Why Trump Wants to Cryptofy the Futures Markets

Sep 24, 2026

First Read

Hits & Takes
John Lothian & JLN Staff

The Psaros Center at Georgetown University’s Financial Markets Quality Conference was a big success yesterday, with an auditorium filled with students, former regulators, media, and financial markets participants. I spoke with former CFTC commissioner Brian Quintenz, chatted with former CFTC chairman Rostin Behnam, and sat at lunch with former CFTC Chairman Tim Massad.

Also at the table were a group of Georgetown University graduate students, all from different Middle Eastern countries. They all hoped to find jobs in the U.S. after graduation. I asked about the environment they are finding, given their foreign status and the current administration’s hostile policies. They all concurred it was a difficult situation, but they were not deterred from their plans.

For me, it was a prime example of unneeded and onerous regulation that is harming U.S. economic growth. These students invested in a U.S. education, and Georgetown invested in them; because of difficult immigration policies, the students may not be able to repay that investment.

CME Group Chairman and CEO Terrence A. Duffy did not make it from Chicago to Washington, DC on Tuesday because inclement weather caused flight delays and cancellations; he delivered his conversation with Former House Financial Services Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry over Zoom. Duffy sharpened his criticism of prediction market contracts by citing the George Santos case, a low-hanging-fruit example he missed during the CFTC Innovation Committee meeting. He did, of course, bring up Joey Chestnut and the hot dog eating contest contract again.

Bloomberg was conducting interviews at the conference, and Brian Quintenz did a hit about Kalshi and its request to the CFTC for margin trading. Quintenz, who serves on the Kalshi Exchange board, spoke with Bloomberg’s Romaine Bostick.

President Donald Trump has ordered that from now on all U.S. documents must refer to AI as “super intelligence”. In keeping with this “super” theme, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has ordered testing of soldiers’ testosterone to ensure they are the manliest and bravest, speaking metaphorically, said that U.S. soldiers should have super balls. Well, that will put a bounce in their step.

Underdog is going to have to rebrand after this latest announcement, as a firm is no longer an underdog if they have deployed Eventus‘s Validus platform. Underdog announced that it has deployed Eventus’s Validus platform to conduct trade surveillance across its federally regulated prediction markets. Underdog launched its own CFTC-licensed designated contract market in July, offering event contracts on sports, culture and other topics through its existing app. Chief Compliance Officer Nick Thompson said Validus was selected for its regulatory track record, configurability and ability to support expanding trading volumes and products. Eventus CEO Cameron Routh said growing regulatory scrutiny of prediction markets requires surveillance standards comparable to those in traditional capital markets and digital assets.

Here are the headlines from in front of FOW’s paywall from some recent stories:

Have a great day and stay safe and treat people the same way you want to be treated: with respect, equality, and justice.~JJL

*****

Our most-read stories from our previous edition of JLN Options were:

OCC initial margin hits record $223bn after 38.1% surge from Risk.net.
Bitcoin’s $16 billion quarterly options settlement arrives with a ‘call-heavy’ book from CoinDesk.
Option Traders Bet Won’s Asia-Leading Rally Has Further to Run from Bloomberg. ~JB

Subscribe to the JLN Options Newsletter HERE (it’s free).

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Psaros family invests $25M in the Georgetown Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy
Georgetown Today
The Psaros family—including Michael G. (B’89) and Robin Psaros (Parents ’21)—has expanded its investment in the Georgetown Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy, bringing the family’s total commitment to the center to $25 million. Housed in Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, the Psaros Center is a leading destination for unbiased global finance and policy expertise. The family’s commitment includes an $11 million gift to endow the center in 2022 and a new $14 million investment made as part of the recently concluded Called to Be campaign.
/jlne.ws/4yU9nVN

****** This is an impressive program for financial markets in the heart of the U.S. Capital.~JJL

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Central Clearing Mandates and Market Power: Lessons from Swaps for U.S. Treasury Securities
Ketan B. Patel – Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Multiple central counterparties (CCPs)1 are poised to offer clearing services for U.S. Treasury transactions to support market participants’ compliance with the new U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) clearing mandate taking effect by year-end 2026 for cash securities and by mid-2027 for repurchase agreements (repos).2 The prior market experience of the clearing mandate for U.S. dollar-denominated (USD) over-the-counter (OTC) derivatives beginning in 2010 with the passage of the Dodd–Frank Act offers a useful analogue for the types of structural changes that may accompany this transition. If central clearing of U.S. Treasury transactions follows the trajectory of central clearing of OTC derivatives, then market participants can expect
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****** I will always remember an important lesson learned from Afghanistan. Always walk in the snow where there are already footsteps. There is a lot of wisdom in that lesson.~JJL

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Wednesday’s Top Three
Our most clicked story on Wednesday was If You Build It, They Will Come: Kevin Costner To Host Prediction Retreat, from In Game. Second was $5 Billion Flurry of Nearly Identical Kalshi Trades Draws Scrutiny, from The Wall Street Journal. Third was the registration page for Tokenized Equities After the SEC’s Innovation Exemption: BI Webinar taking place on Sep 28, 2026 at 8:00 AM Central Time, from Bloomberg.

Lead Stories

Why Trump Wants to Cryptofy the Futures Markets; Round-the-clock trading in perpetual futures already dominated crypto. Now it’s spilling over into mainstream assets.
Ryan Weeks – Bloomberg
At a White House event last month, Donald Trump praised financial regulators for “working very hard” to bring Hyperliquid, an online exchange whose developer is based in Singapore, to the US. While Trump prides himself on being the pro-crypto president — one who has digital currencies named after him and whose family is heavily invested in the space — Hyperliquid isn’t an ordinary cryptocurrency operation. It specializes in perpetual futures contracts — also known as perps — which are linked to everything from crypto and crude oil to precious metals and shares in US companies. They have the potential to change, for better or worse, how people invest in, well, almost everything.
/jlne.ws/4yeyVx6

The ‘Monster’ Behind Russia’s Global Effort to Evade Western Sanctions; A Moscow firm uses shell companies and cryptocurrency to launder money, and a custom app to forge trade records, to help Russia bypass sweeping financial restrictions.
Aaron Krolik – The New York Times
The cover story was simple. The Trading Company of the Kyrgyz Republic, an official government entity, was paying $1 million for a bulk shipment of car floor mats, auto body polish, safety glasses and rope. In reality, the money was for the kind of drone parts that have helped power Russia’s war machine. The scheme from early last year was one of thousands of instances of sanctions evasion orchestrated by A7, a Moscow-based financial services firm whose internal documents were leaked online by hackers late last year.
/jlne.ws/4hnOI5c

Jane Street to double London office space after breakneck growth; Firm is taking 465,000 sq ft at One Spitalfields in a so-called pre-let deal
Julie Steinberg – Financial Times
Jane Street is doubling its London office space after outgrowing its current premises near Liverpool Street during a period of breakneck growth for the specialist trading firm. The firm is taking 465,000 sq ft at One Spitalfields in a so-called pre-let deal, in which a tenant commits to a lease before the building is completed. The site currently houses law firm A&O Shearman, which plans to move out in 2027. Jane Street will be able to move in after 2029, after JPMorgan Asset Management has finished redeveloping the building.
/jlne.ws/4jnaHvL

Judge Orders Trump to Lift Ban on CNN, MS NOW, Politico; Some reporters say they were still denied access to White House Thursday despite ruling
Gareth Vipers and Lydia Wheeler – The Wall Street Journal
A federal judge ordered President Trump to temporarily restore White House access for CNN, MS NOW and Politico journalists, days after the news organizations were banned over their coverage of the administration. The removal of reporters’ press badges was likely done without “constitutionally adequate due process,” Judge Timothy Kelly said in a ruling issued early Thursday. The general rule is that individuals must receive notice and an opportunity to be heard before the government deprives them of a constitutionally protected interest, he said.
/jlne.ws/4yeMCw0

White House Still Bars CNN, MS NOW and Politico Despite Court Ruling; A federal court ordered President Trump to reverse his ban on the three news outlets around 1 a.m. Thursday, but none were granted entry later that morning.
Michael M. Grynbaum – The New York Times
The Trump administration barred journalists from CNN, MS NOW and Politico from entering the White House grounds on Thursday morning, hours after a federal judge ordered the immediate restoration of their access. It was not initially clear if the administration was intentionally defying the judge’s order, or if the journalists had been blocked because of some logistical confusion among security personnel. Judge Timothy J. Kelly of the U.S. District Court in Washington issued his order overnight, at around 1 a.m. Eastern.
/jlne.ws/4yeFkIo

Exclusive | BlackRock Investment Portfolios Debut on the Blockchain as Digital Tokens; Three model portfolios developed by the money manager will hold baskets of ETFs and be tokenized by Ondo Finance
Vicky Ge Huang – The Wall Street Journal
BlackRock has built three investment portfolios that will trade as digital tokens, marking the asset manager’s latest push to bring traditional assets to the alternative financial system that powers cryptocurrencies. The world’s largest asset manager’s model portfolios, or preset investing templates, will be tokenized by Ondo Finance. In tokenized form, funds, stocks and other assets can trade on the blockchain, the digital ledger that underpins many cryptocurrencies.
/jlne.ws/4dSXdnW

Crypto Doesn’t Need a Whole New Set of Laws
The Editorial Board – Bloomberg
For at least eight years, Congress has been trying and (mostly) failing to create a special set of rules for digital assets and the markets they trade on. It’s worth asking how much, if any, of that was advisable. The latest effort, the 635-page Clarity Act, collapsed this month over an attempt to limit conflicts of interest among federal officials. The bill’s failure was a blow to the industry, which had lobbied and donated to legislators in hopes of winning a new legal framework for blockchain-based tokens and business models.
/jlne.ws/3TNrA8z

Kalshi says it is not being investigated by the CFTC over trading activity
Helene Braun – CoinDesk
Kalshi said it has not been contacted by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and does not believe it is under formal investigation, pushing back against reports of regulatory scrutiny over trading activity on the prediction market. “We have not been contacted by the CFTC and don’t believe there is any formal examination,” Kalshi spokesperson Elisabeth Diana said in a statement. “As we’ve said, these data patterns are typical of liquidity incentive programs and common in financial markets.”
/jlne.ws/4d15QfU

Blockchain.com, NYSE plan access to tokenized US stocks and ETFs
Yogita Khatri – The Block
Blockchain.com and the New York Stock Exchange have signed a memorandum of understanding to give Blockchain.com users access to tokenized U.S. exchange-listed stocks and exchange-traded funds through NYSE’s planned digital platform. The service is not yet live. It depends on the launch of NYSE’s digital alternative trading system, or ATS, and any required regulatory approvals. If launched, Blockchain.com’s global users could trade tokenized versions of U.S. stocks and ETFs outside regular market hours.
/jlne.ws/4xBAO5D

