PLY: It’s one of those days where the theme is clearly technology, with a strong undercurrent of just how poor the industry is at actually thinking forward. Meanwhile, for anybody planning their autumn off-sites, let me know if you want some thought provoking insights on how the world is developing in exchanges, markets and even, beyond.
Great news ahead of Burgenstock is that CME CEO, the incomparable Phupinder Gill will be joining my Crossfire panel – register now!
Meanwhile, today you can also read my macro economic thoughts in English from the Romanian financial newspaper Bursa here. Thanks to the good folks at the Thomson Reuters Global Markets Forum with whom I enjoyed a lively chat this morning too…
Public Markets
Lightspeed Trading To Acquire Certain Livevol Securities Assets
Finextra
Lightspeed Trading and Livevol Securities have reached an agreement for Lightspeed Trading to acquire certain brokerage assets of Livevol Securities. CBOE yesterday completed the acquisition of Livevol Core, Livevol Pro and Livevol X trading analytics platforms, as well as Livevol Enterprise and other market data solutions products. Livevol Securities, Inc., the company’s broker-dealer unit, was not part of the deal.
Read our Premium Exchange Deals Brief.
U.S. To Charge That Hackers Tapped Early Deal News (subscription)
Christopher M. Matthews, Jean Eaglesham & Danny Yadron – Wall Street Journal
U.S. Identifies Insider Trading Ring Including Ukraine Hackers
Keri Geiger – Bloomberg
U.S. authorities are preparing to unseal sweeping charges as early as Tuesday against a group of traders and computer hackers who allegedly schemed to get early access to press releases about mergers and acquisitions and trade on them before the deals were made public.
The hackers, who are thought to be in Ukraine and possibly Russia, infiltrated the computer servers of PRNewswire Association, Marketwired and Business Wire, a unit of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
PLY: Essentially a digital version of scams since time immemorial such as endeavouring to steal documents from the printers etc etc…
Ryan & Maniskas Announces Class Action Lawsuit Against ITG
PRNewswire
Ryan & Maniskas announced that a class action lawsuit has been filed in the United States District Court for the Central District of California on behalf of purchasers of common stock of ITG between February 28, 2011 and July 29, 2015, inclusive (the “Class Period”).
PLY: The backlash from ITG’s settlement with the SEC…even if the SEC haven’t actually settled yet…when they do, there may even be another lawsuit… This is a failure to disclose suit suggesting the company misled investors…
Experts Fear Rise In Trading Costs Will Follow Onset Of Volcker Rule
Rick Baert – Pensions & Investments
The implementation of the Volcker rule last month is expected to accelerate the trend among institutional money managers to break up their block trades in fixed income, causing concern that the potential for information leakage and execution delays could increase, driving up trading costs.
Private Markets
BATS Gets Regulatory Nod For Second U.S. Options Exchange
John McCrank – Reuters
BATS has received regulatory approval (press release here) to open its second U.S. options exchange, set to be launched on Nov. 2. The rules were filed with SEC in April.
EDGX Options will be the 13th U.S. options exchange. Incoming options orders will be prioritized on a pro rata basis, which means they will be sorted by price, and if there are two or more orders at the best price, trades will be allocated proportionally according to size. On BATS’s existing options exchange, BZX Options, orders are prioritized based on price and the time they entered the market.
MSEI May Become Negotiated Deals Haven To Nip Front Running
Santosh Nair – Moneycontrol
PLY: The least frequented venue becomes an inadvertent place to do block trades…Interestingly, the charms of Institutional Liquidity Pools such as Liquidnet (which can trade Indian stocks) are not even mentioned as an alternative in this article”.
Romania – Fish Exchange by December 2015 (Romanian version)
Larisa Banica – Bursa
The project received Eur 0.5 mln in EU funding and will create 12 new jobs.
FAO: This project comes after a Grain Exchange was established a year ago in the same small Danube town of Corabia.
PLY: Good for them, the exchange pyramid continues to expand – could Romania soon have a success like Oslo’s Fishpool?
Tech Interest Groups At Odds Over California Bitcoin Regulation
Pete Rizzo – CoinDesk
PLY: Essentially the fear is that in a left-leaning State government the options are: accept what is currently offered in imperfect form or risk something much worse. Sounds like a Eurozone bailout negotiation from the perspective of Greece/Cyprus/Ireland et al.
