Your guide to the happenings in derivatives markets and trading since 2000
John Lothian Newsletter
Today's Newsletter
Market Volatility Leads to Fresh Focus on Machinery Beneath Trading
Get a FREE 90 day trial of John Lothian Newsletter First Read Hits & Takes JLN Staff Longtime markets industry professional Robert T. Cox passed away at home on December 7 after a brief illness. Bob had recently traveled to Singapore for...
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JLN Options Newsletter
Today's Newsletter
Violent Reversals Fastest Since 2011; Volcker 2.0; VXX Termination
Observations & Insight Worldwide Exchange-Traded Derivatives November Volumes via FIA ****Look at APAC go! You can download a spreadsheet file with more in-depth breakdowns of the volumes and open interest here. ++++++ ****SD: The record for most overall cleared...
Everything you need to know about Options Today
Lead Stories
The Spread – A “Complete Guide” – 12/7/18
JLN discovered a copy of “The Complete Guide to Options Selling,” authored by the guys behind the now defunct “hedge fund” OptionSellers. It’s interesting to read in hindsight.
Market Outlook with Cboe’s Ed Tilly: Regs, Crypto and Liquidity
In this video, Cboe Chairman and CEO Ed Tilly addresses the SEC’s commentary on market data offerings, what’s next for crypto products, and the need to alter regulations that are hindering index options liquidity.
MarketsWiki
Page of the day
Robert Cox
Robert Cox was a vice president in the financial markets group of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and served for many years as a director of the Futures Industry Association. He passed away on December 7 after a brief illness.
CryptoMarketsWiki
Page of the day
Ethereum
"Is Ethereum a security?" The U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is asking for public feedback to help them understand how Ethereum and Ether are similar to, or different from, bitcoin.
Lead Stories
The Spread – A “Complete Guide” – 12/7/18
JLN discovered a copy of “The Complete Guide to Options Selling,” authored by the guys behind the now defunct “hedge fund” OptionSellers. It’s interesting to read in hindsight.
Market Outlook with Cboe’s Ed Tilly: Regs, Crypto and Liquidity
In this video, Cboe Chairman and CEO Ed Tilly addresses the SEC’s commentary on market data offerings, what’s next for crypto products, and the need to alter regulations that are hindering index options liquidity.
Bitcoin’s role in the Mueller investigation
What do the investigation by FBI special counsel Robert Mueller and bitcoin have in common? Potentially, they’re both connected to a Russian hacker named Alexander Vinnik.
Murphy & McGonigle Launches New Commodities & Futures Division To Help Firms Deal With Regulatory Challenges
These days, traders need good lawyers. They are a must-have in the age of regulatory overreach after the Dodd-Frank law, and for comprehending and complying with the rules as they get refined and re-tuned and as crypto markets come into the mix.
The Curious Case of Our Regulatory Environment (Part II), or Why the Earth Isn’t Flat.
Two years ago I wrote about the Commodity Futures Trading Commission enforcement action against Don Wilson and his company DRW Investments alleging price manipulation in certain financial instruments.
Wilson goes all in against the CFTC and the industry wins
There are traders who put their careers on the line every day in the markets. And then there’s Don Wilson, who put his career and firm on the line in court with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and won.
The Spread – “Florida Man” Edition – 11/30
The Spread is sponsored by MIAX. Sadly, it appears no one had a funny VIX-related sign at a sporting event this week, but never fear, there's plenty of content in this edition of "The Spread" - the Florida options trading firm blow-up,...
Tether: The Cryptocurrency Markets’ Sword of Damocles
If 2018 was the year of the ICO (initial coin offering), then October of 2018 was “Stablecoin Month.” Between the launch of new “stablecoins” like the Gemini Dollar and the ominous news surrounding Tether (the most commonly-used stablecoin in...
The Business Bitmain Dominates
Bitmain, maybe the world’s largest cryptocurrency company, told us a lot about the risks and rewards inherent in being a dominant actor in the fast moving cryptocurrency industry when it published its draft IPO prospectus. Whether that IPO...
Consensus: Invest recap
Chuck Mackie is a business development, PR and marketing specialist who is senior adviser at Maven Wave Partners. He is also a contributing editor to John Lothian News. In May 2018, Coindesk held its three-day Consensus conference in New York...
Predictive Analytics: Finding the Right Patterns
Can we predict the future? Or at least have a better conception of potential outcomes? PreData is on the case. In this video, PreData CEO Hazem Dawani discusses how his firm approaches predictive analytics. (Hint: there's a lot of data and...
To The Cloud and Back
"The coolest thing that is happening is these financial companies and high frequency trading companies are growing and growing to where they not only depend on our infrastructure for trading, but to run the company itself from an enterprise...
Bitcoin’s role in the Mueller investigation
What do the investigation by FBI special counsel Robert Mueller and bitcoin have in common? Potentially, they’re both connected to a Russian hacker named Alexander Vinnik.
Murphy & McGonigle Launches New Commodities & Futures Division To Help Firms Deal With Regulatory Challenges
These days, traders need good lawyers. They are a must-have in the age of regulatory overreach after the Dodd-Frank law, and for comprehending and complying with the rules as they get refined and re-tuned and as crypto markets come into the mix.
