Regulatory issues were the first order of business at the first panel of FIA Asia Tuesday Morning (Monday night for those of us in Chicago) as Walt Lukken held a virtual fireside chat with Sharon Shi, chair of FIA Asia’s regional advisory board and managing director at G.H. Financials, and Bill Herder, FIA’s head of Asia-Pacific.
China’s new economy — and markets — appear to have found a new hedging tool.
In an interview with John Lothian News, Kevin Rideout, managing director, global client development at Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing Limited (HKEx), talked about the launch and reception for MSCI China A 50 Connect Index Futures, launched on October 18.
Timing is everything in the derivatives industry. In the case of IncubEx, which develops financial products in environmental, climate risk and related commodity markets, the company appears to be right on time.
In an interview with John Lothian News at FIA Expo, Dan Scarbrough, the founder, president and COO of IncubEx, described his start in the industry with the Chicago Climate Exchange more than 15 years ago. The Intercontinental Exchange bought the Chicago Climate Exchange and its parent company, the Climate Exchange, in 2010.
Robert Fitzsimmons, executive vice president at Wedbush Securities, spoke with John Lothian News at FIA Expo 2021 about his observations, insights and opinions on everything from the conference itself to the state of cryptocurrency today. As executive vice president, Fitzsimmons manages futures, fixed income groups, and securities lending.
Among the talking points from the conference, one topic of concern was the notion of disintermediation, which essentially cuts out the middle men — removing banks, brokers, or other third parties — allowing individuals to invest directly.
The story of FTX is, so far, a short but impressive one. As Brett Harrison tells it, the spot cryptocurrency exchange started only about a year ago. Now FTX does about $400 million in spot volume per day “and growing.” That’s after increasing the company’s user base by 50% in the last quarter.
But in an interview with John Lothian News at FIA Expo 2021, Harrison, the president of FTX, focused on the company’s larger ambitions. He noted that FTX recently acquired CFTC-regulated LedgerX, a clearinghouse and derivatives clearing organization (DCO), that it rebranded as FTX US Derivatives.The platform opens the door for FTX to offer crypto derivatives — futures and options — to its U.S. customers, he said.
Why bring Exegy Inc. and Vela Trading Systems together? The firms combined forces last May and two of their executives talked to JLN about the reason behind their merger at the FIA Expo 2021 in November.
David Taylor, Exegy’s chief technology officer and co-president, said the combination allows the companies to have more scale in the marketplace and gives them more opportunities to invest in the expansion of the company’s offerings. “Growing organically and inorganically was always part of our agenda,” he said.
Tom Lazenga is global head of sales at TNS, or Transaction Network Services, a fintech firm that provides global real-time data communication networks to industry participants. John Lothian News interviewed him at FIA Expo about the firm’s technology offerings and its plans for the future.
The intense market volatility seen during the beginning of the global pandemic, particularly in April and May, underscored both the interconnectedness of the markets and the fact that not every participant is at the same level, said Chris Edmonds, global head of closing and risk at the Intercontinental Exchange, Inc.
In a video interview with John Lothian News at FIA Expo 2021 following a roundtable on operational efficiencies, Edmonds said it became clear during COVID-19 and the abrupt move to working at home that more efficient ways to share information sooner are needed.
John Lothian News interviewed Ed Tilly, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Cboe Global Markets, at FIA Expo last week following a panel with other U.S. exchange leaders. Cboe is expanding across all geographies and asset classes, and its vision for global growth is providing access to all of its customers, Tilly said in the video interview.
CFTC Commissioner Dawn Stump rolled her eyes when asked who regulates cash cryptocurrency markets.
Speaking to John Lothian in a video interview following her keynote address last week at the FIA Expo, Stump said the question is “an unfortunate example” of what she sees as an ongoing mission to correct confusion over what agency regulates what entity.
The last panel of the day on the last day of Expo was surprisingly well attended – perhaps because it was about cryptocurrency, a topic that sprang up on many of the other Expo panels that were not even supposed to be discussing cryptocurrency.
Although the five speakers at a Thursday FIA Expo panel titled “Sustainability/ESG and Markets” agreed that the ESG sector is one of the biggest growth areas in the marketplace, they said it can be difficult to define exactly what ESG encompasses.
The “E” (for environmental) is self-evident, but the “social and governance components are much more challenging,” said Elizabeth Turner, Qontigo’s director of index product management.
In a keynote address at the FIA Expo on Wednesday, CFTC Commissioner Dawn Stump urged the industry, and regulators, to go back to the basics in their discussions of who should oversee digital assets and how they should be overseen before “engaging in a jurisdictional power-grab.”
“Out of a crisis comes innovation,” noted the moderator of a Wednesday FIA exchange leader panel, Jacqueline Mesa, who also is FIA chief operating officer and senior vice president of global policy.
She then asked the three panelists on the Wednesday FIA Expo panel, Terry Duffy, chairman and CEO of CME Group, Ed Tilly, chairman, CEO and president of Cboe Global Markets, and Jeff Sprecher, chairman and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, what big trends came out of the pandemic.
First Read $54,406/$300,000 (18.1%) ++++ Fireside Chat Launches FIA Asia with Regulatory Discussion By Sarah Rudolph - John Lothian News Regulatory issues were the first order of business at the first panel of FIA Asia Tuesday Morning (Monday night for those of us in...
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Observations & Insight EDITOR'S NOTE: We apologize for the delay in getting the newsletter out today. Our email provider was having technical problems. ++++ Fireside Chat Launches FIA Asia with Regulatory Discussion By Sarah Rudolph - John Lothian News Regulatory...
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