First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff A relentless heat wave is gripping western Europe, setting new temperature records-like Spain’s 46 degrees Celsius-and prompting widespread health alerts from Portugal to the UK, where amber warnings have been extended and officials urge the public to stay hydrated and check on vulnerable populations. In […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff I loved my trip to Scotland and London. However, the trends may be against me. Some people I talked to in London and Scotland expressed a lack of interest in traveling to the U.S., given some of the horror stories about how U.K. citizens and […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff New Cboe CEO Craig Donohue‘s summer is set to be interrupted by a lingering legal case, a barnacle that Terry Duffy hasn’t been able to scrape from the good ship CME. Former CME CEO Donohue, former CME MD of Co-location and Data Services Craig Mohan, […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Jane Street traders sure know how to blow stuff up. First, it was Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX. Now it is Jane Street co-founder Robert Granieri, who has admitted he unwittingly financed an alleged coup attempt in South Sudan. He claimed he was deceived by Harvard […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Shengwu Du of the Federal Reserve Board and Ketan B. Patel, senior policy advisor and head of financial markets risk analysis at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, published an article titled How Have Capital Levels of Futures Commission Merchants Changed Since the Global Financial […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff I am happy to be safely back in Elmhurst, which is experiencing a heatwave nearly matching the historic one I left in London. I am glad not to be schlepping my video equipment around London, as Bloomberg reports that a severe heat wave in the […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff My trip to the U.K. ends tomorrow, when I fly home from LHR to ORD. I will have conducted and shot three video interviews in Scotland by myself, three in London, and then twenty-one with the help of Robbie Lothian from London. We have our […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Uill, nach iongantach! (Scottish Gaelic for “Well, how amazing!”) The total raised for the Kilt Challenge Mission I(m)possible announced at the FIA IDX Futures For Kids gala dinner was $173,104. While SGX’s Rama Pillai set a new record for the Kilt Challenge in 2024, raising […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Evidently, I am not the only one telling stories recently about European ancestors emigrating to America. Walt Lukken, the president and CEO of FIA, opened IDX 2025 by sharing the tale of his great-grandfather, who emigrated from Norway to the United States after a harrowing […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff We have had four more contributions to the Kilt Challenge: Ray Tubridy, Anonymous, Alistair and the team at Tower and Adam Hoffman. The online total is now 97,541 GBP. EEX celebrated the 25th anniversary of its first trades, which took place on June 15, 2000, […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Edinburgh is a beautiful city, with its historical buildings preserved through a conscientious effort to retain their character and heritage. At one time, in the 1960s or 1970s, there was an effort to build a highway through the center of the city, which was defeated. […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff There have been three additional donations to the Kilt Challenge, two by FIA staffers and the other by crypto maven Chris Hehmeyer, Sr., a former FIA board member for 11 years, including serving as chairman and vice chairman. The FIA staff members contributing were SVP […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Rostin Behnam, distinguished fellow at Georgetown University’s Psaros Center for Financial Markets & Policy and former chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), testified before the House Financial Services Committee last week on the future of digital asset market regulation. Behnam urged Congress […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Don’t blame me for the chaos-I’m a Pisces, and apparently so is the UK’s new share trading scheme. The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has finally approved the long-delayed Private Intermittent Securities and Capital Exchange System (PISCES), allowing trading of shares in private companies to […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff We have an update on the Kilt Challenge, and it looks like the team at ICE and NYSE are trying to nudge the Mission (IM)possible into an over 100,000 GBP possible mission. ICE COO Stuart Williams contributed $1000, while NYSE President Lynn Martin gave $1000, […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Eurex CEO Robbert Booij recently shared on LinkedIn insights what he described as “an inspiring week in Asia,” emphasizing the growing trend of diversification among Asian investors who are increasingly turning to Europe to mitigate rising global risks. He sees this shift presenting a significant […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Goldman Sachs has scaled back its risk-taking in response to heightened market volatility driven by Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs and growing concerns over rising US government debt, according to John Waldron, the bank’s president and chief operating officer, the Financial Times reported. In a story […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Major institutional investors are increasingly reallocating their portfolios away from US markets, driven by concerns over Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policies and the rapid escalation of US government debt, which has undermined confidence in American assets, according to the Financial Times. In a story titled […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Rachel Millard of the Financial Times has a story today titled “We have ‘surrendered more to the machines’, says quant fund titan Cliff Asness” with the subheadline “After years of scepticism, co-founder of AQR has embraced AI when determining investment strategies.” Asness, co-founder of the […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff The New York Post is following in the footsteps of The New York Times with a story about my hometown, now the headquarters of John Lothian News, saying, “America’s hottest suburb is luring in families with affordable housing and perks galore – and it’s nowhere […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff In her May 31st Financial Times piece, Rana Foroohar explores how the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence is poised to supercharge US economic growth, even as it threatens to displace jobs across industries. She highlights that US businesses are at the forefront of AI investment […]
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