Transcript
New finance minister replaces the Bursa Malaysia Chairman after only a year in office Euroclear delays their stock sale, albeit that might counterintuitively accelerate the process! Excellent numbers as results season gets underway. Nasdaq, Tradeweb, LSEG and IBKR all sparkle. My name is Patrick L Young Welcome to the bourse business weekly digest. It's the Exchange Invest Weekly podcast.
COVID crisis marches on: The European regulators have extended their short selling ban. I'm not sure which is worse, the idiocy of anti capitalism, which is the EU's approach to markets or the fact that parishioners such as Stephene Boujnah, the Chief Executive of Euronext have publicly supported this dangerously business stifling approach of ESMA. Meanwhile, the UK demonstrating a bit of pragmatism, they've been leading the way to a lot of company meetings online or on the phone due to the pandemic, Malaysia said something similar over the weekend and pretty much all of civilization seems to be on a move to support virtual AGMs.
Japan was amongst the markets who were reporting how many IPOs have been canceled. That's hit a record number in Tokyo this month due to the fact that well, just like Europe, the IPO market is virtually inactive since the March Coronavirus crisis. That crisis has led to the delay in the launch of a challenger exchange. MEMX, the members exchange, which was out there to try and attack NYSE and NASDAQ with a series of buy and sell side members at the core of the Members Exchange itself. Officially they've delayed their launch to Q3 from July the 24th. But in this environment I doubt MEMX manages to gain any traction if it even opens before being folded. The question is whether an incumbent exchange will offer a face saving purchase or if the entity is just left to do the “dangle whether die” trifecta of competitive bourse failure.
Over in Bangladesh, some frankly rather weasel words from the Bangladesh Securities and Exchange Commission: They were fighting back from the damning remarks we reported last week by Mark Gordon James, the Investment Director of Aberdeen Standard Investments. They've said their existing infrastructure is not supportive to resume stock trading. Sounds frankly, like they can just keep digging into an already incredibly deep trench. Essentially, Bangladesh does not look fit for purpose within several standard deviations of the digital age. It's quite shocking and really a great disappointment in this era of Capital Market Revolution.
Elsewhere. Good news, the CEO of the London Metal Exchange, is remarking that he expects to see the London Metal Exchange reopening the ring in the near future elsewhere.
Of course, it was the week of the big oil crisis. All of a sudden everybody knows where Cushing Oklahoma is, even those people who are driving around in circles hoping to deliver a few hundred gallons of oil to one of the many bunkers which are already full. The CME Group said their markets are working fine despite the old contract plunges...And of course that infamous day of negative price action in the May West Texas Intermediate contract. Indeed CME are going to be allowing the listing of negative oil options effective from April the 22nd. The markets are indeed working fine. Bravo CME. However, the question remains about the issues where the product design may no longer reflect the market overall.
Markets closed: we've had a bit of progress this week. Sri Lanka's Colombo Exchange opened for trading on April 22nd. Day one it dived 12%. Nonetheless, that means that all their markets are open as the bank and bond mar