Cathie Wood Tokenizes $1.3 Billion Venture Fund to Trade 24/7
Isabelle Lee – Bloomberg
Cathie Wood is putting one of her investment funds on the blockchain for the first time, deepening her ties to the growing world of tokenized assets as Wall Street experiments with a new financial infrastructure. The $1.3 billion ARK Venture Fund, which launched in 2022, is a closed-end interval fund that invests in some of the hottest public and private companies, like Anthropic, Kalshi Inc., Elon Musk’s SpaceX, as well as Stripe Inc., according to its website. The fund will be moved to the blockchain by Securitize Corp., a recently public tokenization platform in which ARK Invest has a stake, and it will be available on Ethereum.
/jlne.ws/4AwmFcK

Former CFTC Commissioner on Prediction Market Regulation (video)
Bloomberg via Yahoo Finance
Former CFTC Commissioner and Kalshi Exchange Board Member Brian Quintenz speaks about the firm’s margin trading request to the CFTC with Bloomberg’s Romaine Bostick from the Financial Markets Quality Conference at Georgetown University.
/jlne.ws/3VshDxN

Vitol Trader Confirmed Radiant World Deal That Vitol Now Denies
Jack Farchy, Katherine Doherty, Archie Hunter, Clara Ferreira Marques and Preeti Soni – Bloomberg
A trader at Vitol Group in India confirmed at least one transaction between his company and Radiant World that Vitol later said wasn’t genuine, adding a further layer of complexity to a saga that has drawn in some of the biggest names in commodity trading. Kunal Ahuja, who worked at Glencore Plc for more than a decade before joining Vitol in 2024, verified the transaction to Radiant World lender Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, and separately confirmed other trades to Jefferies Financial Group Inc., according to a Radiant World legal filing seen by Bloomberg News and people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue.
/jlne.ws/4AvoK8E

US rejects pleas from OpenAI, Anthropic for global AI standards
Kali Hays – BBC News
The heads of OpenAI, Anthropic, and Hugging Face have told the UN that the current pace of artificial intelligence (AI) development, and the risks it poses to society, demands international coordination. Altman called for common risk evaluation standards, as did Dario Amodei of Anthropic, a main rival of OpenAI, and Clement Delangue of Hugging Face. Earlier this month, Amodei wrote an essay welcomed by Altman and others calling an AI development slowdown in response to fears about the technology’s threat to humanity.
/jlne.ws/4j54Xab

CFA First Level Pass Rate Rises to 43%, Above Decade Average
Katherine Doherty – Bloomberg
The pass rate for the first level of the chartered financial analyst exam rose above its decade average, while those delaying their test-taking continued to see a lower chance of success. In August, 43% of candidates passed the Level I exam, up from the 39% in May and down from 45% for those who took the test in February, the CFA Institute said Thursday. The rate is back above the 40% average for the past 10 years, as well as the unusual lows from 2021, when exam performance was impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
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NOVEL PRODUCTS

Prediction Markets

How much is Kalshi really worth? A detailed report says as much as $42 billion—if everything goes right
Jeff John Roberts – Fortune
Since prediction markets exploded in popularity in 2024, the industry’s two leading players, Kalshi and Polymarket, have been raising staggering amounts of money. In the case of Kalshi, the startup notched a $1 billion Series F in May that valued it at $22 billion, and investors are eyeing an initial public offering as soon as next year. But even as the company pulls in gobs of revenue, its business model faces huge uncertainty due to a looming Supreme Court case that raises the question of whether that valuation is justified. Now, research firm PitchBook has put out a 46-page report that seeks to define Kalshi’s true worth.
/jlne.ws/3UYWYS1

Underdog leverages Eventus Validus platform for trade surveillance across its markets
Eventus
Eventus, a leading provider of comprehensive, at-scale trade surveillance and financial risk solutions, and Underdog, the sports prediction market and fantasy sports pioneer, today announced that Underdog is using the Eventus Validus platform for trade surveillance on its designated contract market (DCM). Surveillance and monitoring procedures are actively running across Underdog’s markets, and the marketplace is continuing to expand its use of Validus capabilities. In July, Underdog announced the launch of its own federally licensed prediction market exchange, wholly owned and operated by Underdog and licensed by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), which provides customers even more ways to express their opinions on sports, culture and beyond, all within the existing Underdog app.
/jlne.ws/4xN8vS7

Robinhood’s Prediction Markets Move Beyond Sports: Why It Matters
Swayta Shah – Yahoo Finance
Robinhood Markets’ HOOD prediction market business has emerged as one of its most important growth engines. But its rapid expansion has also brought increasing regulatory attention, particularly around sports-related contracts. Recent comments from CEO Vlad Tenev suggest the next phase of growth could look different. Crypto-linked event contracts are already taking a “disproportionate share” of activity, according to Tenev, who expects sports to eventually represent a minority of prediction-market activity.
/jlne.ws/47g13DV

Prediction markets behaving badly, but will regulators act?
Steven Stradbrooke – CoinGeek
Prediction markets offered more controversy this week thanks to allegations of wash trading by market makers, but do regulators or elected officials care? Prediction markets gave many customers their first exposure to digital assets during this summer’s FIFA World Cup; now the platforms are hoping these customers will enjoy betting on whether digital asset prices rise or fall. On September 18, Vlad Tenev, CEO of the Robinhood (NASDAQ: HOOD) trading platform that added a prediction market to its app last year, appeared on CNBC’s Mad Money program. Challenged as to whether prediction markets were just making sports bets more widely available, Tenev suggested that while wagering on sports ‘events’ might currently be prediction markets’ bread & butter, betting on crypto price movement might be the next big thing.
/jlne.ws/4rDo4dt

Can prediction markets create the future they predict?
Leslie Alan Horvitz – Asia Times
Prediction market platforms allow people to bet on real-world events like politics, culture, economics, war, and sports. Their defining feature is the buying and selling of contracts. They operate on a peer-to-peer model in which participants buy and sell contracts tied to the outcome of future events rather than betting against a bookmaker.
/jlne.ws/3VbHE4q

The pope tried to ban prediction markets in 1591. It didn’t go well.
Ryan Chan-Wei – The Washington Post
One of the earliest recorded crackdowns on a prediction market was a papal decree. In 16th-century Rome, bets on who would become the next pope were commonplace. So much so that in 1591, Pope Gregory XIV threatened excommunication for anyone caught betting on a conclave. Nevertheless, the wagering was not extinguished. The odds once quoted openly across Rome continued circulating behind closed doors and eventually resurfaced in the centuries that followed. When white smoke rose over the Sistine Chapel in 2025, tens of millions of dollars were riding on the outcome in prediction markets.
/jlne.ws/4ANMfu7

Prediction markets face questions over reported volume and fraud schemes
Yahoo Finance Video
/jlne.ws/4iMlDTE

Susquehanna’s 80-Person Prediction Team Launches Student Contest
Ben Weiss – Bloomberg
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Underdog Partners with Birches Health to Expand Player Protection Measures and Resources
Business Wire
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Sports & Gaming

Report: World Cup Broadcasts Averaged Almost One Prediction Market Logo Per Minute
Dustin Gouker – The Event Horizon
Anyone who watched the World Cup saw a lot of prediction market advertising. But how much? A new study from the University of Bristol in the UK gave us an answer. The findings were published in a report called The Price of the Beautiful Game: How the Biggest FIFA World Cup Ever Became a Global Platform for Promoting Harmful Products. The study told us that viewers saw 1.5 “gambling and prediction market logos per minute”:
/jlne.ws/4xMaUwm

California: Gaming tribes urged to enlist city, county attorneys in prediction market battle
Chris Sieroty, Managing Editor, CDC Gaming – CDC Gaming
Kalshi’s decision to seek a rehearing of a federal appeals court ruling is likely to fail, according to a veteran gaming attorney. Earlier this month, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that two federally recognized tribes deserved a preliminary injunction, because they would likely show that Kalshi’s contracts violated the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) and the tribes’ own gaming regulations.
/jlne.ws/4Awgzcm

DraftKings’ and FanDuel’s Necessary Push Into Prediction Markets: Analysis
Brant James – The Lines
The collective business arcs of DraftKings and FanDuel have taken the gambling giants from brash daily fantasy providers to insurgent, then dominant legal sports betting platforms in the United States, to billion-dollar companies protecting investors by pivoting into a legally contentious new opportunity. Ultimately, the decisions to launch FanDuel Predicts, DraftKings Predictions, and DKeX to capitalize on the fervor for sports event contracts that, opponents contend, very much resemble sports betting, even in states that haven’t legalized the practice, could prove to be the next lucrative turn for these ambitious companies.
/jlne.ws/4rts8wN

Why prediction markets want LeBron James and other sports superstars
Itay Goder – CTECH
In a brief, 14-second video posted to his X account, LeBron James is seen stepping out of an elevator after pressing a button labeled “Sports.” Other options on the control panel included politics, crypto, economics, climate, gaming and technology. The accompanying caption was concise: “Step inside Polymarket HQ.” James’s decision to film himself in an elevator connecting crypto, politics and sports was no coincidence. It reflected a broader shift in the fintech sector, where sports is increasingly being treated not simply as a category of entertainment and leisure, but as another source of tradable outcomes in a global market.
/jlne.ws/46GhxFq

Sports trading drives boom in prediction markets’ trading volume
Kaitlyn Radde – Pew Research Center
The combined monthly global trading volume on Kalshi and Polymarket – the two leading prediction markets – more than doubled in the span of two months. It rose from $26 billion in May to $53 billion in July, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from The Block, a digital assets media and information firm.
/jlne.ws/4AJkO4y

Exclusive | Barry Diller Withdraws Bid for MGM Resorts
Jessica Toonkel – The Wall Street Journal
Barry Diller on Wednesday said he is withdrawing his bid for MGM Resorts after months of discussions with the company. Diller’s People Inc. offered in June to buy the remaining stake of the casino company it didn’t already own, in a deal valuing the company at around $12.4 billion. People holds a roughly 27% stake in MGM. The Wall Street Journal reported in July that MGM had set up a board committee and lined up advisers to evaluate the bid.
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The AGA is calling an audible
Ken Adams – CDC Gaming
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Perpetual Futures

Payward plans U.S. onchain perpetual futures via Hyperliquid, pending regulatory approval, boosting HYPE token potential.
Pluang
Payward, Kraken’s parent company, proposes launching onchain perpetual futures markets in the U.S. using Hyperliquid’s infrastructure, pending regulatory approval. This move could expand Hyperliquid’s reach to U.S. traders and increase trading fees, which are largely used to buy HYPE tokens, potentially raising their value. The plan involves regulated entities handling compliance while leveraging Hyperliquid’s blockchain order book. If approved, this could validate Hyperliquid’s infrastructure and grow its market presence significantly.
/jlne.ws/4xN9wtp

