The Trump White House has put forward Brian Quintenz as the next chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), and, if confirmed, he will be working with a commodities and derivative markets regulator that has been experiencing several disruptions since the start of the year. Quintenz, who served as a CFTC commissioner from August… Read More >>
SEC & CFTC Extend Deadline for Form PF Amendments
Sometimes it pays to fight City Hall especially when there’s a new City Hall. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) – now both under the control of the Trump administration — last week extended a controversial compliance date for the amendments to Form PF from March 12, 2025,… Read More >>
DTCC Revamps & Renames Securrency Suite as ComposerX
Officials at the Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. (DTCC) say that they are doing their part to accelerate digital asset adoption “throughout the financial ecosystem” with the release of ComposerX, formerly the Securrency product suite, intended to streamline token creation and settlement. In October 2023, the DTCC acquired the tokenization infrastructure company Securrency Inc., then… Read More >>
It’s Full Speed Ahead for FINOS
The open source movement among financial services firms, including those working in capital markets, under the leadership of the Fintech Open Source Foundation (FINOS) shows no sign of slowing down with the news last week that FINOS has more than 100 members — a year-over-year increase of 20 percent. Some of the new FINOS members… Read More >>
Morgan Stanley Uses Bloomberg’s US Treasury Dealer Algos
Morgan Stanley and “a leading buy-side firm” have completed a U.S. Treasury trade using Bloomberg’s U.S. Treasury (UST) Dealer Algos, which offer buy-side clients access “to wide pools of liquidity usually available only on dealer-to-dealer trading platforms,” officials say. Beyond Morgan Stanley, the new UST Dealer Algos are supported by Citi, JPMorgan, and RBC Capital… Read More >>
Trump’s Team Pushes Hard for Crypto Regulatory Overhaul
The new Trump administration’s crypto- and digital asset train is moving full speed ahead to help Trump deliver on a campaign promise to make the USA the “crypto capital of the planet.” The impact on the securities industry and operations could be profound as the Trump team wants to fast-track innovation, new rules, guardrails, and… Read More >>
SEC Quietly Approves Cost Savings for the CAT System
It’s been a while since I wrote about the ambitious and controversial big data, U.S. securities transaction monitoring project known as the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT), which has been helping regulators FINRA and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) monitor U.S. equity and options markets, exchanges, participants, transactions, and more. CAT issues have receded as… Read More >>
A Roundup of Predictions for 2025
I’m a little late to the predictions party but please indulge me. This is a completely unscientific, random, and unusual set of predictions for this year and maybe a little beyond. I have scanned the usual suspects and unorthodox places and presented a variety of points of view while adding a few of my own…. Read More >>
Departing CFTC Chairman Urges Guardrails for Digital Assets
The incoming Trump administration will have clean slates as far as regulating U.S. securities and commodities markets as Rostin Behnam, chairman of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), announced on January 7 that he will be stepping down from his position on January 20 with his final day being Friday, February 7. Behnam was… Read More >>
Our Most Unusual Stories from 2024
Last year was a rollercoaster ride that will serve as a prelude for the adventures to come in 2025. But before the next ride, let’s step back for a moment and look at some of the downright unusual stories we covered in 2024. They deserve a second look because they ran the gamut from shocking… Read More >>
