127 Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast January 14th, 2022

Transcript:

This week in the parish of bourses and market structure:

“Exchange-traded derivatives are not Weapons of Mass Destruction,” says the boss of the National Stock Exchange of India. Tadawul has a 50 IPO pipeline and the CME Group they’re launching 20 year US Treasury bonds.

My name is Patrick L. Young.

Welcome to the bourse business weekly digest.

It’s the Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast Episode 127.

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 of 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.

Kazakhstan had a bit of a kerfuffle this week, revolutionaries in the streets, all seem to be somewhat on hold by the middle of the week. However, nevertheless, that didn’t stop there being a several-day hiatus in the exchange business. The Kazakhstan Exchange case had resumed that currency trading as of Wednesday the 12th of January as the situation in Almaty stabilized.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East Saudi’s Tadawul (which had a successful IPO itself only a month or so ago) it has some 50 applications for IPOs filed and in the pipeline. Over in the UK, exchanges and clients are heading for a clash over UK market data. The UK’s FCA (Financial regulator) is concerned about competition in wholesale data markets. The banks have been caught in their natural position of “max whinge” leading the often worryingly erotic UK regulatory authorities to investigate. Perhaps they might actually address regulatory impediments, which preclude new entrants as much as any alleged crime on the current providers, let alone perish the thought we could ever see a mature discussion about the shyster-like multi-basis point hogging customer charges of the financial institutions themselves?

NASDAQ – they’ve partnered with TRIBE Freedom Foundation to support survivors of financial crime. The Philippine bourse had just announced it was going back to full working hours. As a result of Omicron (the COVID variant), they’re cutting their trading sessions for a fortnight from January the 14th to January the 31st.

The SAT (Securities Appellate Tribunal in India) quashed a six-crore rupee ($810,000 or nearly). A fine was quashed on NSE (National Stock Exchange of India) ruling that SEBI was beyond their mandate in fining the NSE for investing in other enterprises. Meanwhile, arrest warrant news – Belgium they have issued an international arrest warrant against the Libyan investment authorities Chairman. According to the Belgian magazine “De Tijd” the arrest warrant issued against Ali Mahmoud was aimed to investigate lost interest in the Libyan Investment Authorities billions at Euroclear. Seems like somebody may have been dipping into the dividends over the course of several years, allegedly. The Belgian government released interest worth some 15 billion euros, which were later transferred to foreign accounts in London and Bahrain according to the allegations. The concern is of course, that if the changes are proven, then the Belgian government and Euroclear itself may be liable.

Over in Korea, the Seoul Bourse KRX – they’re going to be providing capital market information in English. “Bring it on”, we say.

Results this week: no actual Parish firms, the somewhat controversial spread betting and CFD brokerage house, Plus500, house revenues jumped to a record of $718 million during 2021, of which $160 million came in Q4.

It’s already a busy month for new markets in the parish of bourses, all the information was 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, here are a couple of edited highlights.

BridgeUp: India has launched a whole new interesting and exciting platform somewhere where you can transact companies recurring revenue, treating subscriptions as an asset class. TradeX, they’ve launched an app and they’re aiming to revolutionise the predictions markets. And then in Amsterdam, D2X has raised some 5 million euros to build a Pan European institutional exchange for derivatives on digital assets.

Fascinating news of the week, which is not quite a new market, but it’s going to be something developing into a rather interesting new wing of an existing market BSE (the Sofia-based Bulgarian Stock Exchange) and ATHEX group (the Hellenic Republic’s exchange) they’ve signed a framework agreement for the development of Bulgarian derivatives.

In deals news this week: the London Stock Exchange, their funding BondCliQ, expansion into Europe, leading a 7.5 million funding round to help Wall Street’s first centralized corporate debt quote system expand across the European continent. The Swiss Exchange SIX, they’re eyeing Latin America for expansion. In other words, catching up to the old BME strategy, which was never truly fulfilled over the course of the previous 20 years, when it was still independent before it was bought by the Swiss Exchange.

In crypto land this week: Pakistan’s FIA (Federal Investigation Agency, their version of the CIA or the FBI) issued a notice to various hops linked to the popular cryptocurrency exchange Binance. Accusations of fraud flying left, right and center with Pakistani investors having it seemed to have an issue with some on 100 million dollars (or that’s 17.7 Pakistani rupees, 7.7 billion Pakistani rupees I hasten to add).

LCX Exchange – they’ve lost $6.8 million in their hot wallet to hackers amid the ongoing Bitcoin crash of January and Coinbase, they’ve announced that nearly the entire company will shut down for four-week long breaks in 2022 to allow workers to recharge.

Product news this week: TISE (The International Stock Exchange) formerly known as the Channel Islands Stock Exchange, set an all-time new record with 1,111 new listings in 2021. That surpassed their 2018 record of 865. The National Stock Exchange of India Chief Vikram Limaye, he’s been rather vulnerable, noting that derivatives are not ‘weapons of mass destruction’. That came in a week where various commodity products in India were once again under pressure simply because Indians don’t like inflation. Don’t blame the markets, blame lots of other things instead, ladies and gentlemen.