The rise of the $100-billion RWA perp market
a16z crypto editorial and Ryan Holloway – a16z crypto
Trading in perpetual futures tied to stocks, gold, and other traditional assets is growing fast. And an increasing share of that activity is now happening onchain. These contracts, often referred to as real-world asset (or RWA) perps, give traders exposure to the prices of traditional assets without actually buying the asset itself. Unlike conventional futures, they don’t have a scheduled expiration, and some venues also offer 24-hour trading, seven days a week. This includes weekends, when major commodity futures markets and stock exchanges are closed.
/jlne.ws/3VO1aUI

World Conflicts

Ukraine Invasion

Russia’s Krasnodar region declares state of emergency as drone attacks slow grain exports
Reuters
The governor of Russia’s southern Krasnodar region, a major agricultural producer, has declared a state of ‌emergency over Ukrainian drone attacks that have inhibited the export ‌of grain, a move which allows those affected to receive compensation. Both Russia and Ukraine have stepped up attacks on the other side’s grain vessels in the Black Sea in recent months, sending global prices higher.
/jlne.ws/4jjSRtA

Rosneft billions fed Kremlin-backed money laundering network; FT investigation shows the state oil group’s hard currency was at heart of Russia’s efforts to circumvent sanctions
Anne-Sylvaine Chassany, Chris Cook and Anastasia Stognei – Financial Times
Billions of dollars of Rosneft’s foreign earnings were funnelled through a Kremlin-backed money laundering network, putting the state oil group at the heart of Russia’s efforts to circumvent sanctions and supply its war in Ukraine. A vast leak from inside A7, a Moscow-backed fintech company, shows that Rosneft-connected traders supplied more than $2bn in vital hard currency to the group, which has paid for battlefield supplies and other imports to Russia.
/jlne.ws/4iMnYhs

Middle East Conflict

The Houthis Sustain Their War Machine With Chinese Goods
Veena Ali-Khan and Simon Marks – Bloomberg
Inside a warehouse in the southern Yemeni port of Aden, weapons experts worked their way through the contents of a shipping container from a commercial vessel that had been en-route to Hodeida, a Red Sea city controlled by the Houthis. It was July, and the cargo had been sitting under guard for months. Spread before the authorities were industrial machines, chemicals and components shipped from China and bound for the Iran-backed militant group. Some looked innocuous. Others did not.
/jlne.ws/4rp8XEg

How the Panama Canal Became a 50-Mile Waterway With a $5 Million Ticket Price; High bids to use the waterway follow shipping disruptions from the Iran war and extreme weather
Santiago Perez and Costas Paris – The Wall Street Journal
Large cargo ships have recently paid up to $5 million to pass through the Panama Canal, as the global shipping industry reacts to trade disruptions from the Iran war and extreme weather patterns in the Western Hemisphere. The recent bids to use the 50-mile interoceanic waterway, which handles almost 6% of global trade, reflect the canal’s crucial role at a time when shipping companies have been forced to shift maritime routes.
/jlne.ws/4iRdttf

Other Conflicts

France Warns of Wider Russian Threat in UN Face-Off With Lavrov
Andrea Palasciano – Bloomberg
France’s top diplomat warned of the dangers of increasing Kremlin aggression ahead of a tense United Nations Security Council meeting in New York that brought Ukraine and Russia face to face. “Russia is lashing out at Europe in its entirety,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said, condemning a wave of Russia attacks on European soil. “There’s not one state that is now not ill at ease.”
/jlne.ws/4rMECjv

Russia could attack Nato country within months, Denmark warns; Intelligence service cites ‘low but growing risk’ of troop movement into neighbouring country or attack on infrastructure
Richard Milne – Financial Times
Russia could launch a limited military attack against a Nato country in the coming months, according to Danish intelligence, in the bluntest warning yet by western security services. The Danish Defence Intelligence Service said on Thursday that there was a “low but growing risk” that Russia could move a small number of troops, possibly without insignia, into a neighbouring country or use long-range weapons on infrastructure used to support Ukraine.
/jlne.ws/4hMTMAH

Poland says fire at Starlink station is sabotage as Denmark warns of rising Russian threat
Alys Davies – BBC
A fire at a Starlink satellite station in central Poland was a deliberate “act of sabotage”, a government minister has said. Polish Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski said the fire in the Masovian Voivodeship province was “deliberately designed to disable the station… disrupting internet access for various institutions, including the Ukrainian army”.
/jlne.ws/4ynqfV5

Europe Warns of Russia’s Hybrid Attacks but Struggles to Counter Them; If President Vladimir V. Putin was hoping to get Europeans’ attention, he’s succeeded with a series of close-call incursions. The question now is what they will do about it.
Lara Jakes – The New York Times
An explosive-laden drone at a German airport. A strike on a passenger train near the Polish border. A rush of warnings about more chaos to come. If President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia was hoping to heap pressure on Ukraine’s closest allies, he’s succeeded with a series of provocations that Western officials have blamed on Russia and said could put citizens of NATO countries in danger. The question is how Europe responds.
/jlne.ws/46Gya3O

EXCHANGES OTC CLEARING

‘Y’all Street’: Texas Stock Exchange Sees First Listing Transfer
Hannah Brewer – The Texan
Dallas’ “Y’all Street” continues to capitalize on momentum as the Texas Stock Exchange (TXSE) enters a new era of growth. North Texas has added a stock exchange alongside its iconic stockyards, and companies are beginning to flock to the TXSE’s transfer portal. TXSE opened in July, and September has seen the first corporate commitments and primary listing transfers.
/jlne.ws/4rspaZr

Iress joins ASX Australian Liquidity Centre to strengthen market connectivity
ASX
Iress is joining the ASX Australian Liquidity Centre (ALC), the exchange-operated data centre that serves as the core connectivity hub for Australia’s financial markets ecosystem. The ALC is a purpose-built Sydney facility operating at the heart of the market and hosts more than 100 financial institutions, including buy-side firms, sell-side firms, alternative liquidity venues, independent software vendors, and infrastructure and network providers.
/jlne.ws/4xMgoXY

ASX response to the 2026 RBA Financial Stability Standards Assessment
ASX
ASX acknowledges today’s release of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA) 2026 Financial Stability Standards (FSS) Assessment of ASX’s clearing and settlement (CS) facilities. The Assessment covers the period from 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026.
/jlne.ws/4hbD7aJ

Introducing Binance.US Wallet
Binance.US
The Binance.US Wallet is a self-custody wallet that lets you swap thousands of tokens across major chains, explore dApps, and store, send, and receive crypto with confidence.
/jlne.ws/4rxMcyb

MARF Registers a New Long-Term Debt Program from Ontime for 100 Million Euros
BME Bolsas y Mercados Espanoles
BME’s Alternative Fixed-Income Market, MARF, has registered a new long-term bond program (Sustainability-Linked Senior Unsecured Notes Programme) from Ontime Corporate Union with a maximum amount of 100 million euros.
/jlne.ws/4hlqc4V

Bybit Unveils "Make Your Move" as New Global Brand Campaign for The New Financial Platform
Bybit – PR Newswire
Bybit, the New Financial Platform trusted by more than 80 million users worldwide, today announced “Make Your Move,” a new global campaign that marks the next stage in the company’s evolution beyond crypto trading.
/jlne.ws/4AsrcwM

JP Morgan adopts DTCC’s CTM workflow to drive efficiency for US listed options
Natasha Cocksedge – The TRADE
JP Morgan has confirmed that it is leveraging the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation’s (DTCC) institutional trade processing central matching service, CTM, to enhance the firm’s capabilities in the US listed options market. The offering will allow JP Morgan to bolster its straight-through processing (STP) offering for clients, while also boosting operational efficiency and mitigating risk.
/jlne.ws/4xMmAzc

Asset owners focus on governance as concerns about climate risk rise, FTSE Russell survey finds
LSEG
FTSE Russell, LSEG’s global index provider, today published the findings from its ninth annual asset owner survey, exploring trends in sustainable investment adoption and asset owners’ priorities, concerns and approaches to key risks and opportunities globally. While sustainable investment may be less visible, it is becoming more deeply embedded in investment decision-making. 84% of asset owners are now incorporating sustainability considerations into investment strategies, up from 73% in 2025. A further 15% are evaluating implementation, meaning nearly every respondent is either already taking sustainability factors into account or considering how to do so.
/jlne.ws/4hib8F5

Miami International Holdings Announces OCC Clearing Membership for its FCM
Miami International Holdings
Miami International Holdings, Inc. (MIAX®) (NYSE: MIAX), a technology-driven leader in building and operating regulated financial markets across multiple asset classes, today announced that its full-service futures commission merchant, Dorman Trading (FCM), is now a clearing member of The Options Clearing Corporation (OCC), the world’s largest equity derivatives clearing organization. MIAX also announced it increased the net capital in the FCM by $40 million, bringing its adjusted net capital to approximately $68 million as of August 31, 2026 and further demonstrating its commitment to the FCM’s strategic growth objectives.
/jlne.ws/4AsGAcw

XRP Ledger Restarts Permission Delegation Vote With Security Fix And October 5 Target
MEXC Blog
The XRP Ledger has restarted the activation process for PermissionDelegationV1_1, an amendment designed to let an account grant another account narrowly defined powers without surrendering full key control. The feature entered a 14-day countdown on September 21 after 29 of 35 trusted validators supported it. If backing remains at or above the required 80%, activation could occur on October 5 at 11:18 UTC; falling below the threshold resets the clock.
/jlne.ws/3TJzsrI

IPO or Reverse Merger? Choosing the Right Route to the Public Markets
SIX Group – SIX Group
While the traditional IPO remains the preferred path to going public for many companies, reverse mergers can offer an alternative route. At Investora, capital markets experts discussed the opportunities, considerations and success factors companies should evaluate when exploring a stock exchange listing. Sascha Hilber, Head Primary Markets Switzerland at SIX Swiss Exchange, participated in the panel discussion alongside representatives from the ecosystem.
/jlne.ws/46Gw5Vy

FinTech

Datos Insights Names Madeline Bailey Head Of Instech, Appoints Matthew Grant And Robin Merttens As Datos Fellows – InsTech Co-Founders Move Into Fellows Roles Focused On Specific Products And Community Initiatives As Bailey Takes The Helm
Mondovisione
Datos Insights, a leading global provider of data and advisory solutions to the financial services and insurance industries, today announced that Madeline Bailey will become Head of InsTech, effective October 1st. Bailey has been serving as an Executive Principal of InsTech, a position she assumed in July 2026. Robin Merttens, co-founder of InsTech in 2015, and Matthew Grant have led the organization for the last 10 years. Both will transition into new roles as Datos Fellows, each owning specific InsTech products and community initiatives.
/jlne.ws/46I1qHf

Artificial Intelligence

Australia reveals OpenAI agent hacked government health website
Shaun Turton – Nikkei Asia
Australia has created a taskforce to undertake a “rapid” review of a hack by an OpenAI artificial intelligence agent of a government health website, as experts warn the incident serves as ” another canary in the coal mine” for cyber security risks posed by artificial intelligence.
/jlne.ws/4AuBEUp

