Your guide to the happenings in derivatives markets and trading since 2000
John Lothian Newsletter
Today’s Newsletter
Paul Volcker, Inflation Tamer Who Set Bank Risk Rule, Dies at 92; Robots in Finance Could Wipe Out Some of Its Highest-Paying Jobs
See also: Big U.S. banks’ reluctance to lend may have caused repo-market shock: BIS, It’s Ken Griffin’s World, We Just Live in It, and more.
We visit more than 100 websites daily for financial news (Would YOU do that?)
JLN Options Newsletter
Today’s Newsletter
Morgan Stanley Soared in Currency Derivatives Before Lira Mess; Time to Get Tactical on European Rates as Returns May Fall
See also: The Big Bet Now Is On Britain’s Unreliable Polls: Trading Brexit, Wave Goodbye to Libor. Welcome Its Successor, SOFR, and more.
Everything you need to know about Options Today
Lead Stories
Jim Downs – Open Outcry Traders History Project
Jim Downs learned about the CBOE from a personal finance class while an engineering student. He loved modeling the markets and found his way to the CBOE. After reading the Black-Scholes paper, he reverse engineered it in the Basic coding language on an Apple IIE.
Regulator Rumble
This week on The Spread – Bakkt’s CEO heads to Washington, the VIX perks up for the first time since October, and regulators debate over who has jurisdiction over SPIKES futures trading on MGEX.
MarketsWiki
Page of the day
Secured Overnight Financing Rate (SOFR)
In a Bloomberg opinion piece, the chair of the Alternative Reference Rates Committee, a public-private committee convened and sponsored by the Federal Reserve, recommends institutions stop using Libor as quickly as possible and move to SOFR.
Crypto MarketsWiki
Page of the day
BlockFi
BlockFi, the cryptocurrency financial institution that lends U.S. dollars against bitcoin and other cryptocurrency collateral, has begun offering zero-fee trading on its own platform.
John Lothian Newsletter
Today’s Newsletter
Paul Volcker, Inflation Tamer Who Set Bank Risk Rule, Dies at 92; Robots in Finance Could Wipe Out Some of Its Highest-Paying Jobs
See also: Big U.S. banks’ reluctance to lend may have caused repo-market shock: BIS, It’s Ken Griffin’s World, We Just Live in It, and more.
We visit more than 100 websites daily for financial news (Would YOU do that?)
JLN Options Newsletter
Today’s Newsletter
Morgan Stanley Soared in Currency Derivatives Before Lira Mess; Time to Get Tactical on European Rates as Returns May Fall
See also: The Big Bet Now Is On Britain’s Unreliable Polls: Trading Brexit, Wave Goodbye to Libor. Welcome Its Successor, SOFR, and more.
Everything you need to know about Options Today
Lead Stories
Tony Saliba – Open Outcry Traders History Project
MarketsWiki Education Open Outcry Traders History Project Tony Saliba was interviewed by John Lothian News for the MarketsWiki Education Open Outcry Traders History Project. Saliba is a trader, exchange member and financial industry technology and education executive...
Building New Markets: Matt Trudeau of ErisX
What does it take to build a new market? Matt Trudeau’s a good person to ask – he’s done it 12 times now, and he shared his experience with JLN during FIA Expo 2019.
Trading platform migration complete, Cboe’s Chris Isaacson outlines next steps
Chris Isaacson, Cboe Global Markets executive VP and chief operating officer, talked to JLN at FIA Expo 2019 about the exchange operator’s next steps after finishing the three-year-long migration of Cboe’s exchanges to Bats technology.
Paul R.T. Johnson Jr – Open Outcry Traders History Project
MarketsWiki Education's Open Outcry Traders History Project Paul RT Johnson, Jr. was recently interviewed by John Lothian News for the MarketsWiki Education Open Outcry Traders History Project. Johnson is a Chicago-based former futures broker,...