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange group, they’re going to be launching 20 years US Treasury Bond futures on March the 7th while the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange has selected FTSE Russell as benchmark administrator for their domestic indices. The National Stock Exchange of India again they’re launching derivatives on Mid-Cap stocks (Mid-Cap stock index) the Nifty 50 Midcap select, that’s coming up on January the 24th. BSE (Bombay Stock Exchange) their Indian INX in the gift city exchange center, they’ve tied up with Sova Capital of Moscow to facilitate investing in the Russian stock market.

Meanwhile, the FSC (the regulator in Korea) is introducing measures to revitalize KONEX (the small-cap exchange in Korea).

And finally in product news this week, interesting crypto creep into US politics as candidates have started to offer NFT’s as part of their endless desire for campaign finance. Actually, before we go, let’s just mention one record in the world of exchange volumes. We don’t usually discuss volumes on this podcast but I’m going to make an exception here as this is an awesome number. And it’s a harbinger of great green things to come. The Intercontinental Exchange, they’ve hosted a record number of carbon permit trades during 2021. Second, that’s a great opportunity to remind you to tune in for the awesome Gordon Bennett of ICE coming up this Tuesday on the IPO-Vid Livestream.

Technology news this week: Trading Technologies – they’ve invested $6.35 million in KRM22; entered into a distribution agreement for their entire suite of risk management products. It’s not quite a full takeover about Keith Todd’s baby will of course be very close to 7Ridge owned Trading Technologies, where Keith Todd himself is the sound choice as the new CEO.

London Metal Exchange, they’ve had a bit of a whoops nasty power outage of a third-party data center caused connectivity issues, leading to a five-hour halt in trading this week. And in the app stores, the hot thing to have in China this week, the CBDC wallet, the pilot version of China’s official digital yuan wallet app became the most downloaded app in local mobile app stores.

Career paths: first of all a huge vale, RIP to the iconic futures broker Robert J. O’Brien, who was the chairman of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange from 1967 to 1968, famed for his eponymous brokerage RJ O’Brien, farewell to the 103-year-old futures veteran. The CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria) deputy governor Mrs. Aishah Ahmad has been appointed chairman of a rejuvenated Commodity Exchange Board the Nigerian Commodity Exchange PLC. Let’s hope that leads the market to fruition soon.

Over in Abu Dhabi, the Securities Exchange also gets a new chairman. They have appointed Hisham Khalid Tawfiq Abdulkhaliq Malak as the new chairman. Nepal, they’re shortlisting five applicants for the post of CEO. One other final personal message of the week. Having crossed the Sydney Poitier bridge in Nassau during our daily peregrinations to see ArawakX and speak also at their inaugural investor conference last October, it was an opportune moment to recall a titan of film in the post-war era. RIP to a brilliant Bahamian talent who became a living legend.

Elsewhere in Jobs news a little update, it’s the best time in 50 years to apply for work or switch jobs as vacancies hit record levels in the UK, says City A.M. but tempered by fear in the financial sector Integrity Research notes Layoffs on Wall Street surged in December 2021. Seems like the hiring bonanza may be more Main Street than Wall Street right now. One man who’s not too worried about the hiring bonanza is the Binance CEO CZ, he’s the richest crypto billionaire of them all. With a net worth valued at a cool $96 billion, according to Bloomberg. That apparently makes the Binance founder the world’s richest person, however, will a $100 billion dollar fortune be sufficient to guarantee Cz’s Liberty long term? I wonder.

And on that mysterious and magnificent note. Thank you very much ladies and gentlemen for listening to this Episode 127 of the Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast. We’ll be back next week. Don’t forget to catch our daily newsletter in the meantime at ExchangeInvest.com, open to all subscribers who want to understand better the business of bourses.

It only remains for me to say ladies and gentlemen, as the Executive Director of the Valereum, I wish you a great week in blockchain, life and markets.

LINKS:

Operations Of Banks, Stock Exchange Suspended In Kazakhstan
TASS

Trading On Currency Platform Of Kazakhstan Stock Exchange To Resume
Trend.Az

Stock Trading, Exchange Transactions In Banks To Resume In Kazakhstan On January 12
TASS

FCA To Review Competition Concerns In Wholesale Data Markets
FCA

Nasdaq Partners With TRIBE Freedom Foundation To Support Survivors Of Financial Crime
Nasdaq

Philippine Bourse To Cut Trading Sessions From Jan 14 To 31 On Omicron Surge
ZAWYA

SAT Quashes SEBI’s Rs 6 Crore ($809k) Fine On NSE
The Economic Times

Belgium Issues International Arrest Warrant Against Libyan Investment Authority’s Chairman
The Libya Observer

Seoul Bourse To Provide Capital Market Info In English
Yonhap News Agency

Plus500 Revenues Jump As Pandemic Trading Boom Keeps Going
Evening Standard

BridgeUp: India’s First Recurring Revenue Trading Platform
The Economic Times