MIT Explains What Happens When the Trillion-Dollar AI Bubble Bursts
Darryn Pollock – BeInCrypto
MIT Technology Review examines what happens when the AI bubble bursts, warning that hyperscalers may need to nearly triple productivity by 2030 just to break even on their trillion-dollar infrastructure bet. Wharton finance professor Jessica Wachter and a coauthor built the estimate around confirmed hyperscaler outlays, projecting nearly $1.1 trillion in data center spending through 2027 across Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, and Oracle. The wager matters well beyond Silicon Valley.
/jlne.ws/4hIuhBn

AI Is Upending the Lives of People Who Do Social Media Professionally
Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway – Bloomberg
Social media is really strange these days: Increasingly, our feeds are starting to look uncanny, as AI slop proliferates all over the Internet. And for the professionals who are tasked with making content, whether it is social media managers or creators, it has been a head-spinning time of change. In this conversation, recorded at the Vermont in Hollywood, we get a primer on social media’s AI era with two veteran Internet commentators, Rachel Karten (social media consultant and the author of the Link in Bio newsletter) and Taylor Lorenz (founder of User Mag). We discuss why people are afraid to admit that they love some genres of slop, why the AI discourse is evolving so rapidly, and whether our time online is moving away from scrolling feeds to engaging with chatbots.
/jlne.ws/4AvXt6e

Ex-DeepMind Researcher Who Worked On AlphaGo Seeks Funds for Startup Working on AI Reasoning
Yazhou Sun – Bloomberg
A co-creator of AlphaGo, the landmark AI program from Google DeepMind, is the latest prominent researcher from the company to depart and seek significant funding for a new startup, according to people familiar with the matter.
/jlne.ws/4d4tVCC

Blockchain

Privy Expands Support for TRON with Enhanced Wallet and Payment Infrastructure for Developers
Sponsored – The Block
TRON DAO, the community-governed DAO dedicated to accelerating the decentralization of the internet through blockchain technology and decentralized applications (dApps), announced today that Privy is expanding its support for the TRON blockchain, giving developers and businesses more tools to build and operate financial applications at scale on the network.
/jlne.ws/47envxh

Connectivity/Data Centers

Oracle Cites ‘Force Majeure’ to Shield Itself on Controversial Data Center
Sridhar Natarajan, Brody Ford and Paula Seligson – Bloomberg
Oracle Corp. is moving to shield itself from racking up expenses on a massive data center being built in New Mexico, adding a fresh wrinkle to a project beset by opposition and regulatory setbacks. The technology giant sent the project’s developer, a unit of Blue Owl Capital Inc., a notice citing force majeure, according to people familiar with the situation. Rather than trying to walk away as the site’s main tenant, Oracle is attempting to put off payments should the data center dubbed Project Jupiter get derailed and fail to come online in 2028 as planned, the people said, asking not to be identified discussing private matters.
/jlne.ws/4ycXLNH

Google Is Sending an A.I. Data Center to Outer Space; Next Thursday, Google is sending an experimental satellite into orbit that will have enough computing power to answer simple A.I. queries from space.
Kate Conger and Cade Metz – The New York Times
At a lab in San Francisco last month, a team of technicians in protective suits and hairnets poked, prodded and inspected a refrigerator-size satellite commissioned by Google. First, they examined the satellite’s solar panels, which would unfurl in space and face the sun. The satellite was then placed on a table and shaken rapidly in a vibration test, to see whether the chips inside would be damaged or the machine would come apart during a journey into space. The technicians painstakingly painted a small line over each screw to help indicate any loosening during the shaking.
/jlne.ws/4xMufxs

Payments

Tencent launches payments app for ‘China-maxxing’ foreign tourists; Rival to Alipay will help overseas visitors navigate country’s largely cashless economy
Eleanor Olcott – Financial Times
Tencent has launched a new payments app targeting foreign visitors to China, as the country’s largest tech group seeks to capture spending from the growing wave of “China-maxxing” tourists. The Chinese tech group on Thursday rolled out TenPayGo, an app that allows overseas visitors to pay at tens of millions of restaurants and shops through Tencent’s payments network using Visa, Mastercard and Apple Pay.
/jlne.ws/4hqyM2r

Cybersecurity

FBI Investigating Hackers’ Claims of Stealing Employee Data
Jake Bleiberg and Ryan Gallagher – Bloomberg
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is probing hackers’ claims that they broke into the agency’s systems and stole thousands of current and former employees’ data, the bureau said in a statement Wednesday. The FBI on Wednesday acknowledged the hackers’ claims to have accessed employee information through a bureau career website, FBIJobs.gov. The site on Wednesday afternoon returned an error message saying it was “temporarily unavailable.”
/jlne.ws/4AvkBBF

FBI Hack Exposed FBI’s Own Hacking Unit
Joseph Cox – 404 Media
The catastrophic hack of at least thousands of FBI officials’ personal data, including their addresses, phone numbers, and even their spouses, includes members of the FBI’s secretive hacking team, potentially revealing who exactly is in that unit, 404 Media has found. The findings further highlight how sensitive the stolen data is, and how valuable it may be to criminals or to foreign intelligence agencies. There is very little public information about the FBI’s hacking unit, including the operations it conducts, the tools it uses, or which agents are part of it.
/jlne.ws/4Av4SCN

AI could make more companies worth hacking, Anthropic report suggests
Wen Shao – Fortune
As AI reduces the amount of expertise needed to conduct cyberattacks, it is widening the number of companies that might make tempting targets. That’s one implication of a number of findings from Anthropic’s most recent Threat Intelligence report published earlier this month.
/jlne.ws/4xHp69A

Cybersecurity Stocks Are So Hot Investors Question Staying Power
Ryan Vlastelica – Bloomberg
The shares of cybersecurity companies have soared in recent months on bets that the threats posed by cutting-edge AI models will be a boon for their businesses. But some of the stocks have run up so much that investors are questioning whether they’ve gone too far. A basket of cybersecurity stocks tracked by Goldman Sachs has more than doubled since hitting a low on April 10 after Anthropic restricted the release of its Mythos AI model over concerns it could power cyberattacks. Crowdstrike Holdings Inc., Palo Alto Networks Inc. and Fortinet Inc. have all gained more than 130% since then, putting them among the 10 best performers in the S&P 500 over that span.
/jlne.ws/4d6aMjM

OpenAI ‘agent’ hacked an Australian health service website; AI lab took months to spot the problem, which Prime Minister Anthony Albanese called ‘obviously unacceptable’
Nic Fildes and Michael Acton – Financial Times
An OpenAI “agent” hacked an Australian public health service website in the latest high-profile cyber incident that is likely to amplify global outcry about the risks of AI bots going rogue across the internet. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Wednesday said an agent from the AI lab in June breached the Medicare Statistics Reporting Service portal and “accessed both public and non-public files”.
/jlne.ws/4yVKPeX

******Here is The Wall Street Journal’s version of this story.~JJL

OpenAI Agents Tried to Hack Four More Websites While Seeking Data; AI agents sent to gather basic online data tried to hack into government and university sites when they hit roadblocks, joining a growing list of rogue incidents
Sam Schechner – The Wall Street Journal
OpenAI’s artificial-intelligence agents were performing mundane online data-collection tasks earlier this year—and went to extraordinary lengths to get it. Newly published findings from nonprofit AI research lab Transluce, as well as from the Australian government, found that AI agents linked to OpenAI attempted in May and June to break into university and government websites to seek information. The attempted hacks join a growing list of incidents in which AI agents have gone rogue in pursuit of their goals.
/jlne.ws/4xEdDaT

CRYPTO

Inside the FBI’s little-known annual crypto crime gathering
Will Canny – CoinDesk
While the crypto industry’s biggest conferences compete for celebrity speakers and increasingly elaborate venues, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has been quietly holding an annual gathering of its own. The FBI’s Virtual Asset Technical Exchange, formerly known as the Virtual Currency Symposium, brings together law enforcement officials, overseas investigators and crypto-security professionals to exchange information on crypto crime, according to three previous attendees who spoke to CoinDesk.
/jlne.ws/3Tk2HRQ

Litecoin (LTC) token has its moment as network activity booms: Crypto Daily
Omkar Godbole – CoinDesk
Litecoin LTC $65.66, the cryptocurrency considered silver to bitcoin’s gold, and one that’s often missing from day-to-day crypto discussions, has bucked the broader market weakness over the past 24 hours. LTC currently ranked 24th largest by market cap, has gained nearly 8% to $66 in 24 hours, the highest since January. Prices are up 37% this month, the best performance since November 2024, according to CoinDesk.
/jlne.ws/4hoFtSv

Brooklyn man sentenced to 12 years in prison over $16M Coinbase phishing scam
Olivier Acuna – CoinDesk
A Brooklyn resident is headed to prison for 12 years after pleading guilty to scamming nearly 100 Coinbase users out of roughly $16 million dollars, a New York district attorney said Wednesday. Ronald Spektor, 23, ran a phishing and social engineering scheme for over a year, convincing his victims that they had been hacked and that they should transfer funds to accounts he controlled, said Eric Gonzalez, a New York district attorney.
/jlne.ws/4xEyfzJ

Crypto Is Coming of Age: The Case of Bitcoin’s Rising Beta
Alejandro H. Drexler, Andre Guettler, Angela Sun – Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
This paper shows that Bitcoin has transitioned from a largely idiosyncratic crypto asset into a risk-on asset with returns resembling that of the broad U.S. stock market. We estimate time-varying Bitcoin betas with respect to a tech-heavy stock index (NASDAQ), a broader economy equity index (Dow Jones), and the 10-year Treasury bond returns. Across all beta specifications, multi-factor regressions, and structural break tests, we find that Bitcoin’s equity exposure rises substantially over time, turning statistically larger than zero around 2020. In contrast, the betas for the Treasury bond returns are not distinguishable from zero. Surprisingly, after controlling for the exposure to the Dow Jones Index, the exposure to NASDAQ is small and statistically insignificant throughout our sample period. This last finding is at odds with the common wisdom that Bitcoin behaves like a decentralized tech asset and points towards Bitcoin being mostly driven by broad stock-market sentiment.
/jlne.ws/3TIQkPn

Opinion: A celebrity-endorsed cryptocurrency is almost five times as likely to be a scam
Brett Arends – MarketWatch
New cryptocurrencies publicly endorsed by celebrities — often on social-media platforms such as Twitter — were almost five times as likely as those that weren’t endorsed to turn out to be scams and to see their value collapse to zero. Yet those cryptocurrencies also raised about five times as much money, on average, as the ones without a celebrity endorsement, meaning that the famous face was worth an extra $80 million or more to the promoters.
/jlne.ws/4dSIlG8

European Central Banks Call For Ban On Stablecoin Yield
CryptoProwl
Calls for a ban on stablecoin yield are growing louder across Europe. Central banks in the European Union want crypto platforms to be prevented from using lending, borrowing, staking, and other products that offer returns and rewards on stablecoin holdings.
/jlne.ws/4iLQsI4

