2015-03-05

First Read



Fintech Exchange 2015: A Chicago Story
JohnLothianNews.com

Fintech is more than just a buzzword. Fintech is a movement – a global, top to bottom overhaul of financial systems, from consumer transactions at the grocery store to speed of light derivatives trades, to multi-billion dollar interbank payments. And on April 23, 2015, the center of fintech will be Chicago.

Barchart OnDemand, in association with FinTEX Chicago, will host Fintech Exchange 2015, a half day event featuring live presentations, a panel discussion and networking, all centered on the state of technology for financial markets and trading firms.
Watch the video »
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John’s Comments
by John J. Lothian

Thank you for all the birthday wishes yesterday. I don’t think I ever received as many.

I have to share a story about a gift I received yesterday from one of you, my readers. I had seen this reader unsubscribe from the newsletter from a personal email that indicated they were unemployed/looking for work and had resubscribed from a business email at a big bank. The reader had a new job, so I sent her a congratulatory email.

After thanking me, this was her reply:

“By the way, I have to tell you something. Your seminar over the summer was wonderful and really helped me focus on what I wanted to do when I grew up. I mean it sincerely. I spoke about it in every interview I had and whenever I got down about the job prospects, I thought about some of the speakers and how they rose to the positions they are in from the spot I was in. That really kept me going and inspired. So for that, thank you.”

What a gift, and what a confirmation that the work we are doing with MarketsWiki Education is producing results? Thank you to our presenters and sponsors who helped us make our events happen. You did good.

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Humans Lose Out as Robots Take Tokyo Stock Exchange
by Yuji NakamuraToshiro Hasegawa, Bloomberg
Yuji Honkawa knew the humans were losing by April 2010, when no matter how fast he sent orders to be filled at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, a machine beat him.
Unemployed now after 20 years dealing equities at seven different brokerages, the 47-year-old Honkawa watched as the market sped up and automated traders went from generating 10 percent of orders at the start of 2010 to as much as 72 percent last year. Among the men and women he battled to get prices for clients, 80 percent have left the industry, he estimates.
jlne.ws/1wXOd3B

“It’s kind of like the Terminator,” Honkawa said in an interview. “The story is about humans and machines battling it out, and in the end the machines exterminate all the humans.”

***** This is why it is important that we recruit people with the skills and talents for today’s markets. The world and the markets have changed.

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The Career With the Biggest Financial Payoff; Computer scientists and quants will pull in a return on investment of $584,339 over 20 years—more than quadruple what artists will see
by Akane Otani, Bloomberg
It pays to have a way with numbers. College graduates working in computer or math-related fields can expect to see a net return on investment for their bachelor’s degree of $584,339 over 20 years, according to a report released on Thursday by PayScale.
jlne.ws/1EQ2Igt

****** And here is some proof of the change in the markets and the rewards for people with certain educations, skills and talents.

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CFTC Staff Postpones Today’s Scheduled Public Roundtable
CFTC
Due to Federal Government closure, staff at the CFTC has postponed the public roundtable originally scheduled for Thursday, March 5, 2015.
jlne.ws/1KqPJGO

****** Don’t mess with Mother Nature.

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LMEClear has earned HK$187 million for HKExGroup since it launched last September.; Here’s the team that did it:
@LME via Twitter


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How AgriCharts is helping farmers review cash bids for their grain
Chicago Tribune
Chicago-based financial technology company Barchart is putting corn prices into farmers’ pockets. Barchart’s agricultural division, AgriCharts, announced this week that its new AgMobile app now includes intraday cash bids for grain. Farmers can use the app to review bids — or offers to buy a specific amount of a commodity at a certain price — from grain elevators near a given location. Grain elevators are major structures or complexes that receive and store grain and prepare it for shipment.
jlne.ws/1GUqEhY

***** Barchart is all about tech.

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Taking stock in fixed income
Banking Technology
Fixed income markets have historically been a bastion of high-touch trading, with manual processes, large tickets and little standardisation. But as recent years have seen inventory slashed and balance sheets cut in face of rising regulatory pressure, finding liquidity has become more of a challenge. Project Neptune, an initiative between a group of 30 large banks and asset managers, looks set to change that.
jlne.ws/1A0kCYs