The Weekend Update: November 18-22, 2019
JLN PRESS ROOM PICK OF THE WEEK Chicago trading titan Don Wilson says Libor’s obituaries are premature (Bloomberg)—Chicago trading legend Don Wilson suspects the scandal-tainted Libor interest-rate benchmark is going to stick around past its...
The Spread: The CEM Gets SA-CC’d
This week on The Spread: the CEM is succeeded by the SA-CCR after a final ruling by the Fed, the FDIC, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the other OCC); MIAX launches SPIKES futures
Tariffs, Transitions, and STIRs: Wedbush’s Bob Fitzsimmons at FIA Expo
Bob Fitzsimmons, executive VP at Wedbush Securities, spoke with JLN at FIA Expo 2019 about the transition away from Libor to Sonia, SOFR and Ameribor, the potential for bitcoin contracts, FCM consolidation, and the impact of tariffs on the agricultural community.
Exchanges Powered By the Cloud: Connamara Systems’ Jim Downs at FIA Expo 2019
Jim Downs, founder and CEO of Connamara Systems, talked with JLN at FIA Expo 2019 about how the cloud can help minimize the impact of technology on the ability for entrepreneurs to start new exchanges.
Market Expansion, Data Solutions and Software as a Service: Trading Technologies’ Rick Lane, Part I
JLN FIA EXPO 2019 Industry Leader SeriesRick Lane, Chairman and CEO of Trading Technologies, sat down with JLN at FIA Expo 2019 to talk about market expansion and rebuilding at TT. He explains how TT is using its software as a service platform to try to...
Trading Technologies’ CEO Discusses the Jitesh Thakkar Case and Its Impact on the Trading Industry: Rick Lane Part II
JLN FIA EXPO 2019 Industry Leader SeriesAt FIA Expo 2019, TT's Rick Lane tells JLN that the Jitesh Thakkar case has already added cost to running businesses like TT. Tech firms have to invest in making sure that when they build bespoke solutions for...
Jeff Bernacchi – Open Outcry Traders History Project
MarketsWiki Education's Open Outcry Traders History ProjectJeff Bernacchi fell in love with futures trading on a trip to the exchange with his microeconomics class. He also recorded the best results in the class for paper trading. During college he was...
Taking low latency to the next level and rolling out in Asia: Vela Trading’s Ahmed Heikal
Vela Trading Product Manager Ahmed Heikal sat down with John Lothian News at FIA Expo 2019 to discuss some of the tech company’s latest initiatives, including the low-latency Ticker Plant appliance with FPGA card that he described as a...
Global Appeal: Tim McCourt of the CME Group
ESGs, S&P E-Minis, and Bitcoin Options – oh my! Tim McCourt stopped by the Eurex booth at FIA Expo 2019 to discuss how consumer demand has shaped the CME’s latest product offerings.
Donnie Roberts – Open Outcry Traders History Project
MarketsWiki Education's Open Outcry Traders History ProjectDonnie Roberts came to Chicago after graduating from graduate school with a love of futures and options trading. He chose Chicago over New York and London. He came to the visitor center of the...
Machine Learning in the Back Office: Bikram Singh of EZOPS
At FIA Expo 2019, Bikram Singh, the founder and CEO of EZOPS, talked with JLN about his company’s mission to apply machine learning in the post-trade process. Machine learning has been used in the front office for a while, but he says EZOPS uses it to maximize operational efficiencies to help the C-Suite minimize the time and resources spend dealing with reconciliation and managing data quality and correct “bad” data at its source.
Trading platform migration complete, Cboe’s Chris Isaacson outlines next steps
Chris Isaacson, Cboe Global Markets executive VP and chief operating officer, talked to JLN at FIA Expo 2019 about the exchange operator’s next steps after finishing the three-year-long migration of Cboe’s exchanges to Bats technology.
Paul R.T. Johnson Jr – Open Outcry Traders History Project
MarketsWiki Education's Open Outcry Traders History Project Paul RT Johnson, Jr. was recently interviewed by John Lothian News for the MarketsWiki Education Open Outcry Traders History Project. Johnson is a Chicago-based former futures broker,...