Stablecoins

Trump administration mulls weaponizing stablecoins to cement dollar’s dominance
Omkar Godbole – CoinDesk
Washington is looking to leverage stablecoins to cement the U.S. dollar’s stature as the premier global reserve currency. According to Bloomberg, the Trump administration is considering a plan involving joint ventures with private players to promote the use of dollar-backed stablecoins overseas. The aim is to boost the dollar’s dominance and source demand for U.S. Treasury notes. Treasury and State Departments could play key roles in promoting U.S. dollar stablecoins globally, alongside the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation.
/jlne.ws/4rq7nSA

Stablecoin adoption intent rises from 36% to 56% with bank-level protections, Visa says
Brian Danga – The Block
American consumer interest in stablecoins increases from 36% to 56% when paired with hypothetical bank-level fraud protection and deposit insurance, according to a survey released Wednesday by Visa. Dubbed Money Travels 2026, the report is based on a Morning Consult survey of 2,192 U.S. adults conducted between Feb. 24 and March 2. Respondents were given definitions of key terms, including stablecoins, before answering, the payments giant said in a statement shared with The Block.
/jlne.ws/4hKizpX

US Weighs Initiative to Promote Dollar-Backed Stablecoin Abroad
Anna Irrera, Saleha Mohsin and Lydia Beyoud – Bloomberg
The Trump administration is considering an initiative to promote the use of dollar-denominated stablecoins overseas, according to people familiar with the plans, in a bid to reinforce the greenback’s status as the world’s reserve asset. Stablecoin projects are among the areas the US government is considering supporting by creating joint ventures with private sector firms, with the aim of maintaining the US dollar’s currency preeminence and boosting demand for US Treasuries, the people said, asking not to be named discussing private information.
/jlne.ws/3TSJ2bP

Politics

Prediction Markets Are Reshaping US Midterm Campaigns as Trading Tops $750 Million
Межа
The 2026 U.S. midterm elections are among the first in which prediction markets have had a visible impact on political campaigns and public debate. More than $750 million in trades have been placed on Kalshi and Polymarket, CNN calculated using publicly available data. Users trade on the likelihood of different outcomes, with markets covering hundreds of events – from which party will control Congress to less obvious predictions.
/jlne.ws/4dv9qiA

Banking Dems Protest GOP-Only Prediction Market Talks
Law360
Every Democratic senator on the Banking Committee on Wednesday urged the panel’s chairman, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S. C., to hold a public hearing on prediction markets, the same day Scott held a Republican member meeting with the CEO of sports betting platform Kalshi….
/jlne.ws/4hpUymY

Trump’s Push for a Diesel Export Ban Threatens to Squeeze Key US Allies
Will Kubzansky – Bloomberg
A proposed US diesel export ban touted by President Donald Trump would leave countries including Brazil and the UK racing to secure the fuel, pressuring near-record prices even higher as the Iran war chokes global supply. If the measure goes into effect, Latin America would feel the tightest squeeze in the near term. So far in September, agricultural powerhouse Brazil is the top buyer of US-made diesel and similar fuels, according to data from energy analytics firms Kpler and Vortexa Ltd. That tracks with the start of Brazil’s planting season and other harvest activity, which stokes demand for diesel as farmers use it in tractors and trucks.
/jlne.ws/4hsInG1

Donald Trump’s Shock Factor on the Global Stage Is Wearing Thin
Wes Kosova – Bloomberg
On Tuesday morning, as President Donald Trump meandered through a speech about himself at the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York, the reaction from world leaders gathered in the hall was telling. In past lectures from that same podium, Trump’s fiery dismissal of his counterparts as weak and the UN as useless got a rise out of the audience. Attendees were startled when he threatened to “totally destroy North Korea” during his first UN appearance in 2017, and shocked when he told fellow leaders that “your countries are going to hell” in last year’s speech.
/jlne.ws/4ybIQ6j

Judge Weighs Trump Ban of CNN, MS NOW, Politico From White House
Madlin Mekelburg, Zoe Tillman and Georgia Fearn – Bloomberg
A federal judge is considering whether to temporarily reinstate White House access to three news outlets that President Donald Trump barred for what he deemed unfavorable coverage of his administration. US District Judge Timothy J. Kelly is hearing arguments Wednesday on a request from CNN, MS NOW and Politico to lift the ban while a lawsuit they filed proceeds.
/jlne.ws/4rpKGhq

Fox News Finds Itself at Odds With Trump on Press Ban
Michael M. Grynbaum – The New York Times
Fox News’s bond with President Trump is undeniable. Prime time stars like Sean Hannity and Jesse Watters cheerlead his policies, the president’s daughter-in-law hosts a weekly show on the network, and Fox’s founder, Rupert Murdoch, attended Mr. Trump’s nominating convention in 2024. Nonetheless, this week Fox News has joined other networks in standing up for the rival media outlets that Mr. Trump decried as “fake” and banned from the White House — and two senior Fox journalists emerged as lead actors in the White House press corps’s standoff with the administration.
/jlne.ws/3VN5uDK

Trump reveals millions of dollars’ worth of share deals in big tech and AI
Dearbail Jordan; Francisco Velasquez – BBC
/jlne.ws/4xJMHqj

U.S. Administration

Trump invites Putin to this year’s G-20 summit in Florida
John Hudson – The Washington Post
The Trump administration has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend the G-20 summit in Florida, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters Wednesday, the latest sign of the United States’ interest in hosting the longtime adversary later this year. Get concise answers to your questions. Try Ask The Post AI. “We think it’s an opportunity for him to engage not just with the president but with other world leaders, [and] we hope that’s an invitation he’ll accept,” Rubio said on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.
/jlne.ws/4yMicAQ

U.S federal debt has surpassed 100% of GDP under President Trump.
Steve Rattner (@steverattner) – Substack
/jlne.ws/4rxEP9Z

As Bessent Tinkers With Treasuries, a Warning Against ‘Financial Engineering’
Chris Anstey and Jeffrey Sparshott – Bloomberg
‘Illusion of Stability’ There have been plenty of warnings over the years issued by both official and unofficial bodies about the US and other nations following unsustainable fiscal paths. But rarely do advanced economies get chided for emulating — in a bad way — some of the things seen in crisis-hit emerging nations in the past. That’s effectively what one of the world’s largest financial-industry associations did in a report out on Wednesday. Without naming Bessent and his recent move to expand buybacks of longer-dated debt, the Institute of International Finance made mention of “direct purchases” of debt in “secondary markets.” In other words, buybacks.
/jlne.ws/3VcggDp

The GOP’s Farm Belt Economics Problem; ‘We want farming to be easier,’ says Vice President Vance, though tariffs and trade wars have made it harder.
The Editorial Board – The Wall Street Journal
JD Vance was in Iowa last week, trying to shore up GOP support in the heartland. “We want farming to be easier in the United States of America, not harder,” the Vice President told the crowd in Council Bluffs. Farming is always hard, but what could be making it even harder these days? Hmmm. Could it be President Trump’s tariffs and trade wars that have raised farmers’ costs and lost them markets abroad due to retaliation? Asking for a friend in the Midwest.
/jlne.ws/47g4Elv

U.S. Congress

Congress Urged to Act on Prediction Markets
Shanny Basar – Markets Media
Market participants said the proliferation, growth, social and ethical issues and the determination of the value of prediction contracts demand a policy reaction from Congress. Brian Quintenz, board member of prediction market Kalshi and former commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, spoke on a panel about prediction markets at the Financial Markets Policy Conference 2026 hosted by the Georgetown Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy on 23 September 2026 at the Georgetown University campus in Washington D.C.
/jlne.ws/4hoKWsv

‘Not behind closed doors’: Senate Banking Democrats call for prediction markets hearing as GOP meets privately with Kalshi
Sarah Wynn – The Block
Every Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee is urging its chair, Republican Sen. Tim Scott, to hold a congressional hearing on prediction markets — a demand that comes the same day Scott and others met privately with Kalshi. In a letter sent to Scott on Wednesday, Senate Banking Committee Democrats said the panel has a “critical oversight role to play” in overseeing prediction markets.
/jlne.ws/4yWbjx3

Trump rolled back regulations for oil company campaign donors, Democrats say
Richard Cowan and Timothy Gardner – Reuters
Two top Democrats in the US Senate launched a report on Thursday saying that oil and ‌gas companies were rewarded with tax breaks, subsidies and rollbacks of environmental ‌regulation after then-candidate Donald Trump asked them for $1 billion in donations during the 2024 campaign. The report by Senators Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, and Sheldon Whitehouse, the top Democrat on the environment committee, was based on 19 investigations of regulatory rollbacks by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), 13 investigations into nine other agencies and 13 probes into what they called 88 polluters
/jlne.ws/3TJoGSi

Bernie Sanders and Greg Casar propose AI ‘superintelligence’ ban with a 20-year jail penalty
Sahil Kapur and Jared Perlo – NBC News
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, rolled out an aggressive bill Wednesday to rein in artificial intelligence, escalating the debate on Capitol Hill. The 19-page Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act would require pausing advanced AI development until a Cabinet-level Department of Artificial Intelligence, led by a secretary of AI, can be created to regulate and supervise it. Violating the rules would come with what they called the “corporate death penalty” plus up to 20 years in jail, which Sanders said is the same penalty as unlawfully building nuclear weapons.
/jlne.ws/4yj4HZU

Other U.S. Politics

Anthropic’s Coming IPO Riches Fuel a New Political Donor Network
Emily Birnbaum – Bloomberg
The $140 million fundraising success of AI-friendly super PAC Leading the Future has helped galvanize an opposing network of wealthy donors pushing for stronger artificial intelligence safeguards — some of whom stand to become much richer from Anthropic PBC’s upcoming IPO. AI-safety proponents are emerging as a potent force in this year’s midterm elections as Washington grapples with how to regulate the technology and public anxiety grows over its impact on jobs and the seemingly unrestrained power of the biggest tech companies.
/jlne.ws/4hkETGN

Trade_War and Tariffs

Trump-Xi Summit Narrows China Credit’s Geopolitical Discount: BI
Bloomberg
The Trump-Xi summit is narrowing the geopolitical discount on China dollar credit while rekindling overseas risk appetite, according to Bloomberg Intelligence. The US announced a two-month extension to its trade truce with China on Tuesday as President Xi Jinping landed in America for his first state visit in 11 years. His meeting with US President Donald Trump would boost lower-rated bonds, including property, local-government financing vehicles and corporate credits, BI said.
/jlne.ws/47kSJmk

America Can’t Afford an Aluminum Shortfall
Charles Johnson, The Aluminum Association – The Wall Street Journal
Regarding “Aluminum Tariffs Harm U.S. Manufacturers” (Letters, Sept. 3): The recent debate over aluminum tariffs makes one thing clear: America needs metal. But what most miss is that America’s aluminum strategy can’t be built around the interests of any one market segment or with a single policy solution. As one of only a few materials on the federal critical materials list, there is bipartisan agreement that aluminum matters. But if America wants secure aluminum supply chains, combatting unfair trade is necessary but not sufficient.
/jlne.ws/4d3J6Mt

