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☆ Morning Bid: Small caps pick up baton, China rating hit
▼ + stars: | 2023-12-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., September 26, 2023. The likes of Microsoft (MSFT.O), Apple (AAPL.O), Nvidia (NVDA.O) and Amazon (AMZN.O) fell back over 1%, pressured by a modest bounceback in U.S. Treasury yields. China's blue-chip stocks slumped to their lowest since February 2019 amid fears of a possible cut to China's sovereign credit rating cut after Moody's outlook reduction. By Mike Dolan, Editing by Bernadette Baum; <a href="mailto:mike.dolan@thomsonreuters.com" target="_blank">mike.dolan@thomsonreuters.com</a>Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

Persons: Brendan McDermid, Mike Dolan, Russell, that's, Moody's, Isabel Schnabel, Michael Gibson, Christine Laggard, Mongo, Zero Fox, Bernadette Baum Organizations: New York Stock Exchange, REUTERS, Reserve, Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, Treasury, Reserve Bank of Australia, Central Bank, Reuters, ECB, Barclays, Qatar, P Global, Federal, Division, Supervision, Financial Innovation, Descartes Systems, Health, Powell Industries, Dave, Buster's Entertainment, Reuters Graphics, Thomson Locations: New York City, U.S, Global, York, Treasuries, Europe

☆ Asset manager GMO's first ETF will focus on 'quality' companies
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-13 | by ( Suzanne Mcgee | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

REUTERS/Nicholas Roberts/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsNov 13 (Reuters) - GMO LLC, the asset management firm co-founded by veteran investor Jeremy Grantham, will launch its first exchange-traded fund (ETF) on Wednesday. Holdings in GMO's quality stock-focused mutual funds include companies like Microsoft (MSFT.O), Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N) and Apple (AAPL.O). About 22% of all inflows into ETFs this year have been to active ETFs, which represent only 7% of total ETF assets, according to Todd Sohn, an ETF analyst at Strategas. The fund will be managed by Tom Hancock, who has been running a $7.9 billion mutual fund with a similar focus, the GMO Quality III , since 2009. The GMO launch is the second steered to market by the Goldman Sachs ETF Accelerator, which offers asset managers consulting advice on each stage of the launch process.

Persons: Jeremy Grantham, Nicholas Roberts, Johnson, Todd Sohn, Tom Hancock, Goldman Sachs, Hancock, Suzanne McGee, Ira Iosebashvili, Lisa Shumaker Organizations: Pace University, REUTERS, Quality, Holdings, Microsoft, Apple, CFRA Research, Goldman, Thomson Locations: Oxford, New York

☆ JPMorgan says shares of this bank are headed to $1,850 as it benefits from SVB's demise
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-20 | by ( Yun Li | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

First Citizens BancShares , the institution that bought a large chunk of failed Silicon Valley Bank, is set to benefit from these assets tied to financial innovation, according to JPMorgan. The Wall Street firm initiated coverage of First Citizens BancShares at overweight with a $1,850 price target for December 2024. Founded in 1898, First Citizens has been led by the Holding family for more than 100 years, and it has grown to a top 20 bank with $210 billion assets, JPMorgan said. The analyst noted that First Citizens is trading at a 16% discount to its peers despite the strong rally this year. "While the key to SVB's long-term success will eventually be the culture of the former company being resurrected, we find many similarities between the legacy SVB culture and the First Citizens culture," Alexopoulos wrote.

Persons: BancShares, SVB, Steven Alexopoulos, Alexopoulos, — CNBC's Michael Bloom Organizations: Bank, JPMorgan, First, First Citizens, Citizens Locations: Tuesday's, SVB, U.S

☆ How a single hard-charging CEO helped the US dollar take over the world
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-12 | by ( Henry Farrell | Abraham Newman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +14 min

Wriston's financial innovations helped create the modern Eurodollar market — a vast offshore realm of financial transactions in US dollars happening outside of US borders. As he explained in 1979, the "current banking network, with its Euromarkets and its automated payments system" seemed dull and technical, but it had immense political consequences. Wriston helped rebuild this clanking machine into an engine of transformation, welding disjointed national markets into a true world economy. It began to develop a new kind of sanction, which used its control of "dollar clearing" to force international banks to implement US policy outside its borders. Instead of the stateless, government-less world that Wriston envisioned, the internationalization of the US dollar became the precedent for a massive transformation of America's financial power.