The Weekend Update: November 18-22, 2019
JLN PRESS ROOM PICK OF THE WEEK Chicago trading titan Don Wilson says Libor’s obituaries are premature (Bloomberg)—Chicago trading legend Don Wilson suspects the scandal-tainted Libor interest-rate benchmark is going to stick around past its...
The Spread: The CEM Gets SA-CC’d
This week on The Spread: the CEM is succeeded by the SA-CCR after a final ruling by the Fed, the FDIC, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (the other OCC); MIAX launches SPIKES futures
Tariffs, Transitions, and STIRs: Wedbush’s Bob Fitzsimmons at FIA Expo
Bob Fitzsimmons, executive VP at Wedbush Securities, spoke with JLN at FIA Expo 2019 about the transition away from Libor to Sonia, SOFR and Ameribor, the potential for bitcoin contracts, FCM consolidation, and the impact of tariffs on the agricultural community.
Exchanges Powered By the Cloud: Connamara Systems’ Jim Downs at FIA Expo 2019
Jim Downs, founder and CEO of Connamara Systems, talked with JLN at FIA Expo 2019 about how the cloud can help minimize the impact of technology on the ability for entrepreneurs to start new exchanges.
Market Expansion, Data Solutions and Software as a Service: Trading Technologies’ Rick Lane, Part I
JLN FIA EXPO 2019 Industry Leader SeriesRick Lane, Chairman and CEO of Trading Technologies, sat down with JLN at FIA Expo 2019 to talk about market expansion and rebuilding at TT. He explains how TT is using its software as a service platform to try to...
Trading Technologies’ CEO Discusses the Jitesh Thakkar Case and Its Impact on the Trading Industry: Rick Lane Part II
JLN FIA EXPO 2019 Industry Leader SeriesAt FIA Expo 2019, TT's Rick Lane tells JLN that the Jitesh Thakkar case has already added cost to running businesses like TT. Tech firms have to invest in making sure that when they build bespoke solutions for...
Jeff Bernacchi – Open Outcry Traders History Project
MarketsWiki Education's Open Outcry Traders History ProjectJeff Bernacchi fell in love with futures trading on a trip to the exchange with his microeconomics class. He also recorded the best results in the class for paper trading. During college he was...
Taking low latency to the next level and rolling out in Asia: Vela Trading’s Ahmed Heikal
Vela Trading Product Manager Ahmed Heikal sat down with John Lothian News at FIA Expo 2019 to discuss some of the tech company’s latest initiatives, including the low-latency Ticker Plant appliance with FPGA card that he described as a...
Global Appeal: Tim McCourt of the CME Group
ESGs, S&P E-Minis, and Bitcoin Options – oh my! Tim McCourt stopped by the Eurex booth at FIA Expo 2019 to discuss how consumer demand has shaped the CME’s latest product offerings.
Donnie Roberts – Open Outcry Traders History Project
MarketsWiki Education's Open Outcry Traders History ProjectDonnie Roberts came to Chicago after graduating from graduate school with a love of futures and options trading. He chose Chicago over New York and London. He came to the visitor center of the...
Machine Learning in the Back Office: Bikram Singh of EZOPS
At FIA Expo 2019, Bikram Singh, the founder and CEO of EZOPS, talked with JLN about his company’s mission to apply machine learning in the post-trade process. Machine learning has been used in the front office for a while, but he says EZOPS uses it to maximize operational efficiencies to help the C-Suite minimize the time and resources spend dealing with reconciliation and managing data quality and correct “bad” data at its source.
The Weekend Update: November 11-15, 2019
JLN PRESS ROOM PICK OF THE WEEK Gary Sagui – Open Outcry Traders History Project Gary Sagui started his career at Harris Bank in foreign exchange, then moved to New York for a bond trading job at firm that later failed. However, a chance...
The Spread – For Cheddar or Worse
This week on The Spread: MIAX scores another legal win, Nasdaq raises fees to pay for upgrades they hope will give them a competitive edge, and the CME Group gets cheesy with new options and futures contracts.