Trump’s tariff war is clobbering the Hanks of America; The end of the ‘de minimis’ exception can inflict major damage on niche companies
Alan Beattie – Financial Times
Want to meet a victim of Donald Trump’s tariff war? Let me introduce Hank, a figment of my imagination. Hank is a retired machinist from Indiana. He now has a successful business as a sole proprietor importing tabletop war-gaming figures from China, modifying them using his metalworking skills, sending them to Spain’s world-class figurine-painting industry for decoration, bringing them back and profitably selling them. You might not think of someone like Hank as a hero of globalisation, but he totally is.
/jlne.ws/47cQ2Ds

United Kingdom

Crypto Firm Coinbase Dropped as Member of UK Finance Lobby Group
Anna Irrera and Laura Noonan – Bloomberg
US-based cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase Global Inc. has been removed as a member of UK Finance, one of Britain’s most influential financial services lobby groups, even as the digital-asset sector takes a more prominent role in policy debates. The board of UK Finance wrote a letter to Coinbase last week saying it was terminating the company’s membership, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
/jlne.ws/4dVeHjA

Donald Trump rejects ‘globalist scheme’ to control AI in blow to Andy Burnham; President says US is ‘leading over China by a lot and everyone else, and we’re going to keep it that way’
Lucy Fisher, Jim Pickard and George Parker – Financial Times
Donald Trump has rejected a “globalist scheme” to control AI, delivering a blow to UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s plan to develop new G20 global guidelines for the technology. Trump said in a speech to the UN on Tuesday that “the US totally rejects any attempt to construct a globalist scheme to control artificial intelligence”, adding that his administration would in future refer to AI as “superintelligence”.
/jlne.ws/4AwCpwf

European Union

France Should Raise Taxes on the Wealthy, National Auditor Says
Tara Patel – Bloomberg
The French government should increase taxes on its wealthiest citizens over the public’s perception they don’t pay their fair share, according to the country’s national auditor. The Cour des Comptes is recommending measures including a new levy on accumulated wealth, a lowering of the so-called Dutreil inheritance tax break and the broadening of a new levy on holding companies. The proposals, contained in a report published this week, were spearheaded by the auditor’s new president, Amelie de Montchalin, who was French budget minister until earlier this year.
/jlne.ws/47eW2LR

The west does not have a leadership problem; If Friedrich Merz and almost everyone else is unpopular, perhaps governments aren’t the issue
Janan Ganesh – Financial Times
We are doing this again, are we? Very well. A hated leader makes way for someone else. That person in turn sets new records of unpopularity. Speculation begins about still another switch at the top, as it is easier to change the individual than to question the basic doability of the job. The place under discussion here is, of course, Germany, but also Britain and America and elsewhere. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz can console himself that his peer in Paris is also despised. So were the previous two French presidents, who failed to even win a second term. None of the last five US leaders — counting Donald Trump twice — have managed an average approval rating of 50 per cent. The previous three cleared that mark.
/jlne.ws/3VetUWy

Others

Dictators, and Why We Can’t Help Forgiving Them
Ruth Pollard – Bloomberg
You may have missed it, but hostile regimes that were once shunned are now quietly being normalized. From Myanmar to Afghanistan, Belarus to Venezuela, military dictatorships, hardline Islamists and autocrats are edging their way back into the global order. For some, that makes perfect sense. Governments naturally prioritize security and national interest, sanctions can be hit and miss, and businesses will pursue opportunities regardless of the optics. Yet there should be a cost for regaining a seat at the table.
/jlne.ws/4hnGFFJ

Regulation & Enforcement

Taylor Swift’s Husband Got Ponzi’d
Vince Porter via Linkedin.com
On Tuesday, a federal judge in St. Louis sentenced Siddharth Jawahar, 38, to 11 years in federal prison and ordered him to pay $31.35 million in restitution to 64 victims. One of them was Travis Kelce, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end and probably more well known as Taylor’s boo – CNN $35 million came in. About $10 million got invested. Between July 2016 and December 2023, Jawahar raised the rest through his company, Swiftarc Capital LLC, and used it to pay older investors and to cover private jets, luxury hotels, spending sprees, and private club memberships. At sentencing, the judge echoed a victim who said Jawahar “weaponized” investor trust.
/jlne.ws/4hkis34

SEC and CFTC writing crypto rules after Clarity Act fails Senate
Cris Tolomia – Quartz
The Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission moved to fill the regulatory void left by the collapse of the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act, acting within days of the bill’s failure in the Senate, according to CNBC. Two days after the Clarity Act failed to advance, the SEC issued an order that opened a temporary route for trading in certain tokenized stocks, a step toward round-the-clock financial markets, according to CNBC. Simultaneously, the CFTC sent its own crypto rulemaking proposal to the White House, though the substance of that proposal remained undisclosed; the Office of Management and Budget acknowledged via a public post that the rules were under review.
/jlne.ws/4jmZoDP

Morning Minute: Selig Says ‘It’s Go Time’ for CFTC Crypto Rules
Tyler Warner – decrypt
Eight days after the Senate blocked the Clarity Act, CFTC Chair Mike Selig went on CNBC and said the agency is writing crypto market structure rules anyway. His phrase was “it’s go time.” He argued the CFTC’s existing statutory authority gives it room to act without Congress. The week that followed the failed vote has been the busiest stretch of US crypto policy in years, and none of it required a bill.
/jlne.ws/4hJwe0r

Epstein’s Accountant and Lawyer Are Said to Be Under Federal Investigation
Matthew Goldstein and Devlin Barrett – The New York Times
Federal authorities in Manhattan have begun investigating some of the activities of Jeffrey Epstein’s longtime accountant and lawyer, who both serve as executors of the sex offender’s once vast estate, said two people who are familiar with the inquiry but not permitted to speak publicly. Mr. Epstein’s longtime lawyer, Darren Indyke, and his accountant, Richard Kahn, have repeatedly denied any knowledge of their former employer’s sexual abuse of hundreds of teenage girls and young women. It is unclear what the inquiry, which includes agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and federal prosecutors in New York, is focused on, the people said.
/jlne.ws/4yTtAei

One FINRA: Strengthening Oversight Through a Unified Regulatory Operations Program
FINRA
The past few years have brought meaningful change to how FINRA approaches regulatory oversight. This summer, we completed a major milestone: the consolidation of FINRA’s member supervision, market oversight, and enforcement functions into a unified Regulatory Operations department. This consolidation began at the end of 2025, building on years of deliberate work to continuously improve how we serve investors, markets, and member firms.
/jlne.ws/4rvO8ar

SEC Publishes Updated Market Statistics, Highlighting Increase in IPOs and Proceeds Raised
SEC
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Economic and Risk Analysis (DERA) published updated statistics and data visualizations covering key segments of the U.S. capital markets, including a notable increase in the number of initial public offerings (IPOs) and follow-on registered offerings. Key Highlights: First Half 2026 In the first half of 2026, IPO and follow-on offering activity showed year-over-year growth: IPOs: There were 208 IPOs raising over $137 billion in the first half of 2026, compared with 180 IPOs raising over $27 billion in the first half of 2025. This represents an approximately 16% increase in the number of IPOs and nearly 400% increase in proceeds raised. Follow-on offerings: There were 557 follow-on registered offerings raising over $111 billion in the first half of 2026, compared with 505 offerings raising nearly $84 billion in the first half of 2025. This represents an approximately 10% increase in the number of offerings and a 33% increase in proceeds raised.
/jlne.ws/4iHAi2k

SEC Charges South Florida Resident and His Company for Alleged Investment Scheme Defrauding Law Enforcement
SEC
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged CMI Capital LLC and its founder and manager, Michael D. Williams, for an alleged fraudulent investment scheme that raised approximately $860,000 from at least 18 investors, many of whom are current or retired law enforcement officers in South Florida. The defendants have agreed to a bifurcated settlement in connection with the charges and subject to court approval.
/jlne.ws/4iGd10K

Looking for Change in Haystacks: Remarks before SIFMA’s Digital Assets Conference
SEC
Before I turn to the main topic—rethinking financial surveillance in light of old problems and new technologies, let me take a minute to talk about the so-called “Innovation Exemption” we announced last week.1 Actually two exemptions in one order, the Innovation Exemption is a time- and size-limited exemption to facilitate the trading of tokenized securities on crypto networks via automated market makers. It is, as Chairman Atkins explained, a bridge toward durable rulemaking.2 We invite comments on the exemption, and I am grateful that SIFMA already has availed itself of that invitation with a preliminary reaction.3 In crafting the exemption, we sought not to disrupt the smooth functioning of equity markets, but to ensure that the introduction of tokenized securities does not disrupt the finest equity markets in the world. Tokenization is coming, and I would rather it happen here than have overseas markets offer tokenized exposure to U.S. equities without a domestic alternative. The goal is a final ruleset governing the intermediaries and venues that facilitate the trading of tokenized securities in ways not envisioned by the existing regulatory framework. I share SIFMA’s desire to get the rulemaking process underway as soon as possible. The exemption is only a small part of what I hope will be the Commission’s continued and developing commitment to working with market participants to draw on new technologies to empower and protect investors.
/jlne.ws/4xBRM3P

SEC Charges South Florida Resident and His Company for Alleged Investment Scheme Defrauding Law Enforcement
SEC
On September 23, 2026, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged CMI Capital, LLC and its founder and manager, Michael D. Williams, for an alleged fraudulent investment scheme that raised approximately $860,000 from at least 18 investors, many of whom are current or retired law enforcement officers in South Florida. The defendants have agreed to a bifurcated settlement in connection with the charges and subject to court approval.
/jlne.ws/4haVpZJ

Former financial services provider employee Emre Basar charged with misappropriation of client funds after ASIC investigation
ASIC
Following an ASIC investigation, Mr Emre Tahsin Basar of Docklands, Victoria has been arrested and charged with eight (8) counts of dishonestly using his position as an employee to gain a financial advantage. ASIC alleges that between 11 and 17 February 2026, Mr Basar—while employed as a desk assistant by BW Equities Pty Ltd, an equities advisory business—dishonestly used his position by trading shares held in a client’s account without the client’s authorisation. Mr Basar has since left BW Equities Pty Ltd.
/jlne.ws/4yfNZdR

ASIC strengthens AI trading safeguards and streamlines market integrity rules
ASIC
ASIC is strengthening safeguards for automated and AI-enabled trading while streamlining regulatory requirements for securities and futures market participants under incoming changes to its Market Integrity Rules (MIRs). The reforms bolster important gatekeeper controls requiring participants to test, monitor and govern trading systems and algorithms as markets evolve and the adoption of AI increases. These controls sit alongside market operators’ anomalous order thresholds and extreme trade ranges, providing an important safeguard for the integrity and resilience of Australian markets.
/jlne.ws/4dvt7a0