****** If Project Neptune does not work, will they stick a fork in it?

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Mark Cuban: We’re in a Tech Bubble—and It’s Worse Than 2000
by Dashiell Bennett, Bloomberg
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban knows a thing or two about tech booms. He made his fortune in the dot-com explosion of the late 1990s, founding and then selling Broadcast.com for more than $5 billion. By doing so, he also avoided the great tech bust that followed the boom. As a result, he’s remained a billionaire, and gone to become a championship sports team owner, a TV star, and a powerful investor.
jlne.ws/1DPqNzN

***** If you want liquidity, buy a T-Bill.

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MarketsWiki

MarketsWiki Page of the Day
SwapClear

MarketsWiki Recent Updates

People

Thomas A. Kloet; Zina R. Carter; William T. Baker; William S. Warren; William S. Seaverns; William S. Jackson; Wiley M. Egan; Walter Fitch; Todd Swenson; Thomas F. Cashman

Companies, Organizations and Groups

London Metal Exchange; Borsa Istanbul; SwapClear; LCH.Clearnet Group Ltd.; Chicago Mercantile Exchange

Statistics

59,451,919 pages viewed, 8,175 articles, 190,079 edits
MarketsWiki Statistics

Lead Stories

HKEx eyes extension of China link to trade futures
Futures & Options World
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing is eyeing the wholesale extension of the share trading link between Hong Kong and Shanghai to include the full range of financial products including equity, commodity, fixed income and currency derivatives. Charles Li, the chief executive of HKEx, said on Thursday the November 17 launch of Shanghai-Hong Kong Stock Connect trading link was a “breakthrough” and the plan was “to gradually expand mutual market access in an orderly manner”.
jlne.ws/1BKV7yU

Virtu hopes time can heal HFT furore
Philip Stafford and Arash Massoudi in London and Anna Nicolaou in New York, FT
For a proprietary trading firm that deals in microseconds, Virtu Financial is hoping the passage of time can work in its favour. The New York trading powerhouse, one of the largest if not most successful high-speed traders of the past five years, is rebooting efforts for a stock market flotation this year — a closely watched move across an industry where private information is carefully guarded.
jlne.ws/17UHLnz

Bond-Trader TruMid Sells Stake Valuing Company at $75 Million
by Matthew Leising, Bloomberg
TruMid Financial LLC raised money from investors in a deal valuing the bond-trading startup at $75 million, according to President Ravi Singh.
jlne.ws/1CB21Ik

Oil Bust Threatens CMBS in Wall Street Funded Shale Towns
by Sarah Mulholland, Bloomberg
The oil glut is threatening to expose cracks in the commercial-mortgage bond market.
jlne.ws/1Baqu3Y

Aluminium trading profits under threat
Henry Sanderson, FT
The days of easy profits for aluminium traders benefiting from warehouse queues may finally be over as prices fall and new rules seek to change behaviour.
jlne.ws/1w6DKrm

Fed-Bashing, Transparency and Transcripts
By Justin Fox, Bloomberg View
The transcripts of the highly significant 2009 meetings of the monetary-policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee are out today, after a five-year delay, and generating lots of headlines.
jlne.ws/1GZ0db1

The Biggest Banks Aren’t Ready to Shrink
by Peter Coy, Bloomberg
Jamie Dimon never quits. After Sandy Weill forced him out of Citigroup in 1999, Dimon staged a comeback that returned him to the pinnacle of banking as chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase. After he was diagnosed with throat cancer last summer, he vowed to beat the disease with radiation and chemotherapy. Now he’s tussling with Janet Yellen’s Federal Reserve, which is ratcheting up the amount of capital the biggest banks must have on their balance sheets as a safety cushion for the next crash. The Fed’s tougher capital rules give the megabanks an incentive to shrink, but Dimon has no intention of doing so. CLSA Americas banking analyst Mike Mayo likens Dimon to the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who keeps trying to fight while his arms and legs are being lopped off, saying, “It’s just a flesh wound.”
jlne.ws/1aMG1yv

The City avoids Brexit from trading in euros; ECB must stop trying to wrest financial activity away from London
FT View
The “L” in LCH.Clearnet stands for London, a city known to stand proudly outside the eurozone. Yet every day it clears about EUR250bn of euro-denominated instruments. Notional positions of EUR4tn are held at this one clearing house, a value somewhat higher than Germany’s gross domestic product.
jlne.ws/1BKQrct

