The Times explores the $27 billion in fixed-income-trading income that has seeped out of Wall Street over the past 5 years thanks to “a combination of tough regulations, new technologies, calm markets and changing customer behavior.” The change—which is expected to only accelerate in 2018—is reordering pecking orders on the Street and “has left once cocksure traders at times reeling” – NYTimes
Why mess around with a bit of cash when you can go for an entire fund. Such are the allegations at the heart of a dispute involving a pair of PureFunds ETFs that the company’s founder and co-CEO claims were stolen—in their entirety—by a NJ company that “helps would-be ETF providers run the day-to-day operations of their funds.” Read on for more details of this very modern whodunit – WSJ
Online storage company (and fabled Silicon Valley unicorn) Dropbox is charting a course to go public in 2018. At last valuation by private-market investors, the company was worth roughly $10 billion – NYTimes and Bloomberg
The Journal reported yesterday that there’s an interesting financial angle to the current unrest in Iran—massive losses at “loosely regulated credit institutions” that have in recent years affected millions of Iranians. Add in unemployment near 12% and double-digit inflation, and it’s no wonder that economic woes helped spark the protests – WSJ
Cryptocurrencies are in the midst of a rare slump on news out of South Korea that the country will soon ban local crypto currency exchanges altogether – Bloomberg and NYTimes
Law360 analysis suggests that, as we discussed here earlier this week, Congressional support is growing for an overhaul of anti-money laundering rules for banks and other financial institutions – Law360
In other “this is sure to end well news,” a new LendEDU survey of 672 active investors in December suggests that nearly 20% of bitcoin investors used a credit card to fund purchases of the digital currency – Bloomberg
Malls? No, no, no. Let’s talk Town Centers, Shoppes, and Crossings instead. After all, there’s much in a name, and right now, “mall” is a retail four-letter word – WSJ
Moog is best known for its keyboard synthesizers that helped provide the soundtrack to my 80s youth. Its newest baby is a little black box drum machine dubbed DFAM—“drummer from another mother” – Wired
Have a great weekend.