Persons: Walter Wriston, Wriston, Friedrich Hayek's, Banks, Eric Sepkes, Eric Helleiner, Henry Holt, Helleiner, Henry Farrell, Johns Hopkins SAIS, Friedrich Schiedel, Abraham Newman Organizations: Citibank, Staff, of, Technology, Bankers, JPMorgan, Warburg, Federal Reserve, buccaneers, US Department of, Treasury, SWIFT, Society, Worldwide Interbank, Johns Hopkins, Politics, The Washington Post, School of Foreign Service, Government Department, Georgetown University, Henry Holt and Company Locations: London, of London, Europe, Argentina, New York, United States, Eurodollars, Italy, Japan, Soviet Union, America, Iran, Russia, Ukraine

☆ Bitcoin is in the depths of the summer doldrums despite a wave of positive regulatory developments. Here's what to expect in August.
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-29 | by ( Tanaya Macheel | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +4 min

In the latest week, bitcoin closed lower by 1.9%. Coin Metrics measures a week in crypto, which trades 24 hours a day, from the 4:00 p.m. "August is a quiet month for traditional market investors and crypto is no different," said Greg Cipolaro, global head of research at NYDIG, the crypto subsidiary of Stone Ridge Asset Management. "Historically, mean returns have waned as we go into the summer months and that may play out again in August." But even with the latest downdraft, bitcoin is still up about 77% for the year, and investors are upbeat.

Persons: it's, Greg Cipolaro, Ric Edelman, Edelman, Bitcoin, —, Gina Francolla Organizations: bitcoin, Management, Digital Assets, Financial Professionals, U.S . Securities, Exchange Commission, SEC, Binance, Innovation, Technology, Century, Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, Nasdaq Locations: NYDIG, Stone, Congress, BlackRock

☆ I'm the director of innovation at Imperial College London, and I don't think tech is the be-all and end-all to the climate crisis
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-07 | by ( Alyssa Gilbert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

The global nature of the climate crisis demands innovation that mobilizes international support. This article is part of "Gains in Green Tech," a series showcasing some of the most transformative solutions to the climate crisis. In essence, we need innovation across business models, products, and services to unlock solutions that are already available to us. It implies that we don't need to modify our lifestyles to tackle the climate crisis. Tackling the climate crisis requires plenty of innovation — perhaps not all of it shiny tech.

Persons: Seratech, Sandberg, yasin hm, Alyssa Gilbert Organizations: Green Tech, Service, International Energy Agency

☆ Thames Water woes could have bigger ripples
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

LONDON, June 28 (Reuters Breakingviews) - The UK government is working on plans to nationalise Thames Water, Sky News reports. The indebted utility, which lost its chief executive on Tuesday, may be placed into a special administration regime, with ministers worrying about the company's ability to shoulder 14 billion pounds of debt. UK water companies, privatised by Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s, were supposed to be sleepy investments churning out inflation-proof dividends. Thames, owned by Macquarie (MQG.AX) until 2017, had debt equivalent to 80% of its 17.9 billion pounds regulator-defined asset value last September. Its current shareholders, which include Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System and China Investment Corporation, last year pledged to invest 1.5 billion pounds to prop it up.

