July 03 2015

elb2

In today’s Exchange Invest: Shock departure of COO from Warsaw SE, Miroslaw Szczepanski resigns as Executive Committee is slimmed to 4. Market Making crisis will be with us soon argues trade body, if (another) insane MIFID provision is introduced. Malaysia first in ASEAN to have crowdfunding laws. LME warehouse solution in sight? HK tops global IPO lists, Chi-X Oz endeavours to list US trailblazing stocks…and more, happy scrolling…

Wishing all our cousins in the other side of the pond a Very Happy Independence Day, Exchange Invest will publish Monday July 6th. Have a great weekend.

Public Markets

Euronext Announces Strongest Six Month Trading And Listing Activity Since 2011

MondoVisione

SC Stays Transfer Of FTIL Stake In IEX

Shreeja Sen & Ashish Rukhaiyar – Livemint

The Supreme Court on Thursday stayed an order of CERC that asked FTIL to transfer all its shares in IEX to a trust demat account. FTIL had approached the apex court seeking to stay the 26 June CERC order, having already entered into a share purchase agreement to sell 16.6% stake in IEX from its 26.6% holding.

QV Premium FTIL Stakes Sales Brief.

Hong Kong Tops World In H1 IPO Takings

Myssie You – EJInsight

Proceeds from IPOs in Hong Kong topped HK$129.4 billion (US$16.7 billion) in H1. The number of IPOs rose 2.3% year on year to 45, excluding listings (introduction and transfers) from the Growth Enterprise Market (GEM).

China Hunts For ‘Manipulators’ As Stocks Tumble

Nathaniel Taplin & Samuel Shen – Reuters

China Financial Futures Exchange (CFFEX) had suspended 19 accounts from short-selling for a month.

PLY: The fact the market is correcting leads to the usual misguided witch hunt…

LME Turns The Regulatory Screw On Its Warehousers

Andy Home – Reuters

Whisper it softly, but the end of the load-out queues that have plagued the LME warehousing system for so long may finally be in sight…May next year, in fact, if the exchange’s latest package of measures is implemented.

Suspicious Share Trades Drop To Record Low In Britain

Reuters

FCA’s “market cleanliness” figure for 2014 fell to 13.88% from 15.1% in 2013.

PLY: I think it is only fair to applaud Britain’s venues for their self-reporting vigour and enforcement actions which have helped the UK achieve this target, as monitored by FCA.

Europe Rules Further Threaten Market Stability (subscription)

Johannah Ladd – Financial Times

PLY: Johannah Ladd rightly tackles a(nother) festering insanity of the MIFID mess: a capital charter to drive market makers from Europe. How this utter insanity was even considered within the tragically misguided disaster of a directive is both an educational point in governance failure from Brussels as well as a potential death blow to European markets, at deep cost to investors when capital of 100x current levels result in a liquidity drought. #Insane.

Chi-X Enters Race To Bring Google, Apple To Australia (subscription)

Sarah Thompson, Anthony Macdonald & Jake Mitchell – AFR

Chi-X Australia is understood to be in talks with regulators in an effort to beat ASX to the holy grail of domestic broking: listing heavyweight offshore stocks in Australia.

Read in Premium ASX Monopoly – Brief – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

PLY: Certainly it would not entirely enhance the Apple or Google brands’ quest for modernity to be associated with the ancient, creaking, reactionary, management outlook of ASX, despite the best efforts of its CTO to build a modern infrastructure for trading below the willful strategic void from the C-suite.

GPW & EBRD’s Project Will Facilitate Development Of The Polish Capital Market

MondoVisione

PLY: Consultants sharpen your pencils and prepare a RFQ…

ESMA Report Proposes To Include ETDs In EMIR’s Interoperability Arrangements For CCPs

MondoVisione

Private Markets

Aequitas On Track To Its Goals

CTV News

Jos Schmitt, Aequitas NEO Exchange President & CEO, says the upstart stock market is on track to reach its goal of snatching 20% of Canada’s trading volume within three or four years.

Stuck In Brazil’s Shadow, Four Latin Nations Seek A Way Out

Jessica Brice – Bloomberg

Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru are going to give it another go.

Long dwarfed by Brazil’s capital market and economy, the members of the Pacific Alliance trade bloc are looking to kick start their integrated equity platform to woo foreign investors who are increasingly picky about where they put their money.

Colombia SE Chief Looks To Make Up Capital Market Ground

Silvia Pavoni – The Banker

The head of Colombia’s stock exchange, Juan Pablo Cordoba, discusses the need for further capital market integration in the Andean region.

Read our Premium MILA Exchanges Brief.

PLY: Juan Pablo gave a thoughtful address over dinner at the FESE Convention recently and has endeavoured to keep the WFE peace after the fractious Chairman elections last year where he emerged as a popular compromise candidate.

Coinfloor Launches Broker-Based Bitcoin Marketplace

Finextra

Special Section: FTI, NSEL, India at the Crossroads

PLY: MCX and FTIL flat.

