115 Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast October 9th, 2021

Transcript:

This week in the parish of bourses and market structure:

News that S&P is offering concessions to get its IHS Markit deal past EU regulators comes alongside an attempt by FESE to get at least the delayed consolidated tape through Brussels behemoth.

It seems remarkable to recount even in the slightly crazy world of crypto, but it seems Coinbase went public against a background of 6000 accounts being hacked as the company was coming to market. I doubt Messrs Sue, Grabbit & Runne have had a minute sleep all weekend as they assemble a whole new raft of class action suits.

My name is Patrick L. Young.

Welcome to the bourse business weekly digest.

It’s the Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast number 115.

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 main events from the past seven days 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.

There’s a new broker joining the ring, the first new LME ring dealing member in 14 years, Sigma Broking Limited. Welcome to the last floor in the London financial centre.

Elsewhere, the ASX boss has said that damning reports missed the bigger picture, just what the bigger picture is, remains to be seen with his supposedly technology company that has had of course many technological outages.

Elsewhere, interesting moments from Morgan Stanley and Interactive Brokers, they’re facing federal scrutiny in a probe into some Venezuelan wheeling and dealing.

The new Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange floor has been inaugurated by Sheikh Khaled Bin Mohammed.

Meanwhile, over in Iran, there was a scandal, the CEO of Tehran Stock Exchange resigned amidst, well, what turned out to be cryptocurrency mining in the basement.

FESE (Federation of European Securities Exchange) their new report backs a near real time tape of stock and bond prices in the EU. Provided data quality is improved and changes in market structure are implemented. A new cost-benefit study has suggested a 15-minute delayed post-trade tape would be the optimal starting position.

Waiting more than a decade and still getting a 15-minute delay sounds like – at best – a halfway house to me. The data “dog’s dinner” comment that FESE made was valid but it still sounds like the sort of defeatism which continues to render Europe increasingly irrelevant through its own paucity ambition – and let’s not even go there when it comes to the frankly abstract concept to Brussels of execution. A real time consolidated tape is vital for the EU to be taken even remotely seriously given the ongoing failure to deliver it’s much hyped Capital Markets Union.

In results this week, LMAX Exchange, they saw a 37% jump in 2020 revenue and Plus500 (the often controversial broker) raised their financial year 2021 revenue expectations amidst what looks to be a fairly stellar Q3 performance.

In new markets this week, the EEX, they registered the first trades on the new German nationwide gas market Trade Hub Europe better known as THE.

Over in the deals world, Mercado Libre and Kaszek have closed an innovative $287 million dollar Initial Public Offering of Pioneer Corp SPAC. They’re beginning talks with Latin American technology companies on some form of landmark partnership.

Elsewhere, as I mentioned at the top of the show – S&P, they’re offering concessions in a bid for the EU to permit them to take over IHS Markit.

Elsewhere, Deutsche Borse’s DB1 Ventures led a $19.5 million Series B investment in WeMatch (the automation play for OTC Markets). And then the Warsaw Stock Exchange, they announced a very interesting manoeuvre. They’re looking with a series of partners to set up a digital television advertising exchange. Shades of course of the New York IEX advertising exchange, which is powered by NASDAQ.

Don’t forget ladies and gentlemen, there’s still a chance to pick up a copy of “Victory or Death” – Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and the FinTech world. If you’re looking for some reading, whether you’re still locked down, somewhat liberated, totally liberated or perhaps even like us, occasionally able to get on a plane and go travel places. What are you reading while you’re trying to get there? I would suggest you pick up a copy of my latest tome. It’s published by DV books and Victory or Death is distributed by Ingram worldwide.

Don’t forget also on Tuesday evening 6 PM London to catch our livestream. This week we have the fabulous Shari Noonan talking about the wonderful world of private markets trading. Coming next week, we’re going to have a very exciting session with D’Arcy Rahming, Sr., the CEO and Founder of the ArawakX (SME exchange in the Bahamas).

Product news this week, Bursa Malaysia derivatives, they’ve launched an East Malaysian Crude Palm Oil Future. While Eurex reckon that European Union bond futures contracts could launch as early as 2022.

Technology news this week, big news from MCX. Finally, it’s the end of the Jignesh Shah technology platform era. The technology now known as 63 moons is being thrown out of the exchange and it’s going to be replaced by a TCS Partners led solution. That solution is going to be based around the Deutsche Boerse T7 system.

That could prove very interesting of course because that also powers the Bombay Stock Exchange, will it be another case of DB1 tech being sent to India and then stripped down for speed?

Back to Coinbase, who I mentioned at the start of this show. Turns out that a story in a bleeping computer broke this week that hackers had robbed some 6000 Coinbase customers using a flaw in the multi factor authentication. The hack itself took place between March and May. The initial public offering of Coinbase, or at least the direct public offering of Coinbase to be precise, was April 14 right in the middle of this hack.

Now, cast your mind back ladies and gentlemen, do you recall any declarations at the time? I suspect this looks like it could be nuclear power tinged kerosene for the legal fraternity.

Elsewhere, MCX, they’ve had some problems with one of the possible solutions to their technology platform now being handled by TCS using DB1, the cash market they were looking at replacing at one stage with a London based software developer PESB, they were paid a rather stunning ₹20 crore ($2.7 million) to the developer and subsequently the developer had indeed taken MCX to arbitration in Singapore. Now it appears that MCX may be on the cusp of actually writing off the payments made to the UK company.

Over in the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) – they’re ready with technology for launching electronic gold receipt (that’s something a market that’s going to be coming up soon in the Gift City initiative in Gujarat).

Regulation news this week, the SEC Chairman Gary Gensler has signalled that a crypto ban like China’s is not going to happen in the USA. What an interesting development Gary Gensler elegantly engineers China into being the world’s most populous ‘bad cop’.

Career path this week, the NASDAQ board has expanded to 11 effective immediately with the addition, welcome to the Board of Toni Townes-Whitley. Equally the supervisory board in Moscow Exchange, they’ve extended Yuri Denisov’s term as MOEX Management Board Chairman.

Over at Binance, they’ve hired a former US agent who actually led the probes on Silk Road and Mt. Gox, Tigran Gambaryan.

And that brings us back ladies and gentlemen to the massive case of the debt of China evergrande. That’s of course been a hugely exciting topic the world over this week as the property giant Tether is on the verge of insolvency. They were suspended on the Hong Kong exchanges earlier this week after missing a scheduled interest payment, the default leaving a question mark over the debt which is equivalent to 2% of Chinese GDP.

And on that mysterious and magnificent note ladies and gentlemen.

My name is Patrick L. Young.

I wish you a great week in blockchain, life and markets.

LINKS:

London’s Beleaguered Metals Ring Gets Contrarian Bet On Revival
Bloomberg

Hong Kong Exchanges And Clearing: Sigma Broking To Become First New LME Ring Member In 14 Years
Marketscreener

ASX Boss Says Damning Reports Miss The Bigger Picture
The Australian Financial Review

Morgan Stanley And Interactive Brokers Face Federal Scrutiny In Venezuela Probe
The Wall Street Journal

Sheikh Khaled Bin Mohamed Inaugurates New Trading Floor At Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange
Gulfbusiness

New Trading Floor At Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange Opened
Trade Arabia

Scandal At Iran’s Stock Exchange Reveals Depth Of Regime’s Corruption
National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)

Tehran Stock Exchange CEO Steps Down After Discovery Of Illegal Mining Operation In Building
CoinGeek