ESMA sets new supervisory priority on digital innovation from 2027
ESMA
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA), the EU’s financial markets regulator and supervisor, will launch a new Union Strategic Supervisory Priority (USSP) to help embrace innovation while protecting investors and maintaining strong safeguards.
/jlne.ws/4romig5

New speech by Michael Duignan: Keynote Address at the 10th Annual Institute on Corporate & Securities Law in Asia
Securities and Futures Commission
Mr Michael Duignan delivered a keynote address titled “A New Enforcement Philosophy: Less Trodden Pathways to Better Outcomes” at the 10th Annual Institute on Corporate & Securities Law in Asia. It is now posted on the SFC website.
/jlne.ws/4Aub65V

Investing & Trading

The ingredients for a market crash are all in place
Satyajit Das – MarketWatch
Like culinary dishes, market crashes require specific ingredients: overstretched valuations, high debt levels and cash shortfalls, high volatility, rising capital costs, contagion vectors and poor shock absorbers. All of those are now lined up neatly on the kitchen counter. Since 2000, price increases have outstripped underlying cash flows. Real-estate and equity-market valuations are stretched. Global debt has reached around $348 trillion, or 308% of world output, up from around $210 trillion a decade ago. Credit intensity is rising, with growing levels of debt needed to generate the same level of activity.
/jlne.ws/4iLNsLO

Fewer stocks are carrying the market than at any time since the dot-com peak
Joseph Adinolfi – MarketWatch
The S&P 500’s latest trip back to near-record territory has been powered by a surprisingly small number of stocks. As of Tuesday’s close, the S&P 500 SPX -0.75% was only 0.44% shy of a record closing high, and yet 52% of individual member stocks were trading below their long-term 200-day moving averages. This is a reflection of the fact that a handful of stocks, chiefly hyperscalers like Meta META +1.02% and semiconductor stocks like Micron Technology MU -2.22%, have been doing much of the heavy lifting lately.
/jlne.ws/4hIDfia

24/7 trading facing frosty reception from the very firms that would power it, report confirms
The TRADE
Demand for 24/7 trading remains low, with 65% of proprietary trading firms opposed to the shift, and only 5% definitively in favour; Acuiti founder speaks to The TRADE to unpack the findings in detail.
/jlne.ws/4d1iTOz

Pimco Is Said to Eye First Allocation From Saudi Wealth Fund PIF
Omar El Chmouri – Bloomberg
Saudi Arabia’s nearly trillion-dollar wealth fund, one the world’s biggest sovereign investors, is considering increasing its allocation to fixed income assets and award a mandate to Pacific Investment Management Co. The Public Investment Fund is weighing an initial allocation of $500 million to Pimco, mainly focused on government bonds in the Gulf, people familiar with the matter said, declining to be identified as the information is confidential. No final decisions have been made. Representatives for the PIF and Pimco declined to comment.
/jlne.ws/4rA7Q52

Europe’s Diesel Prices Race Ahead of US on Export-Ban Risks
Alex Longley, Mitchell Ferman and Jan Bratanic – Bloomberg
Diesel prices outside the US surged relative to American rates as the possibility of the Trump Administration introducing an export ban rattled the market. On Wednesday, Nymex heating oil, a near-identical product to diesel, closed at its smallest premium since the end of April to its European equivalent. The daily swing was the biggest since 2022, when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sparked fears of shortages. It reversed partially on Thursday. There’s still significant uncertainty about whether the US will bring in an export ban, but Energy Secretary Chris Wright told oil industry leaders to brace for possible curbs as retail prices surge domestically. President Donald Trump said he’d encouraged administration officials to consider restrictions. The European Union expressed concern about the prospect of a ban.
/jlne.ws/4d3IHcL

AI Trade Is Ground Zero as Stock Investors Map Election Risks
Matthew Griffin – Bloomberg
The US midterm elections are turning into a key source of concern for a stock market that is riding high on the artificial intelligence trade. Polls and prediction markets over the past couple of weeks have skewed sharply in favor of the Democratic Party, which now looks increasingly likely to gain control of at least one chamber of Congress. Such an outcome can weigh on stocks that have gained from the AI euphoria, often with steep equity valuations that leave little room for error, Wall Street strategists say, citing the possibility of investigations, hearings and even tighter regulations down the line.
/jlne.ws/4xMRhE5

ESG

Goldman Sees Gasoline-Price Blowback If US Bans Diesel Exports
Jonathan Ferro, Lisa Abramowicz and Annmarie Hordern – Bloomberg
A US ban on diesel exports would rapidly fill domestic storage, depress the fuel’s prices and ultimately shrink gasoline supply while pushing up costs at the pump, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s co-head of global commodities research. “All the things equal, lower diesel prices would incentivize refiners to reduce their production,” Goldman’s Daan Struyven said Wednesday in a Bloomberg Television interview. “And because gasoline and diesel are usually produced together as a bundle with some flexibility, it would likely reduce the availability of gasoline.”
/jlne.ws/4hmfB9T

Shell, Partners Poised to Approve Doubling of LNG Canada Project
Ruth Liao, Thomas Seal and Brian Platt – Bloomberg
Shareholders of Canada’s biggest liquefied natural gas facility, including Shell Plc, are poised to make the financial commitment to double the project’s capacity as soon as next week, according to people familiar with the matter. The backers of LNG Canada Development Inc. are set to announce a final investment decision to proceed with plans to increase its maximum output to 28 million metric tons a year, said the people, speaking on condition they not be identified because the matter is still confidential.
/jlne.ws/46BK66P

Exclusive | Behind the Oil-and-Gas Industry’s Blitz to Try to Defeat a Diesel Export Ban
Benoit Morenne and Collin Eaton – The Wall Street Journal
When the oil-and-gas industry heard President Trump back the idea of a ban on diesel exports, it pulled out the bazooka. Shortly after Trump made his suggestion Tuesday, Mike Sommers, chief executive of the American Petroleum Institute, the industry’s top lobby, issued a statement condemning the move. He said restricting U.S. exports “would only compound the problem” of rising diesel costs. API also issued a press release on the dangers of an export ban. “Restricting U.S. diesel exports would wreak havoc on fuel markets at home and abroad, destabilize refinery operations and deepen a global refining crisis already putting upward pressure on U.S. prices,” the group said.
/jlne.ws/4AzVw8Y

How the oil capital of the US welcomed a solar power boom
Nathalie Jimenez – BBC News
/jlne.ws/3Tqlpaq

Shale Tycoon Claims Exxon CEO ‘Betrayed’ Him in $60 Billion Deal
David Wethe and Kevin Crowley – Bloomberg
Scott Sheffield, one of the earliest architects of the US shale oil boom, said he was “betrayed” by ExxonMobil Holdings Corp. after Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods failed to support him in a dispute with the Federal Trade Commission despite a promise to do so. “I do firmly believe that Exxon schemed against me during the FTC process,” Sheffield, the former CEO of Pioneer Natural Resources Co., wrote in a new memoir to be released Oct. 6, From Tehran to the Permian. “Contrary to Darren’s assurances to me, Exxon threw me under the bus at its earliest opportunity.”
/jlne.ws/4AuFYD7

Germany Maps Exit From Fossil Fuels as Energy Crises Take Toll
Laura Millan – Bloomberg
Germany has provided a roadmap setting out its transition away from fossil fuels by 2045, as Europe’s largest economy seeks to reduce its vulnerability to global energy-market shocks. The government of Chancellor Friedrich Merz unveiled the details on Wednesday to coincide with the annual United Nations General Assembly and climate week in New York. The framework, which largely consolidates existing policies, includes strategies to tap into low-carbon technologies to show how Germany can achieve its 2045 goal.
/jlne.ws/4AtTln9

BANKS BROKERS MANAGED FUNDS

BlackRock Broadens AI Bet in Latest Model-Portfolio Shakeup
Isabelle Lee – Bloomberg
BlackRock Inc. is broadening its equity exposure while retaining its conviction in artificial intelligence as the world’s largest asset manager reshuffles positions across its $300 billion suite of model portfolios. In the US, the firm is directing money into large-cap stocks, according to an investment outlook viewed by Bloomberg, and is shifting some of its AI exposure from industry pioneers toward companies it sees benefiting from or adopting the technology. Internationally, BlackRock is reducing the size of its regional tilts across US, developed and emerging markets.
/jlne.ws/4rw1cN9

Blackstone Debuts First Multi-Asset Fund for Non-US Individuals
Preeti Singh – Bloomberg
Blackstone Inc. is launching a private-markets fund for retail clients outside the US, as alternative money managers jockey to court investors worldwide beyond large institutions. The Blackstone Private Markets Fund — the firm’s first multi-asset strategy for non-US individuals — expects to allow quarterly withdrawals of as much as 3% of the fund’s net asset value, according to investor materials and a statement from the firm Thursday. The fund will invest about half of its capital in Blackstone’s private equity vehicle, which has backed AI giants SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI. The rest of the so-called perpetual fund, which has no fixed end date, will go to infrastructure, real estate and private credit strategies managed by Blackstone.
/jlne.ws/4jfKKOM

Blackstone Works On Hybrid CLO Blending Private Credit and Loans
Amedeo Goria – Bloomberg
Blackstone Inc. is developing a CLO that mixes broadly syndicated loans with private credit, according to people familiar with the matter, pairing the higher yields of direct lending with the depth of the leveraged loan market. The structure, which allows managers to shift the portfolio between the two asset classes, was pioneered by Sona Asset Management when it printed the first hybrid CLO from either side of the Atlantic at the end of last month.
/jlne.ws/4hlUQey

Trump Jr.’s 1789 Capital in Talks to Raise $3 Billion in New Funds
Rebecca Torrence – Bloomberg
Investment firm 1789 Capital, where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner, is in talks to raise $3 billion for its second growth fund, according to a person familiar with the matter, bolstering its push to make larger bets on startups. The firm has already raised $2 billion of that target amount from existing backers, people familiar with the matter said. The fundraising efforts are ongoing and the total haul could increase, said the people, who requested anonymity to discuss private information. 1789 declined to comment on financing efforts.
/jlne.ws/4hc5IN6

Invesco hires from BlackRock for deputy head of ETF capital markets
Zara Richardson – The TRADE
Invesco has appointed Tim Clavin as deputy head of ETF capital markets, Americas. Clavin will be based in New York and joins from BlackRock, where he most recently served as vice president. In that role, he led ETF trading solutions for clients and sales across the firm’s institutional and wealth channels. Clavin confirmed his appointment in a social media announcement. Previously, he spent 10 years at Vanguard, initially joining in 2015 as a fund financial analyst on the Vanguard accelerated development program.
/jlne.ws/3VerRSm

