047 Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast

Transcript   SGX, the big loser of the week as the city state of Singapore loses a vast portfolio of MSCI indexes to Hong Kong exchanges, CME appears to commit an elementary product design error, and Liquidnet looks to be offering itself for sale. Lockdown driven research reckons stock floors are of little value in a digital age as the iconic New York Stock Exchange floor reopens. My name is Patrick Young Welcome to the bourse business weekly digest it's the Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast.    Lockdown is coming to an end it seems in most major locales and a great many minor ones too! The major temples of commercial capitalism are reopening: the New York Stock Exchange emerged Tuesday with social distancing and masks aplenty, while perhaps the most historic open outcry market of all, the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul is preparing to reopen as this podcast is recorded. About 20 Stock Exchange offices and jewelers have been able to ply their socially distanced trade from Constantinople during lockdown.   I remain fairly cynical about the value added by exchange floors to the parish per se. Rings remain a different issue of course. But the psychological boost of the New York Stock Exchange reopening was considerable for the parish and that moment of 0930 Eastern Time campanology  last Tuesday on Wall Street served as a moment for everybody in the parish to reflect and remember Governor Cuomo’s recollection of the frontline medical staff across the world. But also it was an opportunity for our parish to applaud the excellent operational brilliance of market leaders such as ICE, Hong Kong Exchanges, NASDAQ, London Stock Exchange Group and others. Sadly, CME and DB1 had some issues during the lockdown but nonetheless they were mostly there, most of the time, during the depths of lockdown. Clearly the debate on floors will continue with or without masks.    The Cushing crisis festers on: in India they've managed to get software which allows them to have negative pricing, although of course, West Texas Intermediate did seem to settle in a much more orderly fashion just the other week. However Wisdomtree, the fund manager, they're shutting their oil ETPs after Shell terminated a swap steel, it's a clear backlash in the aftermath of the Cushing crisis.   Elsewhere, huge arguments about China this week, various plans being put together by the United States of America as they are increasingly annoyed about issues such as laws for China, which appear to, well, run a bit of a Coach and Horses through previously agreed 50 year legally binding commitments to the United Kingdom of Great Britain's government.   What will happen to Hong Kong in the future? Nobody can guess... it won't happen overnight but nonetheless, there could be issues with Chinese companies listed on stock exchanges. And ultimately, by the end of the week, we were looking at stories discussing the ultimate problem of Hong Kong itself and how that SAR would actually be viewed by the United States in terms of trade and other financial issues.   Only one set of results this week, excellent news from the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Israel reporting the results of the first quarter revenue up 26% on a 49% rise in trading and clearing revenue driven by recent volatility in the US.   A curious tale of legal issues from Sydney to the United States of America. Isignthis we've discussed previously they're trying to acquire the National Stock Exchange of Australia. Indeed, they say they've lifted their stick during the course of this week. However, t...