Persons: Margaret Thatcher, Neil Unmack, Eli Lilly, Aston Martin, George Hay, Streisand Neto Organizations: Reuters, Sky News, Macquarie, System, China Investment Corporation, Twitter, Thomson Locations: Thames, Yorkshire, Ontario, Canada

☆ EU’s digital euro plan reflects defensive crouch
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-28 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

A digital euro, he argues, is essential so that the EU does not fall “behind the curve” in global payments, private-label digital currencies and electronic versions of central bank money. Under the proposal, the European Central Bank would have control over who can use the digital euro, how it will be used internationally, and how much people can hold at one time. At the same time, the plan calls for a digital European currency to have an international role, part of efforts to shore up the euro as a global reserve currency. The EU plan calls for the digital euro to be accepted as legal tender almost everywhere, at no cost to ordinary consumers. If there is going to be a digital euro, Europe’s governments and institutions are clear that they, not the private sector, will be in charge.

Persons: Valdis Dombrovskis, Rebecca Christie, Eli Lilly, Aston Martin, George Hay, Oliver Taslic Organizations: Reuters, European Central Bank, U.S . Federal Reserve, Bank of England, EU, ECB, Twitter, Thomson Locations: BRUSSELS

☆ Bernstein predicts crypto will emerge as an alternative financial system amid bank busts, and says to buy bitcoin
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Tanaya Macheel | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Bitcoin was originally designed, after the 2008 financial crisis, as digital cash that doesn't rely on banks. "To rescue the ship, the Fed will have to resort to dollar debasement and monetary printing again, bringing back the role of Bitcoin as digital gold." The shift back to the digital gold narrative has started, since the recent deposit runs and bank failures on regulated U.S. banks, triggered by high interest rates. A couple weeks later its gold correlation surpassed its Nasdaq correlation. "The safe haven signal will lead to a new crypto cycle, pushing digital wallets as on-chain savings accounts," the analysts said.

SEC Chair Gary Gensler was testifying in front of the House Financial Services Committee for the first time since Republicans took over the House of Representatives in January. Gensler, who has helmed the SEC since April 2021, underscored the agency's rulemaking as "grounded in legal authorities granted by Congress." The SEC also levied record penalties in the last fiscal year and Republican lawmakers seized on the agency's nearly 50 enforcement actions against crypto firms, saying the agency was regulating by enforcement. Gensler maintained most cryptocurrencies are securities and crypto firms must comply with securities laws. Progressive lawmakers and investor advocates have praised the SEC and pushed Congress to give the agency more resources.

☆ Guest view: “1% for 1.5C” can power green finance
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Mahmoud Mohieldin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Developing countries excluding China require approximately $2 trillion annually by 2030, as per the Finance for Climate Action report. But current arrangements to get climate finance from developed to developing states are inefficient, insufficient and unfair. The difference could be subsidized in part through the as-yet unpaid portion of the promised $100 billion climate finance pledge, estimated conservatively at $20 billion annually. And it helps minimize developing countries’ indebtedness, in comparison to the current practice. The scheme would also unlock concessional funds for adaptation and resilience projects, which relative to the mitigation of emissions remains the Cinderella of climate finance, attracting less than 10% of global climate finance.

☆ China to boost regulatory oversight of digital economy -c.bank deputy governor
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-31 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

BOAO, China, March 31 (Reuters) - China will beef up its regulatory oversight of the digital economy, as new technologies, especially new forms of finance, should not be blindly accepted and recognised, a deputy governor of China's central bank said on Friday. Digital currencies and newly invented cryptocurrencies, rather than solving problems in finance, can in fact create new challenges, Xuan Changneng, a deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, said at the annual Boao Forum in Hainan province. He did not spell out steps that will be taken to boost oversight. China itself has launched its own digital renminbi, or yuan, but it is little used. The National Financial Regulatory Administration will absorb the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission's responsibilities and take over some supervisory functions from the central bank and the securities regulator.

