Wall Street Journal (May 5)
“Berkshire Hathaway Inc. is trading at more than $421,000 per Class A share, and the market is optimistic. That’s a problem.” The share price “has nearly hit the maximum number that can be stored in one common way exchange computers handle digits.” Nasdaq Inc.’s system tops out at $429,496.7295 and had to suspend “broadcasting prices for Class A shares of Berkshire over several popular data feeds.” Nasdaq says a fix is in the works for later this month.
Tags: Berkshire Hathaway, Class A share, Digits, Exchange computers, Market, Nasdaq, Suspend, Trading
Financial Times (April 3)
“Trading by amateur US investors has ebbed as popular bets stumble and vaccine programmes prompt consumers to focus on holidays and big purchases rather than have-a-go market speculation.”
Tags: Amateur, Bets, Consumers, Ebbed, Holidays, Investors, Market speculation, Popular, Purchases, Trading, U.S., Vaccine
The Economist (February 6)
Wall street is undergoing revolution. “Information technology is being used to make trading free, shift information flows and catalyse new business models, transforming how markets work…. And, despite the clamour of recent weeks, this promises to bring big long-term benefits.”
Tags: Business models, Clamour, Information flows, IT, Markets, Promises, Revolution, Trading, Wall Street
Bloomberg (October 2)
For an entire trading day, a “piece of hardware took down Japan’s $6-trillion stock market,” marking the longest shutdown “since the exchange switched to a fully electronic trading system in 1999.” Besides drawing criticism, the malfunction “shone a spotlight on a lesser-discussed vulnerability in the world’s financial plumbing — not software or security risks but the danger when one of hundreds of pieces of hardware that make up a trading system decides to give up the ghost.”
Tags: Danger, Financial plumbing, Hardware, Japan, Malfunction, Security risks, Shutdown, Software, Stock market, Trading, TSE, Vulnerability
Bloomberg (June 10)
“Pity Europe’s banks. For years, they have been in retreat, losing business in their own back yards to Wall Street rivals. Now the battlefront is shifting – but what looks like an opportunity to gain ground may be just the opposite…. Shackled by sluggish economic growth at home and record-low interest rates that are crushing margins, European firms have been unable to compete with U.S. rivals in trading and capital markets. Those same dynamics look set to play out again in transaction banking,” which is set to displace fixed income as the largest revenue driver by 2020.
Tags: Banks, Battlefront, Capital markets, Economic growth, Europe, Fixed income, Interest rates, Margins, Retreat, Rivals, Trading, Transaction banking, U.S., Wall Street
Pound Sterling Live (February 15)
“The British Pound is under pressure ahead of the weekend, holding the title of the worst-performing major G10 currency over the course of the past five trading days. Losses come as the government suffered a symbolic defeat…with pro-Brexit MPs voting against a motion tabled by the government.”
Tags: Brexit, Currency, Defeat, G10, Government, Losses, Pound, Trading, UK, Worst-performing
Barron’s (January 29)
“Interest rates and volatility have been so low for so long that what was once abnormal is starting to look normal,” leading investment banks to adopt different approaches. Goldman has maintained its trading unit, “which lives or dies on volatility and which sealed Goldman’s reputation as the elite firm on Wall Street,” even though its revenue “has been reduced to crumbs.” In contrast, Morgan Stanley slashed the head count at its trading unit and has seen its market value surpass Goldman’s. But this could prove short-lived. “When trading conditions improve,” revenue from fixed income currency and commodities (FICC) “could bounce back quickly. No one else is as poised as Goldman to profit.”
Tags: Abnormal, FICC, Goldman, Head count, Interest rates, Investment banks, Morgan Stanley, Normal, Trading, Volatility, Wall Street
The Guardian (July 2)
“As the true extent of the Brexit farce becomes more apparent, it is now open warfare between the Brexiters, while the rest of the world…look on in sympathetic bewilderment.” Amid growing “evidence for concern about Brexit-induced potential loss of trading and investment opportunities,” there are growing hopes that the “transition” may be extended indefinitely.
Tags: Bewilderment, Brexit, Farce, Investment, Loss, Opportunities, Sympathetic, Trading, Transition
Institutional Investor (June 23)
“The referendum on U.K. membership in the European Union continues to dominate market risk narratives, with both equity futures and the pound sterling strengthening in early trading, suggestion a degree of confidence among investors that the nation will remain in the EU.”
Tags: Confidence, Equity futures, EU, Investors, Market risk, Membership, Referendum, Sterling, Trading, U.K.
Institutional Investor (May 30)
Firms “are doubling down on machine learning and other quantitative investing efforts.” More advanced than rule-based algorithms, “with machine learning, a computer sifts through billions of data points, picking up patterns. Armed with this knowledge, it learns trading behaviors such as buying dips or selling high over time, based on what it has gleaned about the market from past and present data.” Despite the inroads, however, human ingenuity remains essential.
Tags: Algorithms, Computer, Data points, Dip, Firms, Ingenuity, Investing, Machine learning, Market, Patterns, Quantitative, Trading