The Curious Case of Our Regulatory Environment (Part II), or Why the Earth Isn’t Flat.
Two years ago I wrote about the Commodity Futures Trading Commission enforcement action against Don Wilson and his company DRW Investments alleging price manipulation in certain financial instruments.
Wilson goes all in against the CFTC and the industry wins
There are traders who put their careers on the line every day in the markets. And then there’s Don Wilson, who put his career and firm on the line in court with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and won.
The Spread – “Florida Man” Edition – 11/30
The Spread is sponsored by MIAX. Sadly, it appears no one had a funny VIX-related sign at a sporting event this week, but never fear, there's plenty of content in this edition of "The Spread" - the Florida options trading firm blow-up,...
Tether: The Cryptocurrency Markets’ Sword of Damocles
If 2018 was the year of the ICO (initial coin offering), then October of 2018 was “Stablecoin Month.” Between the launch of new “stablecoins” like the Gemini Dollar and the ominous news surrounding Tether (the most commonly-used stablecoin in...
The Business Bitmain Dominates
Bitmain, maybe the world’s largest cryptocurrency company, told us a lot about the risks and rewards inherent in being a dominant actor in the fast moving cryptocurrency industry when it published its draft IPO prospectus. Whether that IPO...
Consensus: Invest recap
Chuck Mackie is a business development, PR and marketing specialist who is senior adviser at Maven Wave Partners. He is also a contributing editor to John Lothian News. In May 2018, Coindesk held its three-day Consensus conference in New York...
Predictive Analytics: Finding the Right Patterns
Can we predict the future? Or at least have a better conception of potential outcomes? PreData is on the case. In this video, PreData CEO Hazem Dawani discusses how his firm approaches predictive analytics. (Hint: there's a lot of data and...
To The Cloud and Back
"The coolest thing that is happening is these financial companies and high frequency trading companies are growing and growing to where they not only depend on our infrastructure for trading, but to run the company itself from an enterprise...
The Spread – College Football Edition – 11/16
A chance to talk sports?! And derivatives trading?! This week offered up a glorious opportunity for "The Spread" and we pounced. The following are links to the stories referenced in this week's episode: -Screenshot Image -> "Dabo Doesn't...
Spoofing: The Need for Regulatory Clarity
“You don’t want to get caught doing something that you thought was legal, but somehow it has wandered into the grey zone, somebody's taken a dislike to you, and then they throw the book at you three years afterwards.” In this video, Alex Lamb,...
Rethinking Risk Management
In times of ever changing catalysts, technologies and threats, how ought we to think about risk management? In this video, Alex Lamb, head of marketing and business development with The Technancial Company, and Keith Todd, executive chairman...
Coinigy Joins with Merkle Data to Provide Enhanced Data
Coinigy, the Milwaukee-based cryptocurrency trading front-end and data service, announced an agreement Tuesday in which Merkle Data would provide its three cryptocurrency indexes to Coinigy’s customers. Merkle Data provides analytics and risk...
2018 MarketsWiki Education Series
our series of talks featuring top professionals from the financial industry aimed at students, interns and first year professionals.
The Chicago Ecosystem For Crypto Assets And Blockchain Technology – Colleen Sullivan, CMT Digital
"In order to have a healthy ecosystem for a new industry you really need four components. One is government involvement/regulatory clarity, two is academic institution involvement, three is trade associations and other advocacy groups and the...
Rules for CEOs, Senior Managers, Interns and Bob’s Kids – Bob Fitzsimmons, Wedbush
"Understand the implications, the ramifications of what you do - what it does downstream and what it does upstream. Understand the whole process." What do "Patton," "The Right Stuff" and "Goodfellas" have in common? They're all used by Bob...
The Growing Value of Data – Oliver Albers, Nasdaq
"When I started in this business, data was very, very uncool. Trust me." Data is not uncool any longer. Consider that every minute there are more than 12 million texts sent and more than 4.3 million YouTube videos watched. It is estimated...
Lessons from My Crypto Career Risk – Tim McCourt, CME Group
"[In July 2000, my boss] said, 'Tim, tomorrow, you're going to start on the equity derivatives desk at JP Morgan.' I was like, 'Fantastic. I'm super excited.' I go home, no one really has a laptop, I got my first cell phone two weeks before -...
Avoiding Spoofing Shortfalls – Renato Mariotti, Thompson Coburn
Renato Mariotti prosecuted Michael Coscia for spoofing as a federal prosecutor, ran for Illinois attorney general and can frequently be seen on cable television commenting on current events. So when he talks about spoofing and markets, as...
Cognitive Flexibility in Finance – Kevin Darby, Blue Trading Systems
"Don't over-engineer it. There's a huge tendency, especially for technical people, to make up complexity." The problems Kevin Darby, managing partner at Blue Trading Systems, encounters as a fintech vendor are very different from those he...
Discussing “InfoSec” – Mike Phillips, VSEC
"How many small or medium business can survive a $3.5 million hit? When small and medium business get hit, they typically go out of business. When the big ones get hit, know what they do? They change their names." If it is connected then it...