Rich People Fleeing Private Credit Haven’t Learned Their Lesson
Paul J. Davies – Bloomberg Opinion
The rush for the exits by wealthy investors in private credit funds is far from done. But even as the rich run away from direct lending, they aren’t abandoning alternative assets. Instead, they look to be chasing the next hot thing: infrastructure finance. The temptation is understandable. Hard assets hold appeal when inflation is rising, and not even the threat of human extinction is slowing demand for data centers. But investors don’t seem to be learning the lesson that they might have taken from their recent experience with private credit: You can’t get out of illiquid assets easily. With infrastructure, investors could be setting themselves up to fall into the same trap again.
/jlne.ws/4xLL5MP

UBS Left Reeling as Swiss Finance Minister Takes Center Stage
Bastian Benrath-Wright – Bloomberg
/jlne.ws/4duaq6A

Singapore Court Appoints KPMG to Manage Trader Radiant World
Andrea Tan and Katharine Gemmell – Bloomberg
/jlne.ws/4iHIiAo

HSBC moves board meeting from Dubai to London amid safety concerns; Bank’s decision to shift location underscores challenges still facing expats as Iran war continues
Nicolas Parasie and Ortenca Aliaj – Financial Times
/jlne.ws/4hmJtmj

Hedge Funds

Hedge Fund Taula Down 9.4% in Volatile Year for Macro Traders
Nishant Kumar and Bei Hu – Bloomberg
Diego Megia’s Taula Capital Management lost 4.3% this month as macro traders faced volatile markets. The decline pushed his hedge fund to a loss of 9.4% for the year through Sept. 18, people with knowledge of the performance said. The latest dip reverses a partial recovery the firm had achieved since March, the people said, asking not to be identified as the fund’s performance data is not public.
/jlne.ws/4y9fZzH

Private Equity

Private equity could revolutionise US lawyer pay, law firm bosses say; Massumi + Consoli executives bet new ownership model will allow them to lure partners with equity incentive plans
Stephen Foley – Financial Times
Private equity investment could usher in a revolution in how US lawyers are paid, according to the bosses of a law firm that has struck one of the first deals in the sector. The founders of Massumi + Consoli, a mid-market M&A advisory boutique that sold a stake in the business to Dallas-based Trive Capital earlier this year, are betting that the model will allow them to lure new partners with the promise of riches when the private equity group sells its stake.
/jlne.ws/4ht3DLK

WORK MGMT

Seven Big Ideas for Responding to an AI Jobs Crisis
Saijel Kishan – Bloomberg
The race to build AI has triggered concerns that the technology will wipe out millions of jobs — particularly white-collar ones — and concentrate wealth. Though that wipeout hasn’t yet arrived, researchers say artificial intelligence is already reducing hiring of entry-level roles in certain fields. Policymakers, economists and tech leaders are debating how to prevent the displacement of large swaths of the workforce — or cushion the fallout if it happens. As the debate unfolds, executives of the biggest AI companies are increasingly calling for measures to slow the development of advanced models to help prevent them from slipping beyond human control and inflicting widespread harm. Though the threat of job displacement applies to workers all over the world, the pressure to find solutions may be especially strong in the US, where unemployment benefits are less generous than in many other wealthy countries.
/jlne.ws/4rqpJTu

Wellness Exchange

CDC Adds First Measles-Related Death After Pennsylvania Dispute
Melos Ambaye and Jessica Nix – Bloomberg
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed one measles-related death in the US, almost a month after Pennsylvania first reported deaths to the agency. In an update of its dashboard for measles cases in 2026 on Wednesday, the CDC added one of the four fatalities Pennsylvania has reported so far this year, backing away from a feud with the state over what constitutes a death from measles.
/jlne.ws/4AsQwTt

Battle of Hospital A.I. vs. Insurer A.I. Is Pushing Medical Costs Higher
Reed Abelson and Teddy Rosenbluth – The New York Times
In the latest sign that artificial intelligence is fueling higher health care costs, a group of insurers released a report Thursday claiming that hospitals’ use of A.I. was responsible for nearly $1 billion in additional expenses over two years. Using codes for various medical conditions, hospitals submitted claims for tens of thousands of patients that described their illnesses as more complex in 2024 and 2025 than in 2023. Despite the added conditions, there was no evidence that the patients had received different treatment from the hospitals, according to the analysis by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, which represents state Blue Cross plans. Using A.I. tools, hospitals are collecting more information about their patients, and submitting bigger claims, the association said.
/jlne.ws/4ynEPvN

U.S. Suicide Rate Drops, but Remains ‘Stubbornly High’
Christina Caron – The New York Times
The suicide rate dipped slightly from 2023 to 2024 but has not changed significantly since 2017, according to new data released this week by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to the C.D.C., the suicide rate fell from 14.1 deaths per 100,000 people in 2023 to 13.7 deaths per 100,000 people in 2024. Previously, the rate was 13 in 2014, then hovered around 14 from 2017 onward. “What stands out is that the suicide rate remains stubbornly high,” said Dr. Maria A. Oquendo, a professor and chair of psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.
/jlne.ws/4rwf3mn

Many Americans Use GLP-1 Drugs Without a Medical Reason, Study Shows
Dani Blum – The New York Times
A large new study confirms what many people have long suspected: A sizable number of people taking drugs like Ozempic have no medical reason to do so. The study, an analysis of the medical records of more than 92 million U.S. adults, identified more than 1.1 million who were taking GLP-1 medications, without any record of an issue that would make them eligible, like obesity or diabetes. While the researchers didn’t examine why people took these medications, doctors said many people are probably using them simply to shed some pounds or in the hope they might deliver other, buzzy potential benefits.
/jlne.ws/4yUsSNZ

Regions

Top Russian Banker Warns Businesses Fear Asset Seizures by State
Sanne Wass – Bloomberg
The head of Russia’s second-largest bank warned that business owners are reluctant to invest in expansion because they fear the state could seize their assets at any time. Russia’s business climate “is actually deteriorating, and not only because of sanctions,” VTB’s Chief Executive Officer Andrey Kostin said at the International Banking Forum on Thursday, according to Vedomosti. “People say: ‘They’ll take it away from us anyway,’” Kostin said, citing concerns over the lack of protection for property rights.
/jlne.ws/4yfWx4o

Singapore’s Finance Firms to Train 80,000 Staff in AI Skills
Rthvika Suvarna – Bloomberg
Singapore’s major financial institutions pledged to train more than 80,000 local employees in AI skills as the country moves to cushion white-collar workers from potential job disruption. A pioneer batch of 23 banks, insurers and asset managers has committed to train all their Singapore staff by 2028, and more than half of them have already gone through programs recognized by an industry association, according to Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong. The firms will also study how jobs are changing and test approaches to training and job redesign, starting with roles for leaders, wealth managers and operations staff, said Gan, who is also chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
/jlne.ws/4iHpDET

SNB Ends War Footing Over Franc Strength as Rate Kept at Zero
Bastian Benrath-Wright, Craig Stirling and Naomi Tajitsu – Bloomberg
The Swiss National Bank dialed down its threat of currency intervention as a weakening in the franc prompted it to pivot toward more vigilance on inflation. Officials led by President Martin Schlegel left their interest rate at zero, the world’s lowest level, while raising projections for consumer prices slightly throughout their forecast horizon.
/jlne.ws/4hmMu6p

MISC

Ken Griffin Runs Into Miami Resistance Over Personal Helipad
Michael Smith – Bloomberg
Ken Griffin is running into opposition to his plans to build a personal heliport in Miami Beach, in a rare instance of pushback to the financier’s South Florida development spree. The leaders of eight luxury condominiums lining Biscayne Bay are urging local officials to reject Griffin’s plan to land his helicopter at a marina he is building for his yachts near the city’s port. The proposal is expected to be reviewed by the Miami Beach land-use committee at a public hearing on Thursday scheduled for 1 p.m. local time before being considered by other city officials later this year. In an email to Miami Beach’s mayor and city commissioners that was reviewed by Bloomberg, the condo group said that Griffin’s chopper flying near their homes would be loud and disruptive.
/jlne.ws/4rwbexx

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The Spread

Introducing “Auditions” – A JLN Topic Page for Market-Related Entertainment Content Creators

John Lothian News announces the upcoming launch of “Auditions,” a new space on johnlothiannews.com and the John Lothian Newsletter for entertainment content creators to introduce to the JLN audience their market related TV scripts, movie scripts, documentaries, short stories, books and poems. The official launch date is not set, but is coming soon.

Mogator Media Capital (Mogator Media Capital), along with writers Daniel F. Sullivan (Pencils with Erasers Podcast) and John Nuckel (JohnNuckel.com), are presenting the first audition, a script for a feature film titled “The Front Runner.” Based on a true story from the Chicago Board of Trade, the film chronicles a man’s attempt in 1992 to corner the 30-year U.S. Treasury bond futures market, albeit for a brief 15 minutes.

Past Episodes

Cboe wants to turn VIX into a never-ending trade: Crypto Daily

OBSERVATIONS Cboe Global Markets is exploring the launch of perpetual futures tied to the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX) to allow investors to directly trade the index's cash level, a long-sought capability currently unavailable through existing VIX futures, options, or...

Past JLN Newsletters

Cboe Eyes VIX Perpetual Futures as Exchanges Move Beyond Crypto

by Jeff Bergstrom

First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Cboe Global Markets is exploring the launch of perpetual futures tied to the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX) to allow investors to directly trade the index's cash level, a long-sought capability currently unavailable...

US oil industry warns diesel prices will not return to normal for a year; US government debt rout triggers ‘vicious loop’ of selling

by Sarah Rudolph

First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff This has been a hard year, losing men who helped shape my early adult years and beyond. In the spring, my mentors Thomas J. Cashman and John J. Ruth died within a week of each other. Yesterday, I learned that...

Cboe and S&P Dow Jones Indices Sign 25-Year Extension of Exclusive Licensing Agreement, Through 2051

by Jeff Bergstrom

First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Cboe Global Markets and S&P Dow Jones Indices (S&P DJI) announced on September 29 that they have signed a 25-year extension of their exclusive licensing agreement, securing Cboe’s exclusive rights to...

Exclusive-Anthropic warns AI may pose ‘existential risks to humanity’ in IPO filing

by Jeff Bergstrom

First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff The CFTC published its proposed rulemaking in the Federal Register. Here is the summary from the CFTC: The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (Commission or CFTC) is proposing amendments to its rules concerning event...

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Friday – April 4, 2025 – John Lothian News Daily Podcast

The Spread

Introducing “Auditions” – A JLN Topic Page for Market-Related Entertainment Content Creators

Cboe wants to turn VIX into a never-ending trade: Crypto Daily

Cboe Eyes VIX Perpetual Futures as Exchanges Move Beyond Crypto

US oil industry warns diesel prices will not return to normal for a year; US government debt rout triggers ‘vicious loop’ of selling

Cboe and S&P Dow Jones Indices Sign 25-Year Extension of Exclusive Licensing Agreement, Through 2051

Exclusive-Anthropic warns AI may pose ‘existential risks to humanity’ in IPO filing

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