First Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Two big retail-driven stories emerged late yesterday, one in options trading and the other in prediction markets. TMX Group and MEMX announced a strategic combination of MEMX and BOX into the $2.3 billion MEMX Group. Then IG Group announced it was buying the prediction market […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff University of Houston Professor Craig Pirrong, who writes under the moniker The Streetwise Professor and is often an expert witness in complicated derivatives and commodities litigation, has offered a treatise on perpetual futures titled “Much Ado About Perps.” Pirrong runs through some familiar features of […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff CME Group and FutureSports announced a long-term partnership on July 29, 2026, to launch the world’s first futures and options on sports performance indexes. Under the deal, CME will list contracts based on FutureSports Performance Indexes (FSPI), which convert league-approved professional and college sports statistics […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Binance, (currently) the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has quietly altered how it cooperates with law enforcement globally, frustrating investigators who say the shift has made it harder to track scammers and combat money laundering. In April 2025, Binance began requiring police to route certain cross-border […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff It has been twenty-four years since single stock futures were launched on November 8, 2002. It has also been 24 years since I was banned from ever setting foot in the offices of Man Financial, which later became MF Global. I was banned from Man’s […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff There is a new kind of chip to trade: cow chips. Ten dairy cows in Paraná, Brazil, just became the world’s first officially tokenized bovine collateral, complete with AI-powered smart collars, encrypted digital IDs, and a listing on B3, Brazil’s main stock exchange. Fazenda Engenho […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff CME Group Chairman and CEO Terry Duffy yesterday called the first half of 2026 the strongest in the company’s history during the company’s earnings call, citing record revenue, adjusted operating income, adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share. CME reported second-quarter revenue of $1.7 […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Cristina Criddle, Jamie John and Martin Arnold of the Financial Times report that OpenAI has disclosed an “unprecedented cyber incident” in which one of its AI agents autonomously escaped a testing sandbox, obtained internet access, stole login credentials and hacked the AI start-up Hugging Face, […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Yesterday after I published a commentary, “Buy the Truth, Sell the Delayed Fact.” Former CME Board Member and angel investor Jeff Carter wrote a positive response titled “What Are Free Markets For Free Men?” in his Points And Figures column. When he posted his commentary […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff There are so many good stories, it was hard to pick the top story today, but everyone loves a good CEO rivalry exposition. Evidently, Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan does not like fellow prediction market CEO Tarek Mansour of Kalshi. The New York Times has an […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff The Trump Media plan to sell high-frequency traders millisecond-early access to the president’s Truth Social posts is precisely the kind of scheme that exists to test whether there are any adults left in the room at the SEC and the CFTC. A sitting president’s off-the-cuff […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Late yesterday afternoon at the CME Group headquarters, the NIBA inducted its inaugural Hall of Fame class: Michael Liccar, Kevin Brennan, and the late Paul Georgy. Each, in his own unique way, was an early and enthusiastic contributor to the NIBA’s lasting success. Liccar volunteered […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Mandy Xu, head of derivatives market intelligence at Cboe Global Markets, has published new research report titled “Crossed Wires: Separating Perception From Reality,” with the subheadline “Perpetual Futures vs. 0DTE Options: Risk, Utility, and Investor Behavior.” The report draws a sharp distinction between bitcoin perpetual […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff I will be in Chicago tomorrow for some meetings and the NIBA Hall of Fame event at the CME Group building. I will be down on Thursday for the 35th Annual NIBA Conference, held at DePaul’s downtown campus. In addition to serving as the honorary […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Pat Kenny, whom I have long called the most interesting man in the world, has stepped away from Broadridge this summer after seeing the CQG acquisition through to its close — ending a 16-year run at CQG that began in July 2010 and culminated in […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Yesterday, Jeremy Grant sent me a WhatsApp message with a link to a Financial Times story reporting that Goldman Sachs was restricting employees’ access to prediction markets. This news came as prediction markets were setting volume records amid the global interest in the World Cup. […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff The conflict between the CFTC and the CME Group continues. The CFTC announced it will stay a self-certification filing by CME Group that would have allowed 24/7 trading of crude oil futures as soon as July 10, invoking its authority under 17 C.F.R. 40.2(c) to […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Markets evolve through experimentation and not every new product fits neatly into existing rules. From single-stock futures and carbon markets to crypto derivatives, prediction markets, and perpetual futures, this story explores decades of financial innovation and the regulatory battles that follow. In my commentary “Novel […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff Yesterday was a historic moment, as President Donald Trump pointed out, when the NYSE and Nasdaq opening bells were rung in the Oval Office on the first day of trading for Trump Accounts. The bell that was rung was custom-made for the event by NYSE’s […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff I spent the holiday weekend in Wisconsin, at my home in the Geneva Lake area, and on July 3 we experienced severe storms that produced straight-line winds of 90 to 100 miles an hour. The storm came on suddenly, and one boat on the lake […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff With Independence Day falling on Saturday, July 4, 2026, U.S. financial markets observe the holiday on Friday, July 3, when the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and the bond market are all closed. Ahead of the closure, equities trade a full session on Thursday, July […]
Read articleFirst Read Hits & Takes John Lothian & JLN Staff The NIBA is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year and, as part of the celebration, has created a Hall of Fame. The inaugural Hall of Fame members to be honored prior to the July 17th 35th anniversary event, which is sponsored by CME Group, are […]
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