Business

The SEC’s crackdown on ICOs has finally brought it to Hollywood.

The agency - which in a ruling issued over the summer legally qualified ICOs as securities - said today that celebrities who endorse token sales might be violating so-called “anti-touting” laws if they don’t state what compensation they received, if any.

As we’ve pointed out numerous times, celebrity endorsements of ICOs have become something of a punchline in recent months as Floyd Mayweather, Paris Hilton, Jamie Foxx, Dennis Rodman and many, many others have embraced the trend.

Yesterday's brief late night dip in ES has been promptly bought with US equity futures fractionally lower, Asian shares inching higher on Thursday and Europe unchanged ahead of today's Super Thursday, where we get the Republican tax bill revealed shortly before noon, the BoE's rate hike announcement, and Trump appointing Jay Powell as the next Fed chair, as well as as earnings from companies including Apple and Starbucks. With the dollar dropping slightly, markets seem to have taken a shine to the euro and EM FX, specifically your high beta currencies.

Submitted by Shant Movsesian and Rajan Dhall MSTA from fxdaily.co.uk

Onto one of the main events this week, after the FOMC passed without a flutter and the BoE meet Thursday morning to deliver what many anticipate will be a 25bp hike to reverse the emergency move last summer.  As such, many are pondering whether this intended move - signalled pretty insistently in the prior 2 meetings - is a mere readjustment of the knee-jerk move last summer or whether this is the start of a tightening cycle. 

Greece is planning a 30 billion euros debt swap which will convert 20 existing bonds into 5 (or less) new issues in the next few weeks (although the exact timing remains uncertain). The bonds are expected to have similar maturities to the existing notes from 2023-2042.

Authored by S.M.Gibson via TheAntiMedia.org,

A company is providing non-smoking employees an extra six days of vacation time per year to compensate for the time smoking staff members take on cigarette breaks.

Piala Inc, a Japanese marketing firm, introduced the policy in September after receiving multiple complaints from workers who do not smoke cigarettes.