Exchange Invest Weekend Edition 2658: A “Down Round” Era
--
RMB trade, intercontinental heliocentricity, misunderstood entrepreneurs, Rupert Murdoch: Succession? & the peril of the “down round.”
Exchange Invest is a unique information resource combining the day’s stories in a newsletter for investors in exchanges/financial markets infrastructure.
Exchange Invest was founded by former exchange CEO and author of the first bestselling book of fintech (“Capital Market Revolution!” FT 1999) Patrick L Young. Monday through Friday our daily paid subscriber email discusses the business of bourses of all kinds across the world.
This weekly edition is a magazine of broader macro topics as well as including our free weekly podcast which reviews the highlights of the week in the world’s market structure.
On this day in 1999, Barbie went high-tech as Mattel acquired educational software maker The Learning Company for $3.5 billion. This turned out to have been a mistake. By year-end, Mattel had taken $342 million in restructuring charges resulting from the acquisition. After only 16 months, Mattel sold The Learning Company to Gores Technology Group for no cash up front, the assumption of The Learning Company’s debt, and an undisclosed percentage of its future profits (if it ever has any). Mattel lost roughly $4 billion on the acquisition, with nothing to show for it, making the deal one of the worst in modern history.
IN BIGWORLD
From Exchange Invest 2653: May 8th, Monday:
Interesting trade fact, in 2010 the Chinese Yuan was used in 0% of Chinese overseas trade while the US dollar amounted to 83% of the trade.
Recently the RMB amounted to 48% overtaking the USD (47%) for the first time in history.
…Then again a lot of the RMB’s rise in China trade can be attributed to the 41% increase in Russo-Chinese trade in the first 4 months of this year alone, as Moscow seeks to avoid Western sanctions and Beijing gets bargain pricing on gas along with other raw materials and products.
IPO-VID LIVESTREAM
NEXT WEEK TUESDAY
Season 18: Episode 04: IPO-VID Livestream 106
Guest: Jeffrey Carter
Tuesday, May 16th: 1800 UK, 1900 CET, 1400 EST
“From the Merc Floor To Angel Funding”
Jeff Carter notes his key strengths include being Innovative, Strategic, Transparent, & knowing how to get the edge. He took the ethic from the trading floor of “My word is my bond” and brought it into practice with early-stage investing.
Jeff is a partner at early stage VC WestLoopVentures.com, an early stage VC fund that invests in B2B Fin Tech companies & was the driving force behind HydeParkAngels.com, the most active angel network in the Midwest.
An independent trader at CME for over 2 decades he was a member of the CME Board of Directors while remaking the member mutual into a for profit, public company as an active member of the Strategic Planning Committee who chaired or co-chaired several committees.
Watch the stream on:
NOW ONLINE!
Season 18: Episode 03: IPO-VID Livestream 105
Guest: Philip Roscoe
May 9th: 1800 UK, 1900 CET, 1400 EST
“How to Build a Stock Exchange”
Philip Roscoe is Reader in Management at the University of St Andrews. His research takes a sociological approach to markets and finance across diverse topics such as online dating, Santa’s Lapland hideaway, and many other topics. A former journalist, he was one of the first of BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Thinkers. His new book, “How to Build a Stock Exchange,” mingles history, technical detail and humorous anecdotes to explore the nature and purpose of finance.
Watch the stream on:
Facebook
IPO-VID LIVESTREAM PODCAST
In IPO-VID Episode 097: Patrick L Young was joined by Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam Finance Professor & Tinbergen Institute Fellow Albert Menkveld.
In this must listen episode, Albert answers our question about “Non Standard Errors In Markets.”
Now available from multiple different podcast sources including:
EI WEEKLY PODCAST
Senator Gazza?
ICE Masterclass once again
Record CBOE Profits for their 50th anniversary
And indeed, a similar Happy Birthday at the half century mark to the DTCC
The Exchange Invest Weekly Podcast 193
AFM 25th Annual Conference
Returning to Budapest, the AFM Annual Conference is back! 25 years of celebrating the derivatives industry and the futures market. See you on June 6th-7th as I will be giving a keynote presentation: AFM 25 Years On, Emerging Markets 25 Years Forward.
VICTORY OR DEATH
20 years on from the first fintech bestseller “Capital Market Revolution!”… “Victory Or Death” is a must read book for anyone interested in the intersection of Blockchain, Cryptocurrency and FinTech as part of the whole future of finance.