ECB to launch 1 trillion euro bond buying scheme on March 9
Reuters
The European Central Bank said it will start its new government bond-buying program on March 9, hoping that pumping new cash into the sagging euro zone economy will boost growth and lift inflation.
jlne.ws/17V1q6V

Regulatory

BOE’s Crisis Funding to Banks in Unprecedented Fraud Probe
by Suzi Ring, Bloomberg
The Bank of England’s efforts to aid lenders during the depths of the financial crisis are the target of an unprecedented criminal probe by the U.K. Serious Fraud Office.
jlne.ws/18TmSdA

Cups of Tea, Not Dawn Raid, in U.K. Antitrust Probe of Banks
by Andrea Gerlin, Bloomberg
Britain’s banks, under pressure to be friendlier to customers, greeted U.K. competition regulators investigating the industry with open doors and cups of tea at a series of visits since the start of the year.
jlne.ws/1BKRZD3

Obama wants safeguards for retirement savers, but his plan is likely DOA
By Paul B. Farrell, MarketWatch
President Obama’s new fiduciary rule for retirement advice is DOA. Why? Not just because a 2004 GOP Senate killed the fiduciary rule Vanguard’s Jack Bogle has been pushing for over a half century. Not just because Wall Street banks will defeat any and every proposed fiduciary rule, just like they’ve been killing all bank reforms like Dodd-Frank since the 2008 crash. And not just because Janet Yellen’s Fed favors too-greedy-to-fail banks versus America’s 95 million Main Street investors.
jlne.ws/1wJoYr2

New FINRA Rule to Have ‘Detrimental Impact’ on Arb Process: Sutherland
By Melanie Waddell, ThinkAdvisor
Rule says those who worked in the financial industry for any duration will be called nonpublic arbitrators
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s recent approval of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority’s rule stating that individuals who worked in the financial industry for any duration will be called nonpublic arbitrators “will have a detrimental impact on FINRA’s arbitration process,” argues S. Lawrence Polk, partner with Sutherland Asbill & Brennan.
jlne.ws/1w6E8Gj

Self-Regulatory Organization (SRO) Rulemaking and National Market System (NMS) Plans
SEC
ISE: Notice of Filing and Immediate Effectiveness of Proposed Rule Change to Amend the Schedule of Fees (Release No. 34-74417; File No. SR-ISE-2015-06; March 3, 2015); see also Exhibit 5
ISE Gemini: Notice of Filing and Immediate Effectiveness of Proposed Rule Change to Amend the Schedule of Fees (Release No. 34-74416; File No. SR-ISEGemini-2015-04; March 3, 2015)
NYSE Arca: Notice of Filing of Proposed Rule Change To Eliminate Additional Order Type Combinations and Delete Related Rule Text and To Restructure the Remaining Rule Text in NYSE Arca Equities Rule 7.31 (Release No. 34-74415; File No. SR-NYSEArca-2015-08; March 3, 2015); see also Exhibit 5
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Information For Small Businesses
SEC
Market Infrastructure for Private and Unregistered Securities (March 4, 2015)
Secondary Trading Developments, slides for presentation at ACSEC Meeting, March 4, 2015 (March 4, 2015)
The U.S. Need For Venture Exchanges, slides for presentation at ACSEC Meeting, March 4, 2015 (March 4, 2015)
NASAA Multi-state Coordinated Review Program (March 4, 2015)
Discussion Draft of Accredited Investor Recommendations (March 4, 2015)
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Alternative Trading Systems, Effective Registrations as of March 1, 2015
SEC
jlne.ws/18lqhAR

Structured Products: Thematic Review of Product Development and Governance
UK FCA
Our recent work in the structured products market has focused on better understanding consumer behaviour and the way that firms approach product development and governance.
jlne.ws/1Ma8RGq

Exchanges & Trading Facilities

Exclusive: New CEO says BATS too busy for IPO anytime soon
James Dornbrook, Reporter- Kansas City Business Journal
Rumors that BATS Global Markets is considering an initial public offering are false, said Chris Concannon, who will become CEO on March 31.
jlne.ws/1A0rHIp

