Good luck to Oslo Bors as Merkur goes live. Also, a final reminder, Premium increases in price to $300 tomorrow, so get in today for the final time at $120 (invoices in USD, Euro, GBP all available).
Elsewhere, Warsaw SE pioneers off balance sheet nationalisation, as the latest government continues the barbarian control freakery of its predecessor. Warsaw is now, despite the many excellent staff there, a market clearly at risk. I have discussed this below and also in my latest Premium post: Poland Delivers A Warning to Investors?
Interesting day with ITG adding a new director to give some regulatory heft post their recent SEC shenanigans and shareholder frustration:
Public Markets
MondoVisione
QV Premium: BGC – CME – GFI Brief.
The News
Małgorzata Zaleska, an economist and former board member at Poland’s central bank, was on Tuesday appointed the new President of the Management Board of Warsaw SE (WSE).
PLY: Will she or won’t she be a government puppet? Alas the ridiculous and vindictive putsch by the latest government (another seemingly economically illiterate group like the last left wing regime of pension kleptocrats) has sealed the impression that Poland is closing for business, especially from overseas investors. Wieslaw Rozlucki (as Chairman, the only board member left with any international credibility, or genuine direct bourse management experience) has been summarily dismissed by others without the credentials to manage the market. I am so sorry to see the once trailblazing GPW descend into irrelevance. Poland is further turning its back on free markets – which I suppose makes it much like the rest of the EU’s inept governments – but doesn’t make me feel any better for having to diagnose an acute case of anti-capitalist market syndrome. See also Premium today: Poland Delivers A Warning to Investors?
Why Won’t HKEx Trumpet Its Advantages Over Mainland China Bourses? (subscription)
Stephen Vines – SCMP
Arbitrary actions of mainland securities authorities hardly came as a blinding revelation.
PLY: Yip but the tricky bit is if they say “hey we’re still free-r than the mainland!” guess where the blob’s attention will move next? This is one of those marketing quandaries like QANTAS has – yip they have an impeccable safety record in the modern age of aviation but does anybody really want to risk drawing direct attention to it?
Private Markets
Interview: Chitra Ramkrishna, CEO, NSE
Anil Mascarenhas – IIFL
“NSE’s commitment is to improve financial well-being of the people. With new initiatives such as entry of pension funds, we envisage more indirect participation of retail investors and growth in awareness.”
SET Chief: Market Cap Will Double By 2020
Tamaki Kyozuka – Nikkei
The market capitalization of the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) will grow to 25 trillion baht ($702 billion) by 2020, or double the 2014 level. That would put it where the Singapore market — the largest in Southeast Asia — was at the end of last year.
Special Section: FTI, NSEL, India at the Crossroads
PLY: Down day for FTIL and MCX off 5 & 4% respectively during a flat day for Indian stocks.
Technology
First Derivatives Buys Big Data Firm QuantumKDB For £2.2m ($3.19m)
Charlie Taylor – The Irish Times
The initial consideration for the acquisition is £1.7m ($2.46m) of which £600,000 ($870k) payable in cash and £1.1m ($1.59m) through the issue of 72,940 new ordinary shares in FD. Deferred consideration of up to £500,000 ($725k) is payable on the achievement of certain targets on the 12-month anniversary of the acquisition.
PLY: Interesting addition to the First Derivatives portfolio.
Nasdaq: Pioneering Trade Means 2016 Will Be The Year Of Blockchain (subscription)
David Dawkins – Risk
This year will see widespread deployment of blockchain-based trading technology, with the first third-party share placement on December 30, 2015 set to be followed by many more in the months ahead, according to Fredrik Voss, head of blockchain strategy at Nasdaq.
PLY: NASDAQ optimistic on their Blockchain initiative.
FXCM & PFSOFT Announce New Partnership
MondoVisione
TradeStation & VectorVest Team Up
GLOBE NEWSWIRE
Products
Vendors Claim To Crack Collateral Code After Project Colin’s Collapse (subscription)
James Rundle – Financial News
Now, at last, two companies claim to have cracked the vexatious issue of posting margin for non cleared derivatives…
Career Paths
Małgorzata Zaleska was appointed President of WSE by the Company’s EGM on 12 January 2016.
PLY: I wish Professor Zaleska every success but I fear she is doomed by circumstance. Ongoing controlling left wing economic orthodoxy from government is pushing investors out and creating the recipe for not merely a recession but a likely lost decade in Poland. There was also a government putsch on the board showing scant regard for either the experience of the original bourse’s founder or other longstanding non-execs (Marek Wierzbowski has resigned on the eve of the EGM presumably under duress, or at least appreciating the inevitable). When it came to minority shareholders’ rights, the government steamrollered through those too:
5 new members of the WSE’s Supervisory Board (announcement):
Jarosław Grzywiński, Łukasz Hardt, Adam Miłosz, Wojciech Nagel and Ewa Sibrecht-Ośka. The other members: Jacek Lewandowski and Marek Słomski, remained in office.
The following members of the GPW Supervisory Board were dismissed: Wiesław Rozłucki – Chairman of the Exchange Supervisory Board, Waldemar Maj, Bogdan Klimaszewski and Andrzej Ladko – members of the Exchange Supervisory Board. Marek Wierzbowski, Deputy Chairman of the GPW Supervisory Board, resigned on 11 January 2016.
ITG named Brian Cartwright to its Board of Directors.
PLY: Cartwright is a senior advisor at Patomak, the Paul Atkins Washington advisory boutique which just hired Dan Gallagher. This is a further step in strengthening the ITG board after recent shareholder activism led by Justin Hughes of Phillyfin in the wake of various ITG issues, including a swingeing SEC fine.
SR Labs hired Keith Cacciola as Head of Account Management.
ISDA’s BoD has voted to increase the size of the ISDA Board from 26 to 30. The new Board members will be elected during Q1 2016.
Afme To Forge Technology & Operations Committee (subscription)
Joel Clark – Financial News
PLY: Not a bad idea given the increasing nexus of tech.ops issues as regulators have pushed the envelope of new rules.
Financial Calendar
13.01 – Oslo Børs: Merkur Market Go-Live
New! ITG Q4 2015 Results – Thursday, February 4, 2016 (press release)
All forthcoming exchange / investment related events are now listed in our Events page.
Analyst Notes
ICE Price Objective Increased By Deutsche Bank From $295.00 To $298.00 – “Buy” Rating
A full table of current analysis can be found on our Analyst Ratings page which is updated daily.
Other stories
HKEx CEO Charles Li: Latest Charles Li Direct: Risk Management & Opportunities Under RMB Volatility
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