Oct 28, 2023 9 min read Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast

217 Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast October 28th, 2023

This week in the parish of bourses and market structure: NASDAQ Report Strong Numbers As Turkeys Vote For Christmas Down Under, The GG SEC Suspends Basic Economic Logic Towards A Socialist USA, HKMA Announces A Bond Expansion, CME Has The Most Cash But May Not Use It For M&A

Transcript:

This week in the parish of bourses and market structure:

NASDAQ Report Strong Numbers As Turkeys Vote For Christmas Down Under

In Washington DC, The GG SEC Suspends Basic Economic Logic In The Long March Towards A Socialist USA

HKMA Announces A Bond Expansion

…And CME Has The Most Cash But May Not Use It For M&A

Welcome to the Bourse Business Weekly Digest

It's the Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast Episode 217

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, this is a very brief reduction of highlights amongst the key headlines from the week in market structure. All the analysis of the many events and happenings from the past 7 days can be found in Exchange Invest Daily subscriber newsletter, the unique guide to the bourse business sent daily to your inbox.

More details at ExchangeInvest.com

In Bitcarnage

Ultimately this week was all about whether or not…in the end the exciting news was that SBF has opted to testify in his own defense. Will he receive the gracious welcome worthy of a leading effective altruist boy wonder? Or might the Prosecution prove a touch more sceptical?

If you enjoyed this excerpt you may be interested to know you can read Bitcarnage every day in Exchange Invest. Alternatively, if you want to follow Bitcarnage the daily update on happenings in all the crypto and digital assets you can find Bitcarnage as a standalone on Substack.

In the main news of the week in the main body of the world's exchanges. The road to Damascus was evidently closed for roadworks this week at the AGM of the ASX in Australia, apologies we're out of the question. Then again, shareholders have demonstrated a pure play endorsement of Thanksgiving / Christmas despite being, clearly, turkeys voting some 90% of shareholders endorsing the discredited Chairman Damian Roche and just avoiding a second strike by the skin of the management's teeth for the second year in a row.

Meanwhile, the new CHESS advisory group “won't be railroaded” by ASX.

Hooray! I hope Alan Cameron is good to his word.

The Los Angeles Times reports that CEOs Are Feeling Pressure To Speak Out On The Israel-Hamas War

Before Adena Friedman presented NASDAQ's financial results on Wednesday's quarterly earnings call, the stock exchange's chief executive said the company was “horrified by the act of terrorist violence” in Israel and denounced the “subsequent loss of innocent lives in Israel, Gaza and the wider region.”

Here here. Well said Adena!

In results, it was a frantic week altogether for the results in the parish, all the details were in Exchange Invest daily, the newsletter no person can afford to be without in capital markets and market structure. For the sake of this podcast let's look at some edited highlights.

Massive quarterly results for the 9 months ended 30^th September 2023 from Hong Kong Exchanges (HKEX) and clearing. You wouldn't think there's a Chinese recession or at least the worry about Chinese recession on the SAR seems to be booming revenue and other income +18%. The yield curve is of course the central clearing counterparties friend in this case.

NASDAQ, not quite spectacular, but still nonetheless very very good. And of course NASDAQ here has a disadvantage, not owning a major central counterparty clearing house 3 month net revenue +6%, overall 9 month net revenue +4% despite the stock market having a long swoon during the course of this year.

All eyes were then on CME Group as they reported their third quarter results and they were quite spectacular +10% overall.

Nonetheless, those impressive results have to be given a certain caveat. Can the monopoly milker not do better given it owns the US yield curve in futures and options and these are solid days, the solid days in fact US dollar rates have been waiting for through that crazy QE generation?

New markets this week, we await with excitement, the Egyptian bourse is going to launch a real estate exchange within 4 months.

Deal news this week, back to the CME who just reported those excellent but nonetheless not quite as spectacular as some might have hoped results. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange Group is in the ‘strongest position’ for deals - the CEO said despite rising competition that was reported by Reuters.