CME Group, LOOP and NEO Markets Reach Definitive Agreement to Develop First-Ever Physically Delivered Crude Oil Storage Futures Contract
MarketWatch
CME Group, the world’s leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, LOOP LLC, operator of the largest privately-owned crude oil terminal in the U.S., and NEO Markets, Inc., a leading online marketplace for U.S. physical oil transactions, today announced they had reached a definitive agreement to develop the first-ever physically delivered crude oil storage futures contract. The new LOOP Crude Oil Storage futures contract will begin trading on Sunday, March 29, 2015, for trade date Monday, March 30, 2015, pending all relevant CFTC regulatory review periods.
jlne.ws/1A0jTGK

CME Group to launch new physical crude storage contract
Reuters
The CME Group Inc will launch a physically delivered crude oil storage futures contract in the U.S. Gulf Coast at the end of March that traders say may be timely given record levels of stockpiles nationwide.
jlne.ws/1GZhMrh

HKEx CEO: derivatives, commodities to be added to Stock Connect in H2 2015
Reuters
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Ltd (HKEx) expects to add equity derivatives and commodities to a trading scheme linking the Hong Kong and Shanghai stock exchanges in the second half of 2015, Chief Executive Officer Charles Li said.
jlne.ws/1B6LZnG

100,000th block future reported to Baltex
Commodities Now
The Baltic Exchange’s electronic trading platform, Baltex, has now handled more than 100,000 block futures since launching its new block futures facility on 1 December 2014. The system allows brokers to use LCH.Clearnet’s clearing services while helping the FFA market to adapt to the changing regulatory environment.
jlne.ws/1BKViKC

AIAF ADMITS TO TRADING AN ISSUE BY CANAL DE ISABEL II FOR 500 MILLION EUROS
BME
AIAF, BME’s Corporate Debt Market, has admitted to trading a new unsecured bond issue by Canal de Isabel II, to the value of 500 million euros, which combines English and Spanish Laws.
(NO LINK)

BATS GLOBAL MARKETS FEBRUARY 2015 UPDATE: REPORTS 8.2 % U.S. OPTIONS MARKET SHARE, 20.7% U.S. EQUITIES MARKET SHARE, 23.7 % EUROPEAN EQUITIES MARKET SHARE
BATS
Company Also Announced Chris Concannon to Become CEO, Joe Ratterman Chairman
jlne.ws/1wXVPD6

CME Group Prices $750 Million Aggregate Principal Amount of Senior Unsecured Notes
CME Group
CME Group Inc. (NASDAQ: CME) today announced it priced an underwritten public offering of $750 million aggregate principal amount of senior unsecured 3.000% notes due 2025. The offering is being made under CME Group’s existing shelf registration statement and is expected to close on March 9, 2015, subject to customary closing conditions.
jlne.ws/1zOUgHS

Hedge Funds & Managed Futures

Billionaire’s divorcing wife wants at least $1M per month
By Michelle Celarier, NY Post
Anne Dias Griffin isn’t going to let her estranged hedge fund mogul hubby, Ken Griffin, bully her into accepting less than the $1 million a month she wants. In what is one of the financial industry’s most bitter divorce battles in years, Dias lambasted the mogul’s “personal attacks” on her lavish spending — and then quickly pointed out in court papers that he makes $68.5 million a month after taxes. That works out to $2.2 million a day, or $92,000 an hour.
jlne.ws/1Gnkv0k

Denmark’s Euro Love Affair a Lesson to Investors in Commitment; The nation’s 33-year-old peg won’t be shaken easily
by Peter Levring, Bloomberg
After rebuffing two invitations to join the euro, and amid lawmaker’s reluctance to call another vote, Danes seemed not to think too highly of Europe’s common currency.
jlne.ws/1Gnhlto

We Tried to Re-Create JPMorgan’s Mutual Fund Returns and Gave Up; The bank’s impressive mutual-fund-group performance figures come with little explanation
by Neil A Weinberg, Bloomberg
Last month at JPMorgan Chase’s 2015 investor day—where executives discuss results for the previous year in front of analysts and shareholders—the bank displayed impressive numbers for the performance of its mutual funds. Pie charts in the asset management unit’s presentation showed the percentage of money invested in funds that ranked in the top half of their categories: In fixed-income funds with 10-year records, the figure was 85 percent; for stock funds with 10-year records, it was 83 percent.
jlne.ws/17UKRYV

