Over in Bigworld, it’s time for the “Bilderberg” conference where a quick look at the agenda (if we can’t stop “Brexit” let’s panic as it’s beyond our limited comfort zone strikes me as a decent surmise) suggests perhaps ‘Blunderberg’ might be a more appropriate title. In a disappointing but hardly unexpected move, Carcrash will apparently be attending what I famously recall a former British Ambassador describing as singularly the most boring meetings it had ever been his professional duty to attend.
Meanwhile that DB1-LSE deal fluff remains a remarkable study in how not to get advisors delivering value for money…nor even trying to coherently sell a bad deal which antitrust will see off in due course. QV An excerpt below from this week’s Premium special DB1 LSE Marking The Deal. Next week I’ll be tackling Brexit in response to various readers’ demands for clarity. Only $300 a year for unique perspective.
One week to go before what looks like a cracking FESE Convention in Malta, 15/16th June, which showcases the ways Europe can be productive and benefit the people…
Public Markets
Concannon: IEX’s Pursuit of Market Fairness May Backfire
Annie Massa – Bloomberg
Bats CEO Chris Concannon: The centerpiece of IEX’s plan is a technique of slowing down orders by a fraction of a second, but that speed bump may empower strategies the company wants to thwart. High-frequency traders can thrive on quirks like intentional delays.
“Who takes advantage of anomalies like that? It’s not going to be buy-side traders,” Concannon said at the Sandler O’Neill Global Exchange Conference in New York on Wednesday. “Their exchange will be riddled with HFT.” If IEX ends up helping the firms it planned to blunt, “there’s great irony in that,” he added.
PLY: The point surely is to allow IEX to prove their thesis as opposed to simply pontificating on what may or may not happen? Equally have we seen a proliferation of such trading so far while IEX has been an MTF? (I do not believe so…).
Interview video from Sandler O’Neill conference: Lou Eccleston of TMX, presentation by ASX.
Greifeld on Blockchain & China (subscription)
Wall Street Journal
PLY: Interview with NASDAQ CEO
BlackRock Trading Chief Questions Wisdom of More Stock Markets
Nick Baker – Bloomberg
The U.S. stock market is already spread across dozens of trading venues, so attempts to open more don’t make sense, said Richard Prager, head of trading, liquidity and investments at BlackRock.
“I struggle with the basic concept of how does another venue help?” Prager said in a Bloomberg Television interview Wednesday. “We need to bring the pendulum back.”
PLY: I happen to think there are too many shops but somebody keeps opening something new which targets my niche interests. Frankly, this is a very odd remark.
Private Markets
Aquis Exchange To Double Membership (subscription)
Anna Irrera & Tim Cave – Financial News
Aquis is set to double its membership base by the end of 2016 after making a radical change to its model in February.
PLY: A benchmark achieved by Aquis, well done.
Gauteng To Launch ‘Revolutionary’ Township Stock Exchange
Penelope Mashego – Times Live
Gauteng is in the final stages of launching the “revolutionary” township stock exchange‚ says premier David Makhura.
PLY: The hyperlocal as well as the trans-continental speciality ought to be at the epicentre of capital markets for their niches.
Special Section: FTI, NSEL, India at the Crossroads
PLY: MCX and FTIL slightly firmer…sadly no clear resolution to this festering mess.
Technology
IPC Launches Fixed Income Solution
MondoVisione
Products
SEC Adopts Trade Acknowledgment & Verification Rules for Security-Based Swap Transactions
SEC
CME
A first cloud-based software service that integrates and automates the management of collateral in one place…
PLY: Interesting.
Career Paths
truePTS, the independent derivatives processing business, has appointed Zohar Hod, former ICE senior executive, as its CEO.
Financial Calendar
10.06 – CFTC Division of Market Oversight – public roundtable meeting, to discuss certain elements of the Commission’s notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM) regarding Regulation Automated Trading
10.06 – Record date CME $0.60 Q2 2016 dividend
10.06 – Record date Nasdaq $0.32 quarterly dividend
10.06 – TMX $0.40 dividend payment
22.06 – WSE AGM – amended agenda
All forthcoming exchange / investment related events are now listed in our Events page.
Crowdfunding
Ousted CEO Laplanche Studies LendingClub Takeover
Olivia Oran & Joy Wiltermuth – Reuters
Ousted LendingClub CEO & co-founder Renaud Laplanche has been speaking to private equity firms and banks about financing a potential buyout of the online lender.
Other stories
ESMA Issues Technical Standards For European Long-Term Investment Funds
MondoVisione
SIFMA Launches State-By-State Capital Markets Database
MondoVisione
SEC: Morgan Stanley Failed To Safeguard Customer Data
MondoVisione
Morgan Stanley Smith Barney LLC has agreed to pay a $1 million penalty to settle charges related to its failures to protect customer information, some of which was hacked and offered for sale online.