US Bank Regulator Calls For Balanced Bitcoin Oversight
Stan Higgins – CoinDesk
Thomas Curry, the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) has called for a balanced approach to regulation governing financial technology development in the US, citing bitcoin as one such example.
Months after calling digital currencies “potentially revolutionary”, Curry highlighted bitcoin during a recent speech as he called for regulators to avoid crafting overly burdensome rules that could stifle otherwise productive work on financial technology.
PLY: Wise words but will we see wise actions in the wake of BitLicense NY and Californian foibles amongst others?
Special Section: FTI, NSEL, India at the Crossroads
PLY: Both MCX and FTIL flat to small off.
Technology
SIX Homes In On Fintech Incubator Launch (subscription)
Financial News
SIX Group is set to launch its new fintech incubator this month.
PLY: Given how SIX is a much more broadly based group than many exchange entities, I expect their incubator will be a broader initiative than we have seen so far in this parish although I cannot help but feel nobody has yet thought this through from an exchange perspective clearly…
Deutsche Bank: Blockchain Can Help Banks Defend Business Models
Pete Rizzo – CoinDesk
Entitled “Blockchain – attack is probably the best form of defence”, the post discusses bitcoin and blockchain and its implications for major banks broadly, calling the technology “one of the first truly disruptive ideas from the FinTech sector”.
PLY: A bank defending itself? This is progress – the others all say there is ‘no problem and nothing to see here’, parroting the hapless Officer Bar-Brady in South Park.
MondoVisione
PLY: For those who like their summer to have a retro feel, the urge to release the hyper-obvious is always a good tool for the bored PR person. Not sure it helps brands look progressive though…
Products
Markit Launches New Forex Derivatives Trade Confirmation Service
Traders Magazine – John D’Antona
…matches FX option trade terms to generate legally binding trade confirmations recorded centrally, allowing counterparties to manage trade lifecycle events more efficiently.
ConvergEx Offers New Risk Control Options To Liquidity Providers
Securities Lending Times
ConvergEx launched its new Capital Commitment Crossing Algorithm for options block trade facilitation.
Indexes
TASE To Consider All-New Equity Indices Methodology
PRNewswire
Discussed yesterday.
Career Paths
FOW reports that Thomson Reuters has hired Paul Humphrey, the former head of electronic broking at Tullett Prebon, as a consultant.
Calypso Technology appointed Pedro Porfirio as SVP, Chief Product Officer.
China Considers Replacing Head Of Markets Regulator
Benjamin Kang & Pete Sweeney – Reuters
The party has in recent weeks sounded out potential candidates to succeed Xiao Gang as Chairman of China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), and party elders will discuss the matter at meetings this summer.
PLY: Meanwhile a quick dash of devaluation suggests desperation in China as that move will delay the RMB entering the IMF SDR basket…
ESMA Vacancy Notice – Coordination Officer
MondoVisione
Deadline : 13 September 2015. Please refer to our vacancy page for the details on this position (Ref. 2015/VAC22/FGIV) and how to apply.
Financial Calendar
All forthcoming exchange / investment related events are now listed in our Events page.
Crowdfunding
Ignore The Snobs: Why Crowdfunding Is Bringing Diversity Back To Business
James Wise – City A.M.
PLY: The sale of e-car marks a notable point in the development of crowdfunding with an exit which didn’t touch the sides of the traditional VC/PE firms.
Other stories
“The Longer The Fuse Of Grexit Burns, The More Likely The Whole Eurozone Will Collapse”
Adina Ardeleanu – Bursa
PLY: Somebody called Patrick L Young chewing the cud with Romania’s financial newspaper.
Norway’s Active Attitude To Corporate Governance (subscription)
FT
Previous discussions on NWF yesterday.
US ‘Robo-Advice’ Assets To Top £1,200bn
Peter Walker – FT Adviser
PLY: By 2020… Nonetheless, a fascinating new stream is building and note that this is of course how evolution takes place aka new regulations come in and the incumbents (IFAs in this case) all said it would kill the industry…instead it has spawned a fascinating new technological solution…