Banks & Brokers

Goldman Sachs Says Its Specialty Lender Will Be Listed on NYSE as GSBD; Goldman Sachs BDC targets borrowers with no credit ratings and annual earnings of between $5 million and $75 million
By Katy Burne, WSJ
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is signaling it is closer to listing its specialty finance company, two years after forming the unit.
jlne.ws/1zOHFEE

From Goldman to Google, Companies Back Gay Marriage in Supreme Court Brief; Apple, BlackRock, General Electric, and many more — 379 in all, as of Wednesday night — urge court to strike down bans
by Paul Barrett, Bloomberg
Large businesses from Main Street to Wall Street are urging the Supreme Court to strike down laws banning same-sex marriage.
jlne.ws/1A0j1ls

Citi’s Fix-It Man Guides Bank Through Stress Test; McQuade on drive to pass the Fed test: ‘This is our existential question’
By Christina Rexrode
Citigroup Inc. Chief Executive Michael Corbat last spring sent out invitations for a retirement party at an Italian restaurant in midtown Manhattan for Gene McQuade, a veteran banker with a reputation as a behind-the-scenes troubleshooter and peacemaker. Soon after, Citigroup failed the Federal Reserve’s annual stress test.
jlne.ws/1ALI6Qc

Bank Capital Rules: Would Smaller Banks Really Be Safer?
Bloomberg Business
New rules give big banks an incentive to shrink their balance sheets. But for most, massiveness remains part of the business plan
jlne.ws/1aMG1yv

Clearing & Settlement

The court ruling that proves Britain still has power inside the EU
Telegraph
This week the European Court of Justice slapped down a ruling by the European Central Bank on a challenge brought by the UK. While the challenge was complex, the results have implications for everyone in Britain. The ECB had sought to prevent financial clearing houses handling euro transactions above a certain threshold from operating outside the eurozone. As foreign exchange is big business for the City, and more than half of all the derivatives traded in the UK are euro-denominated, the verdict is extremely welcome news.
jlne.ws/1BKVcCD

The City beats the ECB: counterparty clearing houses can stay in London
IFA Magazine
The City of London will remain a home for central counterparty clearing houses after a Brussels court has overruled a previous decision by the European Central Bank (ECB).
The General Court of the European Union announced on Wednesday that it had annulled the Eurosystem Oversight Policy Framework published by the ECB that required central counterparties to be located in the Eurozone.
jlne.ws/1A0jQKY

Indexes & Products

Growth Indexes Get More Dynamic in 2015; Russell Indexes
MarketWatch
Both U.S. large and small cap stocks, as reflected by the Russell 1000 Index and Russell 2000 Index, respectively, have been driven by growth-oriented stocks in the last 12 months as of March 2. And yet while defensive-oriented growth stocks had the strongest performance in the last 12 months, 2015 to date as of March 2 has seen a notable shift in the growth area toward more dynamic-oriented stocks and sectors.
jlne.ws/1A0lOLg

FTSE adds nine Indian firms as large-caps in Asia-Pacific ex-Japan index
Reuters
Stock market index provider FTSE Group has added Bosch and raised the shares of eight other Indian companies, including Yes Bank, to large-caps from mid-cap earlier in its Asia Pacific ex-Japan index.
jlne.ws/1A0lUmd

Bond Traders Stymied by Gridlock Turn to Swaps: Credit Markets
Bloomberg Business
Trading in total-return swaps linked to bond indexes has surged to $4 billion a week, up from $2.4 billion a year ago, according to data compiled by BNP Paribas SA. JPMorgan Chase & Co. forecasts trading of the derivatives, which are meant to make it easier to place bullish and bearish bets in credit markets, will increase by as much as threefold this year.
jlne.ws/1A0jHqN

Why Apple doesn’t grow on the Dow Jones tree
Biznews
It may be by far the most valuable American company but Apple Inc still can’t get into at least one exclusive club – the 30-member Dow Jones Industrial Average.
jlne.ws/1A0lCf6

