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☆ SEC's Gensler says CFTC authority over stablecoins should be bolstered
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Stablecoins are usually pegged to the U.S. dollar and are primarily used to facilitate trading in other digital assets. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterWhile the CFTC has anti-fraud and anti-manipulation regulatory authorities over firms that issue dollar-backed stablecoins, they do not have "actual plenary authority to write rules around the exchanges," Gensler said. They currently do not have direct regulatory authorities over the underlying non-security tokens," he said. The vast majority of cryptocurrencies, including so-called algorithmic stablecoins, are securities, and fall under the SEC's authority, while a handful are not, Gensler said. It remains unclear when Congress might pass crypto-related legislation, although several bills have been introduced to address stablecoins and digital commodities regulation.

The watchdog's latest annual report said it had 72 open insider dealing cases as of 31 March 2022, compared to 71 the prior year. It had 88 open insider dealing cases as of March 2020, before the pandemic gripped Britain. Stamping out market abuse such as insider dealing – trading a company's publicly-quoted securities with access to confidential, market-moving information - is a key enforcement area for the FCA. The FCA said the insider dealing arrests and searches disclosed to Reuters related to suspect activity both before and after March 2020, when Britain first imposed COVID-19 lockdowns. The watchdog added they were unrelated to four insider dealing prosecutions it had commenced since March 2020.

☆ SEC scrutiny into Wall Street communications shifts to investment funds - sources
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-11 | by ( Chris Prentice | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

WASHINGTON, Oct 11 (Reuters) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's scrutiny of how Wall Street handles work-related communications on personal devices and apps such as WhatsApp has expanded beyond broker-dealers to investment funds and advisers, according to four people familiar with the inquiry. A spokesperson for the SEC declined to comment, saying: "We don’t comment on the existence or nonexistence of a possible investigation." The SEC periodically conducts such sweeps to quickly gather information on issues it suspects may be widespread. The institutions did not preserve most of those personal chats, violating federal rules which require broker-dealers and other financial institutions to preserve business communications. Like broker-dealers, investment companies and registered investment advisers are required by the SEC to maintain records of business communications.

It also encapsulates macro hedge funds' trading strategy today - while most investors got smoked in the third quarter as stocks, bonds and commodities slumped, macro funds raked it in thanks to the surging U.S. dollar. There is little indication the wave is about to crash any time soon, and although hedge funds have reduced their exposure in recent weeks, they remain comfortably long. LONG, LONG, LONGThe dollar index, a measure of the greenback's value against a basket of six major currencies, rose 7.1% in the third quarter, its best performance since early 2015. But CFTC hedge funds have held a net long dollar position every week since August last year, and a $10 billion bet is still a pretty resounding endorsement of the U.S. currency over its major rivals. With numbers like these, it looks like funds may be buying dollars and wearing diamonds for a good while yet.

☆ Wall Street to Pay $1.8 Billion in Fines Over Traders’ Use of Banned Messaging Apps
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Dave Michaels | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The firms in the settlement include the brokerage unit of Bank of America. WASHINGTON—Eleven of the world’s largest banks and brokerages will collectively pay $1.8 billion in fines to resolve regulatory investigations over their employees’ use of messaging applications that broke record-keeping rules, regulators said Tuesday. The firms include brokerage units of Bank of America Barclays Citigroup Inc., Credit Suisse Group Deutsche Bank Goldman Sachs Group Morgan Stanley , UBS Group and Nomura Holdings Inc. Brokerage firms Jefferies LLC and Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. also settled the claims with the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

☆ Wall Street sends regulators a poop emoji
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( John Foley | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

For Wall Street brokerages, one answer is simply to flout it. At many of the firms, even managers whose job it was to enforce those rules were copiously breaking them. The regulators at least didn’t say they’d uncovered anything illegal, though disappearing-message apps and encryption make evidence easy to hide. But it’s still troubling to find widespread, frequent examples of bank employees, many with “global firm-wide leadership” roles, routinely doing something their companies forbid. The SEC fined the firms $1.1 billion, while the CFTC fined the same companies around $710 million.

☆ There are gaps in crypto regulation that need to be filled, says CFTC Chair Rostin Behnam
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailThere are gaps in crypto regulation that need to be filled, says CFTC Chair Rostin BehnamRostin Behnam, chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, joins CNBC's 'Squawk Box' to discuss potential regulation over blockchain and crypto.