Technology

Technology, Progress Bypass Chicago’s Pit Traders

Julie Ingwersen – Reuters

PLY: A chapter is closing (finally) – to think it was viewed as ridiculous by so many that floors would become history when I first published “Capital Market Revolution!” in 1999… amazing they have hung on so long ‘though.

Singapore Central Bank Funds Blockchain Recordkeeping Project

Stan Higgins – CoinDesk

Monetary Authority of Singapore, the city-state’s central bank, has funded a blockchain-based record-keeping system as part of a five-year $225m investment plan aimed at financial technology.

PLY: Very interesting.

Indexes

ICE Taps ICIS For Brent Data (subscription)

Waters Technology

ICE has begun licensing market data (press release here) from petrochemical and energy markets information provider ICIS to support calculation of its ICE Brent Index.

Career Paths

Mirosław Szczepański has resigned as COO of the Warsaw SE with immediate effect. Long a member of the key management team, the management committee is being slimmed to four from five with Miroslav’s duties reportedly being shared amongst the remaining members.

“I hope that the knowledge and experience of Mirosław Szczepański will be used in GPW projects” commented CEO Pawel Tamborski.

I hope that the knowledge and experience Miroslaw Szczepanski will be used in projects implemented by the Group WSE – said the President WSE Paweł Tamborski quoted in the release.

PLY: Clearly part of the ongoing GPW restructuring albeit against the background that the likelihood is a major government/management upheaval will follow in the autumn anyway (QV Premium: Poland’s Presidency – A Warning for GPW?). I will miss Miroslaw‘s reasoned opinions. His considerable experience ought to be immediately attractive to other markets or participants. His departure will also create a board seat rotation at Aquis Exchange as GPW will nominate another executive.

NASDAQ appointed eleven directors to NASDAQ Stock Market, NASDAQ OMX PHLX, and NASDAQ OMX BX Boards. Directors serve a one-year term.

Leonard J. Amoruso, Partner/Shareholder, Murphy & McGonigle

Daniel Bigelow, President & Managing Partner of Monadnock Capital Management L.P.

Michael J. Curran, retired Chairman & Ceo of Boston SE

David J. Frear, EVP & CFO, Sirius XM

Merit E. Janow, Dean, Columbia University’s School of International & Public Affairs

Hans-Ole Jochumsen, President, Nasdaq

Thomas A. Kloet, retired CEO TMX

William M. Lyons, retired President & CEO of American Century Companies

John D. Markese, Vice Chairman, American Association of Individual Investors

Douglas Melamed, Herman Phleger Visiting Professor of Law, Stanford Law School

Wendy S. White, SVP and General Counsel, University of Pennsylvania

DigitalLook reports that Tullett Prebon appointed Carol Sergeant CBE as a NED. Sergeant will chair the board’s newly-formed Risk Committee and for an initial period in 2015, will provide the company with additional services relating to its risk practices and procedures. She will also be a member of the Audit Committee.

ICE Futures Europe has established an Oversight Committee to oversee the administration of the ICE Brent Index. The Oversight Committee enhances the governance and transparency of the Brent Index and comprises independent industry experts, Oil Price Reporting Agency (PRA) representation and ICE Futures Europe NEDs and representatives, including:

Grahame Cook, Independent Expert and Former Crude Oil Trading Manager, Integrated Supply & Trading, BP Oil International (Chairman)

Phil Bruce, Independent NED, ICE Futures Europe

Christine Crosley, Independent Expert and Former Global Product Leader – Risk Management, Shell International Trading & Shipping

Mike Davis, Head of Market Development, ICE Futures Europe

Timothy Faithfull, Independent NED, ICE Futures Europe

David Peniket, President & COO, ICE Futures Europe

Phil Redman, Senior Director, Market Oversight, ICE Futures Europe

Richard Street, Head of Regulation and Compliance, ICIS

Emma Vick, Director, Benchmark Administration, ICE

As well as establishing the Oversight Committee, the Exchange plans to establish a Brent Index Advisory Group made up primarily of participants in the BFOE Cash Market which will be consulted on the development of the Brent Index.

PLY: With Phil Bruce and David Peniket on the committee, clearly the future of Brent is in good hands…

FOW reports that Matthew Hill has been appointed head of fx trade processing at Markit, replacing Keith Tippell‘s departure last month.

SEC announced that Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB) member Lewis H. Ferguson has been reappointed for a second term on the Board.

Meet The Man Building A Stock Exchange That Doesn’t Screw People Over

Ben Popper – The Verge

Profile of Brad Katsuyama…thought provoking headline…

Financial Calendar

New announcements

Nasdaq Q2 2015 Financial Results – Thursday, July 23, 2015

SGX full-year results FY2015 – 29 July 2015

All forthcoming exchange / investment related events are now listed in our Events page.

Analyst Notes

NASDAQ OMX “Overweight” Rating Restated By Barclays – $57.00 Price Objective

Deutsche Bank Raised Their Price Target On CBOE From $55.00 To $58.00 – “Hold” Rating

A full table of current analysis can be found on our Analyst Ratings page which is updated daily.