Russell Indexes Demotes Morocco to Frontier Status
ETF Trends
Russell Indexes, one of the largest providers of indexes for use by exchange traded funds, said it has demoted Morocco to frontier market status from the emerging markets classification.
jlne.ws/1A0lHPO

Technology

Gravitas Announces Enhancements to its Industry Leading Cybersecurity Threat Management Service Offering
Press Release
Gravitas announced today the improvement of its Cybersecurity Threat Management Service offering with upgrades to its Information Security Practices. To lead this initiative, Gravitas hired Omar McKenzie as Chief Information Security Officer, a new position designed to ensure the protection and integrity of client data. Gravitas is a leading collaborative outsourced technology provider for firms specializing in the alternative investment industry.
jlne.ws/1F9Cfsj

The Global State Of Financial Inclusion
PYMNTS.com
“If we were building a financial system from scratch today, we’d do it on a digital platform,” Bill Gates once said in an address on behalf of the Alliance for Financial Inclusion. That’s not possible, of course (as Gates acknowledges), but what is possible is launching innovative financial measures in developing nations that lack adequate access to banks and financial institutions.
jlne.ws/1BKXVw6

Instagram reveals new advertising format
Hannah Kuchler in London, FT
Instagram has created a new advertising format that allows marketers to include links to their products and websites, a move which could unleash a new wave of spending on the image-focused social network.
jlne.ws/1ALHU3q

Bitcoin’s golden moment: BIT gets FINRA approval
Brian Kelly, CNBC
Online wallet and exchange services such as Coinbase have made it incredibly easy for the everyday investor and user of bitcoin to buy the currency. But what if you want to buy and hold bitcoin as an investment? Or, what if you want to diversify your investment portfolio into this new asset class, but do not have the expertise or resources to securely procure and store bitcoin?
jlne.ws/1EiCuEh

Brandywine Global Selects SunGard’s Apex Collateral Solution to Support Margin Workflow Operations and Regulatory Reporting
Sungard
Brandywine Global, an investment manager affiliated with Legg Mason, one of the world’s largest asset management companies, has selected SunGard’s Apex Collateral solution to help support its growing collateral management business. Core to the firm’s requirements is the ability to comply with increased regulatory demands and improve the client experience by reducing counterparty credit risk.
(NO LINK)

Lloyds and AmEx back fintech startup competition
Finextra
Some of the biggest names in financial services are throwing their weight behind a UK competition giving fintech startups the chance to win a share of a £175,000 cash prize pot.
jlne.ws/1BKXIZC

Hubba hubba: fintech start-ups and investors can get intimate at Sydney hub Stone and Chalk
BRW
New, subsidised offices for financial technology start-ups in Sydney will provide venture capital funds and banks with potential acquisition opportunities, said inaugural chairman of the “hub” Craig Dunn.
jlne.ws/1BKXMbR

Enforcement

Two Arrested for Insider Trading on Toyota Tsusho Deal
by Takahiko Hyuga, Bloomberg
Tokyo prosecutors arrested two men on suspicion of insider trading relating to Toyota Tsusho Corp.’s 2014 acquisition of Tomen Electronics Corp.
jlne.ws/1aMFL2p

The Financial Conduct Authority imposes £2.1m fine and places restriction on Bank of Beirut after it misled the regulator
UK FCA
The Bank of Beirut (UK) Ltd (Bank of Beirut) has been fined £2.1m by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and stopped from acquiring new customers from high-risk jurisdictions for 126 days. In addition, the FCA has fined two approved persons at the bank.
jlne.ws/18Tj4ci

SEC Charges Texas-Based Brokerage Firm With Violating Supervisory and Customer Protection Rules
SEC
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged an Irving, Texas-based brokerage firm with violating key customer protection rules after failing to adequately supervise registered representatives who misappropriated customer funds.
jlne.ws/1EPZvgZ

Environmental & Energy

PEGAS: New monthly record in February – Strong PEGAS Futures driven by TTF Futures
EEX Press Release
PEGAS, the pan-European gas trading platform operated by Powernext, announced that a total volume of 79.9 TWh was traded in February 2015.
jlne.ws/1G0udCf