☆ Wall Street's texting problem forces unhappy regulators to send a billion dollar message
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Bob Pisani | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Wall Street has a texting problem and the SEC is not happy. The firms, including Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Barclays and UBS, agreed to pay combined penalties of more than $1.1 billion. That means that many broker-dealers were communicating with each other either on their personal cell phones directly, or using personal email, or using messaging apps like Telegram or WhatsApp that are hard to detect. The firms did not maintain or preserve the substantial majority of these off-channel communications, in violation of the federal securities laws." "Since the 1930s, such recordkeeping has been vital to preserve market integrity," SEC Chair Gary Gensler said in a statement.

☆ Wall Street banks including Bank of America and Goldman Sachs fined $1.8 billion over failures in monitoring how staff used personal phones to talk about work
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Wall Street banks have been fined for not monitoring how staff use their phones to talk about work. The offences involved employees ranging senior executives to debt and equity traders. The offences involved employees ranging from supervisors and senior executives to junior investment bankers and debt and equity traders. This included one senior investment banker who had sent and received "tens of thousands" of off-channel text messages, concerning things including investment strategy and client meetings, the SEC said. Each company had failed to retain "hundreds if not thousands of business-related communications," including some connected to their commodities and swaps businesses, the CFTC said.

☆ Wall Street shops get dinged for nearly $2 billion in penalties for failing to police bankers' use of Whatsapp
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Aaron Weinman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Some of the world's largest banks from Goldman Sachs to Morgan Stanley will cough up nearly $2 billion in penalties to the US regulators for failing to sufficiently monitor their employees' use of unauthorized messaging apps. At the heart of the matter here are bankers' use of communications platforms like Whatsapp or Signal. These are encrypted messaging apps that bankers regularly use to communicate with clients and even journalists. The largest US banks, boutiques, and European lenders were caught up in a probe around the use of unauthorized messaging apps. Whatsapp, for example, is a popular messaging app with bankers dealing with clients based outside the US.

☆ Bank of America employees are frustrated and confused over new rules governing chats with colleagues and clients amid crackdown on illicit messaging
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-28 | by ( Alex Morrell | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

BofA has rolled out a new communications policy to traders and bankers amid an industry-wide regulatory probe. Even texting "I'm running late" from a personal phone is a policy violation, according to an internal memo. Banks and brokerages are required to monitor employees' written communications — rules that often went ignored during the work-from-home days of the pandemic, leading to a regulatory crackdown that ramped up this year. The same example — letting someone know you're running late to a meeting — was cited. For those who want to ensure safety, it means putting personal communications that could come into question on the corporate phone.

☆ U.S. fines 16 Wall Street firms $1.8 bln for talking deals, trades on personal apps
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( Michelle Price | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Sept 27 (Reuters) - U.S. regulators on Tuesday fined 16 financial firms, including Barclays (BARC.L), Bank of America , Citigroup , Credit Suisse (CSGN.S), Goldman Sachs , Morgan Stanley and UBS (UBSG.S), a combined $1.8 billion after staff discussed deals and trades on their personal devices and apps. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterThe institutions did not preserve the majority of those personal chats, violating federal rules which require broker-dealers and other financial institutions to preserve business communications. The failings occurred across all 16 firms and involved employees at multiple levels, including senior and junior investment bankers and traders, the SEC said. In one example cited by her office, Bank of America staff used WhatsApp, with one trader writing: "We use WhatsApp all the time but we delete convos regularly." The head of a trading desk routinely directed traders to delete messages on personal devices and to use Signal, including during the CFTC's probe.

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterJPMorgan Chase & Co and Whatsapp logos are seen in this illustration taken, August 22, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/IllustrationSept 27 (Reuters) - U.S. regulators are set to announce a settlement with firms across Wall Street for failing to monitor employees using unauthorized messaging apps, Bloomberg Law reported on Tuesday, citing a person with knowledge of the matter. read moreThe announcement of the settlement is expected as soon as Wednesday, Bloomberg Law reported. Wall Street institutions faced challenges in tracking staff communications in the work-from-home pandemic era, particularly over personal devices. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterReporting by Niket Nishant in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'SilvaOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Analysis: Loonie bulls reel as Bank of Canada trails Fed on terminal rate bets
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-27 | by ( Fergal Smith | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

A Canadian dollar coin, commonly called a "loonie," and an American dollar bill are seen in this staged photo in Toronto, March 17, 2010. ,A lower terminal rate for the BoC than the Fed is not uncommon, but it threatens to pour cold water on Canadian dollar bulls' expectations that interest rate differentials would help underpin the currency over the coming year. The Canadian dollar has weakened 7.5% against the greenback since the start of the year. Canada's housing market has slowed rapidly in recent months, while its share of the economy, at 9%, is nearly twice that of the U.S. housing market. "Canada's economy is simply more interest rate sensitive than the U.S. economy," said Royce Mendes, managing director and head of macro strategy at Desjardins.

