Excellent results from NASDAQ and MarketAxess propel results season forward in the parish. My name is Patrick L Young Welcome to the bourse business weekly digest. It's the Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast.
Clearing, as has often been the case, leads: this week CCP 12 of the global body of clearing houses had an excellent report “CCPs show strong resilience despite COVID-19.” It reminds the world about the importance of well managed CCPs. And indeed, kudos to the members of CCP 12, who have all performed excellently in this space during an incredible period of volatility. Moreover, CCP 12 must be applauded for pointing this information out: markets work, the plumbing for derivatives is robust. And if we don't remind the world Let's face it, this just gets taken for granted.
Over in the US stock market NASDAQ vice chairman Ed Knight and the Center for Capital Markets Competitiveness EVP, Tom Quaadman released an excellent article this week via Law 360.
“The SEC’s proxy advice reform would benefit the economy.”
“The US faces major long term challenges when it comes to business creation and entrepreneurship. Since the 2008 financial crisis, we haven't seen the same historic rate of business being started,” their article began. “In addition, over the last two decades, the US Chamber of Commerce study revealed that there has been a steady decline roughly 50% in the number of public companies in the US. In other words, we aren't seeing businesses start and grow in the same way we used to.
This is troubling, since growing businesses have historically provided the innovation and job creation that we so desperately need today. public companies are more vital than ever. “
Well, amen to that must read commentary. Without some work here the US public markets will suffer atrophy, where they already are lacking content due to regulatory impositions, holding companies private for longer. And thus we need the SEC to make progress so we can all share the global prosperity and have broad public markets funding businesses to employ Main Street and provide investments for our pension pots. This is an excellent contribution to this vital debate for the parish.
Meanwhile, in Europe, the Swiss Stock Exchange boss Jos Dijsselhof jumped into the debate “don't fix what's not broken,” rejecting the plans from a certain cadre of cash equity people in London to try and cut European trading hours. Equally the Hungarian stockbrokers Association unilaterally oppose the European plan from London to shorten trading hours.
Back to NASDAQ, they've signed a very interesting pact with the Singapore Exchange to smooth the dual listing process, a good idea to seek more Sino centric listings as well as indeed, tying up with the SGX, one of those Southeast Asian exchange powerhouses.
Indeed, as the NASDAQ index made new highs in the USA last week, it was a good week for parish stocks, particularly the multi Commodity Exchange - MCX - of India, which was up no less than 17%. Meanwhile, Hong Kong exchanges, they were soaring on news of Ant’s move to provide a dual listing with Shanghai: that's Ant Financial, the FinTech arm of the massive Alibaba combine. Well, who would have thought it? ...A $200 billion listing can suddenly help transform your stock of course. It's a sign of things to come in the Hong Kong market, particularly given the recent spats between the USA and China, which of course might harm the NASDAQ SGX pact signed this week as well.
Meanwhile, the Financial Times cemented their reputation as sadly a declining business. They noted that Hong Kong exchanges have reclaimed the crown of the world's most valuable exchange group. The tragedy is not that they're inaccurate per se. The...
