Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 31, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Cboe Global Markets and CNBC have announced a multi-year collaboration that will bring daily CNBC programming to Cboe’s historic Chicago trading floor starting April 6, expanding CNBC’s live market coverage from the heart of the U.S. options market. The partnership comes amid record U.S. options […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 30, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Former SEC and CFTC chair Gary Gensler and Nobel Prize-winning economist Simon Johnson dropped the latest Power & Consequences episode, which probes whether prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket are socially useful finance or just gambling in thin disguise. They trace the long regulatory arc […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 27, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (ICE) has completed a new $600 million direct cash investment in prediction market platform Polymarket as part of the startup’s latest equity fundraising round. The move follows ICE’s initial $1 billion investment in October 2025 and, together with up to $40 million […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 26, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Here are today’s holidays: March 26, 2026, observances in the United States include Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole Day in Hawaii, Epilepsy Awareness Day/Purple Day, National Nougat Day, and National Spinach Day. Other public holidays around the world include Independence Day in Bangladesh, Rama Navami in […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 25, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Liam Byrne, a Labour MP and the author of Why Populists Are Winning and How to Beat Them, argues in the Financial Times that modern right-wing populism operates as a highly entrepreneurial “supply-side” business model that monetises political disruption. While the “demand side” of disillusioned, […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 24, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Definition of the Day: Kleptocracy, meaning “rule by thieves,” is a political system where leaders abuse power to steal public funds and assets for personal gain, often laundering them through global financial systems. It operates through entrenched corruption, such as bribes and state looting, creating […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 23, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Today I published a commentary titled “Prediction Markets, Moral Backlash, and the Derivatives Industry’s Achilles’ Heel,” that was prompted by an opinion piece written by Chicago Cardinal Blase J. Cupich in The Washington Post last Wednesday. Cupich’s op-ed was titled “Americans brought a picnic to […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 20, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Yesterday, I thought I was having a nervous breakdown. The headline in the newsletter was about Polymarket signing a deal with Major League Baseball (MLB) for prediction markets and the CFTC signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with MLB. That is a CFTC-MLB MOU for […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 19, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff FIA President & CEO Walt Lukken, in a commentary titled “Extraordinary becomes ordinary,” argues that derivatives markets have turned crisis-level trading volumes into routine events through targeted investments in technology, common standards, and better metrics. He notes that past Boca conferences coincided with major shocks […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 18, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Richard Sandor arrived at the CBOT in May of 1972, and the markets were quiet. However, the story would soon change as delayed plantings, problems with Chilean anchovies, and issues with Russian and Chinese crops came to light. As prices rose and criticism of Chicago’s […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 17, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Orion Samuelson, a Chicago media legend and a world-class farm broadcaster, has died at the age of 91. Samuelson was a fixture on WGN Radio for 60 years during a storied career that saw him honored with nearly every Illinois, agriculture, and radio award imaginable. […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 16, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff According to news reports, the U.S. government wants to exchange 86 million barrels of crude oil, meaning it wants those barrels back in the future, with interest. That sounds an awful lot like a bear spread to me, where you’re selling the nearby a month […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 13, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff CME Group’s Terry Duffy is quoted in a Financial Times story as saying that US intervention in oil futures would be a “biblical disaster.” But what kind of a biblical disaster? There are so many of them and each has many lessons to teach us. […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 12, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Yesterday at the FIA Boca conference, the SEC and CFTC quietly, without any press present, signed their “Historic Memorandum of Understanding Between Agencies.” According to a reliable industry legal source who witnessed the affair, the two agencies found a remote spot, and the two chairmen […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 11, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff If you missed the FIA Global Cleared Markets Panel at FIA Boca featuring CME Group Chairman & CEO Terry Duffy, Deutsche Boerse Group Executive Member Thomas Book, Nasdaq Chair and CEO Adena Friedman, SGX Group CEO Boon Chye Loh and Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour, as […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 10, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff CFTC Chairman Michael Selig addressed the FIA Boca conference attendees yesterday, though I missed it because I was in the Grand Ballroom lobby conducting video interviews. While I did not get a measure of the man directly, I did take a measure of his speech […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 9, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff FIA Boca 2026 is underway at The Boca Raton in sunny Florida, bringing together global leaders in cleared derivatives for three days of discussion on market structure, regulation, digital assets, and tokenization. A highlight of the conference is the induction of six new members into […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 6, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff FIA Boca 2026 starts Sunday, and JLN will be there. My daughter Kat, son Robby and wife Cheryl arrive on Sunday at the Ft. Lauderdale airport. Kat and Robby will be my video crew for the sixth and fifth years, respectively. Additionally, Jessica Titlebaum Darmoni […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 5, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff FIA has announced the winners of its 2026 President’s Award, honoring six individuals from member firms for their contributions to key global cleared derivatives initiatives over the past year. The recipients are Kate Simpson of JP Morgan (Operations), Samina Anwar of Cargill (DMIST), Rebekah Metz […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 4, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff The NIBA, the trade association for registered derivatives professionals (for which I currently serve on the board of directors), filed a comment letter to the CFTC on February 27, 2026, opposing direct clearing for retail participants by Derivative Clearing Organizations without intermediation. Writing on behalf […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 3, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) accused the Trump administration of gutting the Commodity Futures Trading Commission‘s Chicago Division of Enforcement, which he called “the gold standard” for uncovering financial fraud. In a Crain’s Chicago Business commentary, Durbin said the division, once home to 20 enforcement […]
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Industry News supplied by John Lothian
Date: Mar 2, 2026
First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff So much for the Nobel Peace Prize. The U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on Saturday, killing Iran’s supreme political and religious leader. No Congressional approval was granted before going to war. According to an Ipsos poll, only one in four Americans approve of the U.S. […]
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