It’s been two years since an in-person FIA Expo in Chicago and judging from the effusive mood of the crowd, there was a lot of pent-up demand.
Kicking off two days of panels and fireside chats on Wednesday was FIA President and CEO Walt Lukken, who noted that while the industry adapted and was highly productive during those gap years, “there are certain synergies and intangibles that can’t be replicated.”
-Texas regulators take a startling turn against delta-8
At first glance, the October PanXchange Hemp: Benchmark & Analysis report looks like more of the same when compared with September’s, but a closer look shows several issues have intensified: price pressures in the hemp biomass sector from newly harvested supply, the continued controversy over (and demand for) for delta-8 and the use of hemp in animal feed.
With the 26th U.N. Climate Change Conference set to start October 31 in Glasgow, headlines on climate change are front and center. Watch to see which countries agree to take concrete action on climate change and implement the Paris Agreement.
In confirmation hearings Wednesday, CFTC Acting Chairman Rostin Behman told the Senate Agriculture Committee that crypto sector misdeeds already cited by the CFTC are “the tip of the iceberg,” and the agency needs more oversight power.
Cboe Global Markets’ Dave Howson took over as EVP and president, Europe and Asia Pacific in January 2020, a time marked by the challenges of Brexit and shutdowns related to the global pandemic.
In the second part of a two-part video interview, Howson talks about the timing of the September 2021 debut of Cboe Europe Derivatives, Cboe’s EU-based derivatives exchange. Customers had been requesting that Cboe start one for years, especially after its acquisition of Bats in 2017, he said, but the pieces finally aligned this year with Cboe’s purchase of EuroCCP, its clearing house in Amsterdam.
When Dave Howson took on the role of EVP and president, Europe and Asia Pacific at Cboe Global Markets in January 2020, two major external events — the U.K.’s transition away from the EU and the global pandemic — threw him some immediate curve balls.
In a video interview, his first for John Lothian News since taking over his current role, Howson talks about the challenges he faced and the ones he has overcome. Among the immediate goals was the plan to shepherd the launch of Cboe Europe Derivatives, the EU-based derivatives exchange that debuted September 6, 2021.
Investor interest in sustainable investments is expanding rapidly. A survey of 179 global asset owners published by FTSE Russell on October 7 found that more than 84% are implementing or evaluating sustainable investments in 2021, up from 53% in 2018. But with uniform criteria of those investments’ “green” attributes a work in progress, CME Group has jumped into the fray with its Sustainable Clearing Project.
“I know how to game this stuff.” “One can definitely manipulate if you’re aggressive.” “If you spoof this it really moves.” These excerpts from online chats among traders and hedge fund managers more than a decade ago played a key role in the Justice Department’s successful prosecution of two Wall Street traders in the latest trial to take on ”spoofing,” a form of market manipulation that was criminalized in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.
Although market competition and structure are hot topics in the securities industry, a Wednesday fireside chat at the STA 2021 conference on the competitive landscape between brokers and exchanges with Jonathan Kellner, CEO of MEMEX, and Joe Mecane, head of execution services at Citadel Securities, focused more on agreement than on discord.
Mid-range prices of hemp biomass were bobbing in a sea of red in the September PanXchange Hemp: Benchmark & Analysis report, but the exchange said it was standing by its forecast that prices for “quality 2021” biomass will rally after the current harvest.
Environmental markets are “transitioning to an asset class in their own right,“ said Gordon Bennett, managing director of utility markets for ICE and a panelist at a FIA IDX’s Tuesday presentation, “Exchanges and the Roll Out of New Sustainability Products.”
“They’ve changed a lot in the last two to three years” and are not just about carbon markets anymore, Bennett said. “Clearly, more people are getting involved” in ESG-related markets, Bennett added, noting that data in the CFTC’s Commitments of Traders Reports are starting to reflect a wider diversity of market participants.
The FIA’s IDX panel of executives from U.S. and EU derivatives exchanges on Tuesday quickly turned to a discussion of meeting the challenges of several of the new products currently demanded by investors and traders.
The Small Exchange said Thursday it has plans to notice file with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to list a stock index futures contract based on an index of 17 cryptocurrency-related publicly traded companies.
The Futures Industry Association Tuesday reported global exchange-traded volume volume was up 42.3% from the same period a year ago and 7.7% higher than in July 2021.
Editor
Suzanne Cosgrove is a journalist and communications professional who was formerly director of corporate communications at Cboe Global Markets. She is a contributing editor at John Lothian News.