Hedge funds and other money managers sold the equivalent of 8 million barrels in the six most important petroleum-related futures and options contracts in the week to Sept. 20. Funds have sold a total of 186 million barrels over the 16 weeks since the start of June, according to records published by ICE Futures Europe and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. (Chartbook: https://tmsnrt.rs/3Stv0XG)The most recent week saw purchases of Brent (+6 million barrels), NYMEX and ICE WTI (+3 million) and U.S. gasoline (+2 million) but sales of U.S. diesel (-3 million) and European gas oil (-15 million). Middle distillates such as diesel and gas oil are mostly used in freight transportation, manufacturing and mining, so they are heavily geared to the business cycle. Fund managers have cut their position in mid-distillates in each of the last three weeks by a total of 39 million barrels as fears of a recession have intensified.

☆ Hedge funds mounted bearish UK bets as Truss became PM
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-26 | by ( Nell Mackenzie | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

LONDON, Sept 26 (Reuters) - In the first half of September bets against sterling posted the biggest two-week rise since 2013, a sign that hedge funds may have ramped up short positions just as Liz Truss became Britain's new Prime Minister. According to Vanda Research, which uses data from the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), short contracts of GBP/USD made by leveraged funds in the first two weeks of September jumped 17 percentage points. Speculators have trimmed their net short position on the British pound to 54,843 contracts last week valued at $3.9 billion, down from a previous net short position of 68,086 contracts, figures from the CFTC show. CFTC data showed speculators have maintained short positions against the pound every week since February. Gargour has had positions in the pound but because of UK marketing regulations could not confirm if he was short.

The 45,000-contract swing was the biggest since March 2020 and sixth largest since euro futures contracts were launched in the 1980s. chartSimilarly, funds reduced their net short sterling position by 13,000 contracts, the biggest move in six weeks. In rates, CFTC speculators cut their net short position in three-month "SOFR" futures by 33,000 contracts to 788,000 contracts, the smallest net short in seven weeks. They reduced their net short position in 10-year Treasuries futures by 123,000 contracts, the biggest short-covering move in almost five months. And in equities, they scaled back their net short position in S&P 500 futures by 61,500 contracts to 219,500, the smallest net short in two months.

Most-active CBOT corn futures rose 15% in those eight weeks, remaining just under $7 per bushel at their peak. Corn futures settled at $6.76-3/4 per bushel Friday, easing with broader commodities and equities, though they remain at the second highest levels for the date behind 2012. Subpar global crops have supported corn futures, but demand concerns loom. Money managers’ bullish CBOT soybean meal views are easily record high for the date, surging by more than 14,000 contracts through Sept. 20 to 102,168 futures and options contracts. That was associated with a 3.7% jump in futures, and it was funds’ biggest meal buying week since November.

☆ Indonesia to tighten rules for crypto exchanges, ensure more local control
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

The measure comes following financial issues faced by Southeast Asia-focused cryptocurrency exchange Zipmex, which temporarily prevented users from withdrawing funds. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterThe ministry's Commodity Futures Trading Regulatory Agency (Bappebti) will issue the new rule soon, he said, without giving a timeframe. It will also require an exchange to use a third-party to store client funds and to prohibit exchanges re-investing stored crypto assets, according to a document issued by the ministry. Asked about a plan to launch an Indonesian crypto asset bourse, which has been delayed from last year, Sambuaga said the plan could hopefully be completed this year. ($1 = 14,980.0000 rupiah)Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterReporting by Stefanno Sulaiman Editing by Ed DaviesOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Biden White House just put out a framework on regulating crypto — here’s what’s in it
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-16 | by ( Mackenzie Sigalos | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +8 min

U.S. President Joe Biden walks from Marine One to the White House following a trip from Michigan, in Washington, U.S., September 14, 2022. Here are some of the key takeaways from the White House's new crypto framework. Fighting illicit financeOne section of the White House's new framework on crypto regulation focuses on eliminating illegal activity in the industry — and the measures proposed appear to have real teeth. Crime is rife in the digital asset sector. Then there's the hypothetical digital dollar that would be the Federal Reserve's take on a CBDC.

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