It was a rather fitting self-stated epitaph to the failure of Terry Duffy to exploit the great opportunity his multi-faceted officers provided him and I quote “Our capacity is much greater than anybody else's. It doesn't mean we're going to do anything.”

Plus ca change ladies and gentlemen - despite the other monopoly milkers all hitting huge problems in recent times. As rates rise, and the CME USD yield curve hits a sweet spot, the management looks likely to just hold the cash / buy back stock.

If you're wondering whether you should be buying back stock, buying stock outright, or what you should be doing in this market at this point in time, you might want to take play a longer strategic game and look at how digital life is going to change us all.

Therefore, you ought to be picking up a copy of my most recent book “Victory or Death?” Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and the FinTech World. It's published by DV Books and is distributed by Ingram worldwide.

Don't forget, while you're waiting for your copy of “Victory or Death?” to arrive, check out our live stream Tuesday 6pm London, 1 o'clock New York time - the IPO Video live show.

Catch the back episodes on Linkedin, Youtube, and Facebook by searching “IPO-Vid”.

Our most recent show was another master class. This time, we had Ann Berg: Unravelling Global Commodities. That really is a must watch show.

Good grief coming this week, on Tuesday. We have none other than Professor Dr. Richard Sandor, The Father of Financial Futures.

Elsewhere emanating from a Chicago, the “Finance Book Of The Week” this week, we've been listing a series of interesting books for some weeks now. And indeed “Trading In Sync With Commodities — Introducing Astrology To Your Technical Toolbox” written by our recent IPO-Vid guest on Episode #115 Susan Gidel.

She's also the publisher of The Red Letter Trading Days newsletter.

“Trading In Sync With Commodities — Introducing Astrology To Your Technical Toolbox” is written for those who might be unfamiliar with either commodities or astrology, Susan includes “101” chapters on each topic, as well as an astrological glossary. In addition, she covers how astrology can help you discover which markets you might be most attuned to trading.

Our next “Book Of The Week” will be unveiled Saturday in the EI Weekend Edition. Don't forget it's completely free. The Saturday edition is a fascinating macro reads. You can sign up for that at ExchangeInvest.com.

At the same time if you want to stay ahead of what's going on in the bourse business, you ought to be reading the watercooler of the exchange industry, “the exchange of information” Exchange Invest itself. You can sign up to that via ExchangeInvest.com. It's only $349 per user per year to join us in “the exchange of information”.

Technology news this week, the London Stock Exchange had a woops nasty, a halt in a many stocks was the result. And a lot of people were deeply embarrassed. A lot of investors were pretty angry.

We also had a couple of outages at Miami Exchanges, options markets OPRA was having some issues during the course of the week.

The London Stock Exchange's outage led to a rather execrable piece in City A.M Stock Exchanges Need Robust Defences From Repeated Tech Errors.

I asked for a right of reply of behalf of the parish and was tartly told they would only accept a letter in response to this Z grade drivel. So I sent the following:

“Dear Sirs,

As a partially financial focused newspaper, City A.M. embarrasses itself with the dismally constructed thesis taking broad brush aim at exchanges for which there is a paucity of data.

LSE #Problems as a result of management post M&A struggling to run Refinitiv and an exchange franchise. It is grossly inaccurate to tar all bourses with the same brush.

Major exchange groups process billions of messages daily without fail with extensive failsafes. Childish cherrypicked hectoring embarrasses author Horizon software.

I appreciate some vendors are simply desperate for publicity, but City A.M must focus on understanding markets as a core element of your remit. Readers seeking to better understand exchanges are welcome at “the exchange of information” Exchange Invest

In conclusion, let's ignore the whining and applaud the excellent exchanges in London, producing almost seamless uptime: Aquis, CBOE and ICE to name but three.

Yours etc.

Patrick L Young
Publisher
Exchange Invest

At the time of recording no sign of it being published yet.

Regulation news this week, NYSE, NASDAQ volume discount for brokers are being threatened by the SEC.

