101 Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast July 3rd, 2021

TRANSCRIPT

This week in the parish of bourses and market structure:

Toshiba backlash of rocks Japan Exchanges, ASX in colorful Crypto Sbat and there's lots more including a big crackdown on Binance.

My name is Patrick L. Young,

Welcome to the bourse business weekly digest.

It's the Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast, Episode 101.

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

More details at ExchangeInvest.com.

The Robinhood CEO called for changes to exchange pricing rules this week.

PLY: Vlad Tenev was demanding fractions of a penny pricing and a pre-emptive fight back against the possible Gensler-SEC Payment For Order Flow restrictions or indeed an outright ban.

Fueling ADHD-like millennial behavior may be feasible in the super liquid names but it does little or nothing for smaller stocks struggling to achieve any liquidity. (See also the David Weild IPO-VID the other week).

I love the way super liquid products flow but at the same time, we must remain mindful (as RobinHood is not in this instance) that we need the orderly capital formation and a feasible means to ensure smaller public equity offerings have the nurture and support to help them become major public companies tomorrow. Keeping them in “La Ronde Privee” a stealth alphabet of PE rounds with facilitated private market transactions may be good for some, but must not become the only route to growth or indeed debut on public markets.

Meanwhile, of course, this week we marked the end of a spectacular first half with American Independence Day looming. It was great to see another broadly successful parish quarter coming to a close, some stats coming up on that in just a minute.

Meanwhile, though, we were looking at America's Water Wars, they're just beginning according to Bloomberg, which is an interesting article demonstrating the urgent need for a water market to be better organized but that requires a champion and while NASDAQ has the data it does not have the Exchange Traded Derivative heft on the future side. While Chicago Mercantile Exchange, the licensee of the NASDAQ water index in California appears remarkably insouciant about promoting its first

Toshiba shareholders ousted their Chairman in a landmark move for foreign activists.

PLY: We mentioned the excoriating criticism of JPX CEO Akira Kiyota on this topic, “Governance improvement at Toshiba has been very inadequate” said the boss of the Japan Exchanges in EI 2080: 19 June 2021. However, this process of isolating the Toshiba Chairman still marks a watershed moment when shareholders including foreign activists who've been somewhat valuable have taken the Chairman's scalp of a Japanese household name brand, a first for the world of corporate governance.

Meanwhile, in Australia, prominent venture capitalist (and crypto evangelist) Mark Carnegie has thrown down the gauntlet to the ASX boss, Dominic Stevens about the size of their blockchains in five years. Carnegie labeling the ASX, a diamond-encrusted white elephant.

Elsewhere, it was a good week for Adena Friedman, we were discussing how Adena Friedman had boosted her stock 35% since becoming CEO in 2017, and it's bringing more integrity to markets. NASDAQ is indeed charging ahead after keeping its markets running smoothly throughout the course of the last year, and indeed, Adena Friedman was returned for a second year to the Barron’s Most Influential List of CEOs in America, richly deserved it is too.

Clearstream is facing a 500 million Euro fine over the clear-up to do with Air Berlin, the insolvency administrator of the insolvent airline is set to sue the Luxembourg-based subsidiary of Deutsche Börse.

Elsewhere it was a bit of a spat with a revaluation, a re-grading, a re-rating of the emerging markets MSCI is proposing putting Pakistan back into the Frontier Markets category.

PLY: Elsewhere, Argentina was also downgraded two notches from “emerging” to “standalone” in what amounted to a post COVID bloodbath for a large number of the world's less developed stock markets.

Elsewhere, Robinhood's IPO plans were pushed back due to an SEC review process. That process came to a stunning end, just as we were preparing to record this particular podcast episode 101, with news that Robinhood the zero-cost brokerage (or at least so they claim to be) is going to pay a $70 million fine.

Over at the Long Term Stock Exchange Twilio and Asana, both of them investors in the San Francisco-based LTSE, which launched last September. They've moved or at least they've added listings to the Long Term Stock Exchange becoming the first two to be listed, they’ll be shareholders and the LTSE itself.

PLY: But at the same time, they're going to retain their New York Stock Exchange listings thus becoming dual listed. So you can have your occasional liquidity on LTSE for the long-term or go all in every day (several times a day if you so desire) on the New York Stock Exchange. An interesting balance between investor reality and Silicon Valley virtue signalling. Or one might say between virtue and Virtu.

Chinese Tech IPOs fueled Hong Kong Stock Exchanges best first-half ever, the London Stock Exchange had their best first half for IPO since 2014 and indeed sensational numbers out of NASDAQ with no fewer than 395 new listings.

In results this week:

Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE), they're pretty muted, they seem to have a post COVID hangover, Saudi Stock Exchange Tadawul their revenues have soared 91% ahead of the IPO that's expected towards the end of this year.

PLY: Spectacular news altogether.

In new markets, not quite a new market but at least a linking of the old together, the Bank of England allows settlement houses to access its money market operations.

PLY: That's an interesting integration of the ICSDs into accessing the UK money market straight from the central bank.

Elsewhere, TP ICAP was detailing their plans to develop Liquidnet which they acquired recently.