☆ CFTC Picks Former Cybercrime Prosecutor as Enforcement Chief
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Dave Michaels | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The CFTC has played a less conspicuous role than the SEC in policing the crypto market but has brought enforcement cases against BitMEX and Coinbase. WASHINGTON—The Commodity Futures Trading Commission hired a former cybercrime prosecutor who oversaw some early federal cases involving cryptocurrencies as its enforcement chief, the latest example of regulators adapting to the risks posed by digital assets and other financial innovations. In his new post, Ian McGinley oversees a team of 120 civil-enforcement attorneys who investigate fraud and misconduct in futures markets tied to energy and agricultural commodities, as well as the newer world of digital assets that qualify as commodities, CFTC Chairman Rostin Behnam said Monday in an interview.

☆ Michael Klausner, the SPAC boom's chief naysayer, is trying to prevent another frenzy for good
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-27 | by ( Darius Rafieyan | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Stanford Law professor Michael Klausner is suing a SPAC sponsor, claiming it misled investors. Michael Klausner, the Stanford Law professor who has become the chief critic of the SPAC boom, remembers the exact moment he realized SPACs were broken. It was 2017 – way before the investment vehicles took off in 2020 – and he was teaching a class on business transactions at Stanford Law School. In addition to getting all their money back with interest, they also get 20% of the final public company. Klausner was thrust into the role of being the SPAC boom's resident Cassandra, warning of calamity but never taken seriously.

☆ Top business leaders discuss financial innovation at the World Economic Forum
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( Cnbc.Com Staff | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

[The stream is slated to start at 2:30 a.m. Please refresh the page if you do not see a player above at that time.] Moderated by CNBC's Steve Sedgwick, top business leaders discuss at Davos, Switzerland, how financial actors respond to ongoing disruptions while keeping pace with technological advancement. Joining CNBC is Ronald P. O'Hanley, the chairman and chief executive officer at State Street Corporation, Lynn Martin, president of NYSE Group Inc., Dan Schulman, the president and chief executive officer at PayPal, Mark Suzman, the chief executive officer of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Mohammed Al-Jadaan, the minister of finance for Saudi Arabia. Subscribe to CNBC on YouTube.

In doing so they should deploy the financial innovation which helped to halt the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s: Brady bonds. It requires a 21st-century Marshall Plan led by America and joined by European allies. For example, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has 520 projects in Ukraine and will play an important ongoing role. Specifically, the government in Kyiv should investigate an equivalent to the Brady bonds. For Ukraine to benefit from similar relief, the U.S. Treasury and other key finance ministries should back new Brady bonds.

☆ Here's the 13-page deck a fintech for investing in high-end wines and spirits used to raise a $5 million seed round
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-09 | by ( Paige Hagy | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Vint is a fintech that offers fractionalized shares of high-end wines and spirits. Vint used this 13-page pitch deck to raise a $5 million seed round. This fintech wants to make investing in wines and spirits accessible to everyone by creating a new asset class. The market for investing in wines and spirits is "highly inefficient" and "largely inaccessible," Vint CEO and cofounder Nick King told Insider. Read the 13-page pitch deck Vint used to raise a $5 million seed round.

☆ Sam Bankman-Fried's story keeps getting wilder and weirder as details emerge from his past and more people speak out.
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

The more details that emerge, the more I feel like this is going to make a great Michael Lewis book (and movie) one day. Among the highlights from his testimony include his assertion that the crypto market is "the largest Ponzi scheme in history." In other news:Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell speaks at a news conference following a Federal Open Market Committee meeting, Wednesday, Nov. 2, 2022, in Washington. A top FTX exec blew the whistle on Sam Bankman-Fried's moves just two days before the crypto exchange collapsed. Morgan Stanley's Mike Wilson said the stock market could fall further in 2023.

☆ Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says FTX crash marked the Lehman moment for crypto as substantial harm hit investors
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-01 | by ( Phil Rosen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen likened the collapse of FTX to that of Lehman Brothers in 2008. Substantial harm fell upon investors, especially those who weren't well informed about the risks, she said at the DealBook Summit. Still, Yellen maintained that while FTX's crash has been dramatic, it hasn't spilled over into the traditional banking sector. Two weeks ago, Yellen said that the collapse of FTX strengthened her view that the cryptocurrency market requires "very careful regulation." "I have been skeptical, and I remain quite skeptical," she said Wednesday.

