this data center sent a record 9.6 million messages per second through its fiber-optic cables in February. Every day, electronic trades representing trillions of dollars’ worth of equities, derivatives, currencies, and fixed-income assets pass under this roof. This is NY4. This is where Wall Street actually transacts.
BME, BSO Ally On Lower Latency (subscription)
Max Bowie – Waters Technology
Visual Trader, the trader workstation business of BME, has extended an existing connectivity deal with BSO Network Solutions to provide low-latency connectivity to existing BSO clients.
PDQ ATS Enhances Risk Surveillance Capabilities With Eventus Platform
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International Cohort Of Blockchain Startups Set To Join Nexuslab Pilot Programme
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Nexuslab, the Swiss blockchain startup programme powered by Startupbootcamp Fintech.
Products
Keep Eye On US Bond Trading, Says Finra’s Rick Ketchum (subscription)
Financial Times
Watchdog has some sympathy with gripes about regulation but predicts watershed for supervision.
Markit Adds MOEX to FX Trading Connectivity Network
BUSINESS WIRE
China’s Big Four Banks, StanChart, ANZ To Join Yuan Gold Benchmark
Ananthalakshmi – Reuters
Top Chinese banks, alongside Standard Chartered and ANZ, will be among 18 members to join a new yuan-denominated gold benchmark that signals China’s biggest step towards becoming a price-setter for the metal.
Thomson Reuters Unveils Randomization Process For FX Spot Matching Service
Steven Hatzakis – Finance Magnates
The new ‘speedbump’ is aimed at helping to level the playing field in forex.
ISDA Publishes Margin-Rule-Compliant Collateral Document
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Indexes
CBOE Introduces First in Series of Indexes Designed to Target Investment Outcomes
CBOE
CBOE has created a series of 13 “Buffer Protect Indexes,” the first in a family of options-based strategy performance benchmarks that are designed to target the outcomes of specific investment strategies.
The CBOE S&P 500 Buffer Protect Indexes measure the performance of a hypothetical portfolio of S&P 500 Index (SPX) FLexible EXchange (FLEX) options designed to provide annual targeted returns. CBOE started disseminating daily values for the new benchmarks on April 1, 2016.
CBOE To Start Overnight Dissemination Of CBOE Volatility Index (VIX) April 15
PRNewswire
Oslo Børs: New Tradable Seafood Index
MondoVisione
The new OBSFX seafood index will enable investors to buy and sell exchange traded products that track the shares of sea food companies.
Career Paths
Tracey McDermott, Acting CEO of the FCA has announced that she is to leave the organisation on 1 July 2016.
On 7 January 2016 Tracey announced that she decided in early December 2015 to withdraw from the process to appoint the permanent CEO of the FCA but would continue as Acting CEO until a permanent replacement was in post.
Andrew Bailey was appointed as the new CEO on the 26 January and is due to take up the position on the 1 July 2016.
Tracey became the Acting CEO in September 2015.
As EEX acquired 100% of CLTX, Dr. Egbert Laege will assume the position of CEO for CLTX, in addition to his function as the Powernext CEO and as a member of the Executive Board of EEX Group. At the same time, Richard Baker, the founding and current CEO of CLTX, will step down (reported yesterday) from his position and will leave the company in May 2016. CLTX will retain its headquarters in Singapore, strengthening its commitment to the region with the promotion of Ray Zhirui Ang to COO.
ASX Steps Up Its CEO Search (subscription)
Lilly Vitorovich – The Australian
ASX said the search for a new boss is “progressing at accelerated pace”, after EFK resigned in March after almost four-and-a-half years at the helm (QV Premium: A Tribute to ASX CEO EFK).
In the interim, Chairman Rick Holliday-Smith is overseeing the business, with day-to-day operations managed by two senior executives, Peter Hiom and Amanda Harkness.
Saro Jahani will be joining ITG today as MD & Head of Global Technology Architecture. Saro has led significant IT initiatives across a number of firms, having previously been CIO of Direct Edge, trueEX and the National Stock Exchange. Saro will also be a member of ITG’s Technology Executive Committee.
FTSE GM reports that three new members have been elected to DTCC BoD, including Lester Owens, MD & global head of wholesale banking operations at JPMorgan; Paul Simpson, MD & global head of equity asset management services at BAML; and Joseph Weinhoffer, treasurer & chief investment officer of ED&F Man Capital Markets. The three new members are all senior executives of clearing agency participants.
WT reports that Perseus has hired Marcus Chan and Philip Ng in Hong Kong as VP of global accounts and sales engineer, respectively, to drive growth and provide on-the-ground support for the vendor’s customers in the Asia-Pacific region.
CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad announced that Dan Rutherford has joined the agency as its first Director of the Office of Customer Education and Outreach. Rutherford joins the CFTC with nearly two decades of personal finance writing and financial education experience.
Financial Calendar
11 – 17.04 – Coinsilium’s Blockchain Tech Lab at Runway East at Finsbury Square, London
12-14.04 – ISDA AGM – agenda
19 – 20.04 – ICDA Blockchain Conference
21.04 – I-Cham Breakfast, in Dublin, Ireland, Guest Speaker Patrick L Young discussing investment in CEE & SEE markets
26.04 – CFTC’s Market Risk Advisory Committee – agenda
New! 09.05 – TMX Q1 2016 Results – press release
All forthcoming exchange / investment related events are now listed in our Events page.
Analyst Notes
Barclays Capital Maintained Nasdaq As ‘Overweight’ – $70 Price Target
Moody’s Investors Service affirmed BM&FBovespa long-term local currency issuer rating of Ba1 and the long-term senior unsecured foreign currency debt rating of Ba1. The outlook on all ratings remains negative.
A full table of current analysis can be found on our Analyst Ratings page which is updated daily.
Crowdfunding
Securities Commission Malaysia Introduces Regulatory Framework To Facilitate P2P Financing
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Other stories
HKEx Publishes Listing Decisions on Reasons for Rejection and Return of New Listing Applications
HKEx
ESMA Issues Opinions On DK Pension Schemes To Be Exempt From Central Clearing Under EMIR
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