PODCAST THIS WEEK
Joe Biden’s Family Corruption (And Its Cover-Up) Is Hidden In Plain Sight
John Hulsman Substack
BITCARNAGE
News that crypto winter is over is rushing through the cryptosphere…because Bitcoin seems to be going up.
The fact that a vast number of counterparties are under investigation, that regulators are unhappy and indeed the Irish Central Bank Governor Has Compared Crypto To A Ponzi Scheme (Finextra) isn’t leaving me convinced it’s time to get the crypto tee shirts out… DYOR but IMHO keep a warm coat around you at all times, folks, it might freeze over soon enough on various levels.
Trying to maintain a positive angle through the welter of arrests, legal actions and even imprisonments which litter the crypto landscape, we did see a big digital asset infrastructure play which looks interesting this week. Digital Asset, who have long been the much hyped love child of DLT for finance albeit with a horrible installation failure at ASX behind them (and a web sandbox which caused us to walk off in pure frustration too), is at the coding epicentre of creating a mega corporate interoperable Blockchain Network With Deloitte, Goldman Sachs And Others notes CoinDesk. The roster of members is fascinating, from the parish e.g. DB1 and CBOE along with BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs and many more. Can it become the single chain for institutional assets in some way, shape or form? Watch this space.
On the other hand Jane Street, Jump Pull Back Crypto Trading Over US Regulatory Uncertainty notes Bloomberg while Binance is…
…desperate.
The latest angle from 4:FUD anonymous? Binance To Focus On UK As US Whips Away The Welcome Mat according to City AM. which is…
…a feint.
…Everyday we cover the ongoing turmoil of BTC, crypto et al in our daily “Bitcarnage” section of Exchange Invest. For more details on a free trial to our premium newsletter of the bourse business delivered to your Inbox daily, you can sign up on our new beta website ExchangeInvest.com.
Alternatively, if you want to follow Bitcarnage — the daily update on happenings in the world of crypto and digital assets, alone, then you can find Bitcarnage as a standalone on Substack.
MACRO THOUGHTS
A More Global Yuan Is Not A Zero-Sum Game For China And The US
South China Morning Post
PLY: A most thought provoking Op Ed by former IPO-VID guest James Fok, author of the excellent tome “Financial Cold War.” Meanwhile in a related macro theme:
The Dollar’s Demise Is Being Greatly Exaggerated
The Hill
OF INTERESTS
As always, a review of interesting reading to provoke thoughts and consideration… Not sure we agree with much of it….but it’s thought-provoking!
The Greatest Global Error Of Economic Thinking
Modern Diplomacy
Caterpillars are always dreaming of flying: Well, if an economist were ever to laugh at a caterpillar for dreaming of flying…
PLY: Interesting point — entrepreneurs do great things, entirely despite the prevailing government. Or economists.
The only flaw to this cri de coeur is an action plan — by involving the political classes and broader blob, it is, by definition, bound to fail.
UST, NCU Collaborate On Restoration Of Copernicus’ Work On Heliocentrism
The Manila Times
Which Countries Have The Most Internet Users?
Visual Capitalist
Why Tech Startups Hate Taking ‘Down Rounds’
Bloomberg
Inside Rupert Murdoch’s Succession Drama
Vanity Fair
PLY: Given last week it was all Coronation, Coronation Coronation, this week no Royal stories but this tale of the incredible media baron Rupert Murdoch is a good read.
LAST WORD
…If you want to stay abreast of the world of exchanges then please Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter — free 30 day trial.
Or Subscribe to our EI Weekend newsletter in Substack — it’s free.
You can also check out the “Reflections From Young’s Pyramid”, it illustrates the relative value of exchanges around the world.
Or the “ICE Cost of Borrowing 2020–2022” An Interest Rate Comparison, which illustrates the end of the funny money era of QE and how interest rates have already had a major lurch up from their previous region of zero to, even negative, levels.
At the least can you like this article, or leave us a comment, we welcome your feedback.
If you enjoy our multimedia, then please Like / Subscribe to our video channel: IPO-VID In Patrick’s Opinion.
Catch up on Monday for Exchange Invest 2659…
The future continues in the water cooler of the bourse business…
- Patrick