PLY: Well, all I can say is I hope the plans inspire confidence in you. Apparently, the thinking is credit-centric TP ICAP has offices all over the world and this will (though I don't know how they're going to quite achieve it through osmosis perhaps) link Liquidnet to more markets because lack of net is currently perceived by TP ICAP to be a bit parochial.

TP staffer John Ruskin noted in a press comment “Historically, Liquidnet has focused on the key equities markets but hasn't fully explored other regions”.

Given that Liquidnet was connected to 39 different exchanges worldwide a decade ago. When in fact, Liquidnet Europe Appoints Exchange Leader Patrick L Young as Non-Executive Director and given the fact that they did increase significantly the number of their accesses (I do believe to over 60) before TP ICAP overpaid for it. Frankly, I think it was fair to say even the 39 of a decade ago was more than just the key equity markets.

Good news from Zimbabwe, the Commodities Exchange there is ready to open its door. And while that's preparing to open its doors, the Singapore Precious Metals Exchange will officially launch the world's first end-to-end platform that democratizes precious metals investment.

PLY: How breathtaking it all is.

In deals this week:

Tradeweb completed their acquisition of NASDAQ's US Fixed Income Electronic Trading Platform (that of course used to be eSpeed owned by BGC).

Deutsche Börse and Commerzbank are joining forces to build digital asset marketplaces and indeed, there was also news of various other acquisitions of a Swiss platform for Digital Assets by Deutsche Börse.

Refinitiv worries the Refinitiv deal loses some of its luster for London Stock Exchange's challenges mount went headline in the Financial Times.

And we look forward to the NSE-SGX Trading link via Gift City likely to be live by April next year while Urbana Corporation announced an investment in Blue Ocean Technologies, LLC, they happen to have an American ATS.

Don't forget you can still pick up a copy of “Victory or Death”, my latest book talking all about Blockchain, Cryptocurrency, and the FinTech world.

In crypto land this week:

Big news BTCChina, the first Bitcoin exchange in China has given up on the cryptocurrency amid Beijing's tightening crackdown.

Elsewhere, the big news was from the UK:

Due to the imposition of requirements by the FCA, Binance Markets Limited is not currently permitted to undertake any regulated activities without the prior written consent of the UK regulator.

No other entity in the Binance Group holds any form of UK authorization, registration, or license to conduct a regulated activity in the UK.

PLY: A somewhat exasperated statement from the FCA.

This also followed a polite by Crypto Exchange Binance from Ontario in Canada and a warning shot across the buoys by Japan's FSA, a warning that Binance was operating in Japan without a license. Is a day more coming for the Chinese or indeed, wherever it might be from there's a mystery for us all ladies and gentlemen, Exchange of Binance.

Product news this week:

Well, lots of CBDC, (I'm not sure it's terribly exciting) the Palestinian Monetary Authority considered launching their own digital currency.

PLY: That should be quite exciting as always, it's there to put up good lustre on the move towards Bitcoin being the legal tender in El Salvador.

Technology news this week:

Very exciting to hear Digital Asset is partnering with NASDAQ to bring Digital Asset Markup Language (DAML) to the NASDAQ marketplace services platform.

One spectacular piece of news in the crowdfunding firmament, Crowdcube is profitable for the first time in its 10 year history.

Elsewhere SEBI (the Indian regulators) are going to introduce a framework for a new class of investors in India.

In people news:

The Muscat Stock Exchange has appointed a new CEO. The board of directors announced the appointment of Haitham bin Salem al Salmi as the new Chief Executive Officer. In the same week when the long-standing Tel Aviv Stock Exchange Chairman Amnon Neubach announced he will retire on August the 1st.

Elsewhere we just had time to reflect in the big world this week that the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championships opened once again this week, with the great Swiss genius Roger Federer approaching 40 years of age... which by my reckoning means that the Swiss Maestro has now been playing tennis at the top level for more years than ageist commentators have been writing him off.

And on that mysterious and magnificent note ladies and gentlemen, thank you for listening to this shortened Episode 101 of the Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast.

My name is Patrick L. Young, have a great week in life and markets.

LINKS:

Robinhood CEO Calls For Changes To Exchange Pricing Rules
Reuters

America's Water Wars Are Just Beginning
Bloomberg

Toshiba Shareholders Oust Chairman In Landmark For Foreign Activists
The Wall Street Journal

Carnegie Bets Against ASX's 'Diamond-Encrusted White Elephant'
The Australian Financial Review

How Nasdaq's Adena Friedman Boosted The Stock 35% And Is Bringing More Integrity To Markets
Barron's

Clearstream Facing €500 Million Claim Over Air Berlin
Luxembourg Times

MSCI Proposes Putting Pakistan Back Into MSCI-FM
Business Recorder

Robinhood IPO Plans Pushed Back Due To SEC Review Process
Yahoo Finance

Twilio, Asana To List On Long-Term Stock Exchange As ESG Push Continues
WSJ

Chinese Tech IPOs Fuel Hong Kong Stock Exchange's Best First-Half Ever
Fortune