China to build grain stocks and cut coal use
By Henry Sanderson, FT
China plans to continue stockpiling grain, edible oil and other commodities but will reduce its consumption of coal as it plans to tackle air pollution.
jlne.ws/1G1tEYP

Carbon crash, solar dawn: Deutsche Bank on why solar has already won
By Giles Parkinson – REneweconomy
Deutsche Bank has produced another major report that suggests solar will become the dominant electricity source around the world as it beats conventional fuels, generates $5 trillion in revenue over the next 15 years, and displaces large amounts of fossil fuels.
jlne.ws/1B5B2Td

Momentum builds toward RET deal after ‘most significant discussion yet’
By Lisa Cox – The Sydney Morning Herald
A breakthrough in the long-running stand-off over Australia’s renewable energy target appears closer than ever, with the government and clean energy industry expressing optimism a deal can be done.
jlne.ws/1BTGRWl

China tries to ditch its coal addiction, reduce energy intensity
By Chen Aizhu, Dominique Patton and Kathy Chen – Reuters
China will boost efforts this year to rid itself of a strong addiction to coal in a bid to reduce damaging pollution as well as cut the energy intensity of its economy, which is expected to grow at its lowest rate in 25 years.
jlne.ws/1aMmjTw

University installs prototype ‘pee power’ toilet
By Rebecca Smithers – The Guardian
A prototype toilet has been launched on a UK university campus to prove that urine can generate electricity, and show its potential for helping to light cubicles in international refugee camps.
jlne.ws/1DY1HkX

Goldman Sees LNG as Biggest Commodity After Crude This Year
by Chou Hui Hong, Bloomberg
Global trade in liquefied natural gas will exceed $120 billion this year, taking it past iron ore as the most valuable commodity after oil, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said.
jlne.ws/1w6IM7a

Frontier Markets

HC extends stay on FTIL board’s supersession for a week; Makes FMC a party in petition to restrain govt, asks ministry to reply before next hearing, a week away
Dilip Kumar Jha, Business Standard
The high court here on Wednesday adjourned hearing till March 11 of the petition filed by Financial Technologies (FTIL) to stop the removal of its board of directors. The stay on this will continue till then.
jlne.ws/1DYMdx8

FTIL seeks legal advice on police’s EOW order; The company has been restrained from using its asset sale proceeds for any purpose other than legal expenses and salaries of employees
Business Standard
Financial Technologies (India) is seeking legal advice on the order of the city police’s economic offences wing which restrains its use of asset sale proceeds for any purpose other than legal expenses and salaries of employees. It said so to the BSE exchange.
jlne.ws/1wJq8Tq

Brazil’s BM&FBovespa stock, derivatives transactions fall in Feb
Reuters
Equities and derivatives trading at Brazil’s sole exchange operator BM&FBovespa SA showed a slight recovery in February from the prior month, amid challenging political and economic conditions in Latin America’s largest economy.
jlne.ws/1B6M9vd

India Shifting Capital Support to Target Most Profitable Banks
by Vrishti Beniwal, Anto Antony, Bloomberg
India’s support of state-controlled banks is shifting to target the most profitable lenders for capital injections, rather than propping up weaker peers, as the nation seeks to build a more robust financial system.
jlne.ws/1ALIFtl

Securities and Exchang Board of India Notices
SEBI
Order in the matter of ICore E-Services Limited and its directors
PR – Order in the matter of M/s Target People Social Security Scheme Micro Finance Limited
PR – Order in the matter of M/s Fishermen Development Micro Finance Limited
PR – Order in respect of Vaibhav Gandhi and Others
PR – Order in the matter of MCX Biz Solutions and its proprietor Mr. Syed Sadaq
Reliance MSCL India Domestic ETF
jlne.ws/12kCz9E

Miscellaneous

Chicago avoids $20 million payment after renegotiating swap contract
By Heather Gillers, Chicago Tribune
The city has managed to reduce a threatened $58 million in payments triggered by a downgrade of Chicago’s debt rating Friday, and the city may be able to avoid the expense altogether.
jlne.ws/1DYMb8s

READ MORE: John Lothian Newsletter: HKEx eyes extension of China link to trade futures; Virtu hopes time can heal HFT furore; Oil Bust Threatens CMBS in Wall Street Funded Shale Towns.

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