As usual it's a total inversion of economic logic is coached in business school prose that suggests this is entirely logical whereas this very process entirely discredits the US blob as a whole. The GG SEC seeks to upend a core principle of not merely exchange pricing but actually…pricing out a fundamental economic level. At the heart of commerce, the more volume you do, the better price you expect to pay for a good or service. This demonstrates the worst of the frankly demented socialism of GG and his ilk. It reminds me of a famous “business school” in the post Communist era of the 1990s where an economics lecturer was still intoning “the primary purpose of the company is to benefit its employees.” The GG era SEC is only steps away from this nonsense.

Meanwhile, the US derivatives regulator according to the Wall Street Journal plans a tougher enforcement approach.

No more Mr. Nice guy from the CFTC agency which just a year ago had an unhealthy fixation with the notion SBF and FTX were not utterly toxic to market structure in the world economy. The CFTC seeking to find its way back to credibility is admittedly a different approach.

Career paths this week, sad to report the death of former NGX chairman on Nigeria Christopher Ogunbanjo whose firm actually handled the incorporation of the Nigerian Stock Exchange, who died at age 99. Mr Ogunbanjo’s demise follows the recent passing in mid-September of Pa Akintola Williams, the last surviving signatory of the original Memorandum and Articles of the Association of the Nigerian Stock Exchange at the founding of the NSE on September the 15, 1960.

Happier news, industry veteran Kevin Wolf is joining the American Financial Exchange as Chief Financial officer. Absolutely delighted to see the excellent Kevin Wolf of Euronext and Eris Exchange fame joining the AFX.

Slightly sadder twist, Liu Ti, former deputy general manager of the Shanghai Stock Exchange faces criminal charges for alleged embezzlement and bribery following an investigation by the country's top graft a buster.

We have previously reported in Exhange Invest EI 2642 on April 24^th of this year, that he had been taken away by authorities. This was alongside the 2021 bribery case of Cao Jian, former deputy chief responsible for vetting IPOs on the exchange’s tech SME STAR market.

Speaking of possible criminals, Mark Zuckerberg, the master criminal has a certain ring to it.

I speak of course, as somebody who has been trying for over a year to stop a blatant identity theft on the Facebook platform, which is being totally ignored by Zuk Inc.

That's just the thin end of the wedge it seems.

In the UK alone, Zuck’s corporate behemoth - this is very meta - is now the biggest single source of crimes recorded by the British constabulary. No fewer than 17% of the 6.6 million crimes recorded in the UK were victims of scams on Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram impacting over a million victims.

I'm just saying this, but maybe instead of pursuing cage fight with Elon Musk or thinking about going for president or whatever, it might be better for Mr. Zuckerberg to stick to managing his own business rather than being tarred with the brush of being a master criminal.

…And on that mysterious and magnificent note ladies and gentlemen, my name is Patrick L. Young, creator of markets the world over, publisher of Exchange Invest.

I wish you a great week in life and markets.

LINKS:

2023 AGM - Addresses By Chair And Managing Director And CEO Results Of Annual General Meeting
ASX

New CHESS Advisory Group 'Won't Be Railroaded' By ASX
AFR

CEOs Are Feeling Pressure To Speak Out On The Israel-Hamas War
Los Angeles Times

Quarterly Results For The 9m Ended 30 September 2023
HKEX

Hong Kong Exchanges & Clearing Q3 Profit Rose 30%
The Wall Street Journal

Nasdaq Reports Q3 2023 Results - Broad-Based Growth Drives Solutions Businesses Revenue Acceleration

Nasdaq Announces Quarterly Dividend Of $0.22 Per Share
Nasdaq

CME Group Inc. Reports Q3 2023 Financial Results 8-K For CME Group, Inc
CME

Infographic: Highlights From CME Group’s (CME) Q3 2023 Earnings Results
AlphaStreet

Real Estate Exchange Expected To Be Complete With 4 Months, EGX Chairman
Egypt Today