☆ U.S. Treasury's Yellen says cryptocurrencies need regulation
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-30 | by ( David Lawder | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

[1/2] U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen holds a news conference in the Cash Room at the U.S. Treasury Department in Washington, U.S. July 28, 2022. Yellen told an event hosted by the New York Times DealBook that it was important to ensure that crypto assets had adequate customer protections. Yellen told DealBook that the United States was involved in discussions with allies about regulating cryptocurrencies and the Treasury Department had also done a number of reports mapping out "significant" concerns. "The good piece of an explosion like we saw is that it hasn't spilled over to the banking sector. "It's a Lehman moment within crypto, and crypto is big enough that we've had substantial harm with investors."

☆ New York is the first state to ban certain types of crypto mining—here's what to know
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-25 | by ( Cheyenne Devon | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

New York just became the first state to ban certain types of cryptocurrency mining in an effort to address environmental worries over the energy-intensive process. The new law temporarily freezes the issuance and renewal of air permits to companies that have transformed some of the state's oldest fossil fuel plants into cryptocurrency mining hubs. Mining crypto can produce harmful emissions by generating electricity through burning coal, natural gas and other fossil fuels. However, as companies flocked to the region, climate advocates began ringing the alarm over crypto mining's potential environmental harm. On a national level, U.S. crypto mining produced about 25 to 50 million metric tons of carbon pollution according to a White House report.

☆ Regulate Crypto or It’ll Take Down the Economy
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-23 | by ( Elizabeth Warren | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The dramatic collapse of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto exchange, FTX, may have come as a shock to the Miami Heat, Tom Brady , Twitter bots and financial-news talking heads. But crypto is following a well-worn path of financial innovations, such as subprime mortgages and credit-default swaps, that began with dazzling rewards and ended with crippling losses. Proponents say crypto holds great promise for making the financial system more efficient and inclusive. During the 2008 collapse and every financial crisis before that, these claims have proved dangerously delusional. Crypto is no exception.

☆ The crypto industry is closely watching the midterm elections. Here's what it's looking for
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-04 | by ( Tanaya Macheel | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

The midterm elections are next week, and some investors are closely watching the outcome for an idea of how the next Congress's lawmakers will approach cryptocurrency over the following two years. Lawmakers and regulatory agencies have scrambled to sharpen their understanding of the fledgling sector, while the industry itself has beefed up its lobbying. There's a good chance the midterm elections will hardly dent the price action in the days that follow. They say the midterm elections and the new shape of Congress could affect how the legislative process unfolds. While the bear market has dominated headlines this year, the drumbeat for crypto regulation has gotten much louder, providing some comfort to members of the crypto industry.

NEW YORK/ LONDON, Nov 3 (Reuters Breakingviews) - First Boston is an old Wall Street name that’s re-emerging from Credit Suisse (CSGN.S) with some new features. Credit Suisse Chief Executive Ulrich Körner is reshaping the $11 billion group to put some bad years and big losses firmly in the past. Credit Suisse is setting up joint ventures between CS First Boston and the parent’s trading and wealth management businesses, according to a person familiar with the matter. An added complication is that CS First Boston bankers could be getting paid in their own division’s stock, rather than Credit Suisse shares. Michael Klein will step down from the Credit Suisse board of directors to help launch CS First Boston, the bank said.

☆ Sovereign debt greens yet net-zero pledges darken
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-13 | by ( George Hay | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

LONDON, Oct 13 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Governments are increasingly getting into green bonds. Nearly 40 sovereigns as well as other local public entities have issued green bonds in recent years. And they are also issuing green debt at increasingly longer tenors: in August the Monetary Authority of Singapore raised $2.4 billion via a 50-year green bond. Still, the boom in sovereign green bonds has not been accompanied by much progress towards net zero. The bonds’ proceeds will be earmarked for environmental investments, such as energy efficiency projects.

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