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 | What Is MarketsWiki?MarketsWiki is an online open source knowledge base for current and historical information about the global exchange traded capital, derivatives, environmental and related OTC markets. MarketsWiki is powered by content contributions from paid readers of the John Lothian Newsletter, Environmental Markets Newsletter and Frontier Markets Newsletter and from a team of professional financial journalists, educators and consultants.
Featured ArticleFive Minutes with Scott A. Brusso 
Scott A. Brusso is a director of foreign exchange (FX) for the CME Group. He was appointed to this position in July of 2007 after working in the area of currency product marketing for the exchange since the early 90s. Brusso, who coaches kids in gymnastics and baseball in his free time, recently talked with MarketsWiki's Christine Nielsen about the evolution of CME Group's Forex products and his assimilation into a financial market position after rather comfortably traveling the world.
A: I have three sisters. Their husbands worked at the CME, and two of them worked in the Forex quadrant. I started in currencies. I was basically working with them, they were running arbitrage business between the banks and trading floor. It wasn't my goal at all to be involved with the markets. It was accidental - that's if anything really is accidental.
A: Yes, I became a monk. I don't, in general, talk about it, unless I have a reason to talk about it. I had been traveling around the world. Africa, Afghanistan. I found myself in Northern India, coming in contact with Tibetans (The Dalai Lama) was a life-changing experience. It was more to do with spending time with them, learning from them. Because of visa issues, I went back and forth between India and Nepal for seven years. Their teachings are based on peace - compassion and sensitivity for all forms of life. You don't hear too much about that in our daily life here (in the States). I didn't have any culture shock at all traveling around the world. It was more of an adjustment moving back to Chicago. If the traders bought 5s on the trading floor, they were praying for it to tick up to 6, etc. They were "praying" for personal gain. In monastic life they pray for world peace and happiness. The key was trying to bridge these two worlds. I grew up the same as most of the individuals on the trading floor so I could relate, but I had changed.
A: The most challenging was taking the FX products around-the-clock electronically. Here, FX products were traded in open outcry. They were at around 5,000 to 6,000 at night (in terms of volume) as of the April of 2001 launch date. We had to make sure we "set the table" correctly (by having liquidity providers, etc., involved). You really must know your customers. It was a challenge because many were set up to be on the trading floor or had moved to the OTC market. We had to make sure the technology worked for the users. The launch was excellent. The first day market makers were streaming prices and buy side customers were trading. 
A: Hopefully, history will prove that it was essential. If we didn't go electronic, we could have opened the door for competitors to take that business.
Q: Were there lessons learned through the lack of success of FXMarketSpace? If so, what were they? A: FXMarketSpace was possibly ahead of its time, but one lesson was customers wanted to decouple execution from clearing.
Q: How do E-Micro Futures fit into the CME's product offerings and vision for the complex? What about the challenge the product poses to cash FX business? A: The E-micro (retail) world has grown dramatically. Micros are designed for the small, retail-type customers. We're adding this to the CME FX suite to extend our offering to meet all the customer needs.
Q: What are your hobbies? What is the farthest you have gone to pursue this/these hobbies? A: I like to play tennis. I don't have that much time. I coach kids in gymnastics and baseball. I enjoy working with children. You can show children life lessons through sports. For example, with a back handspring, when they accomplish something they thought was not possible you can emphasize that you should never say you can't do something...throughout life people will tell you can't do things, never believe that you can't do something.
Q: What were your impressions of the CME and the futures industry upon your first day on the job at CME? What are your observations about the exchange and industry now? A: I started at the CME in 1983. There is always change. The exchange overall has really developed. It's more user friendly. Electronic trade has leveled the playing field. Once on Globex, everyone is on equal footing. It's become even more level and allowed for all users down to the individual investor.
Q: Is there anything else that you'd like people to know about you? Anything else you'd like them to know about the CME's Forex products? A: I hope they realize that I do care about them. I'm not just out for myself. I do care about them, that they do well and that we all grow on a business and personal level. The CME allows them the largest, fairest market from which to trade.
Job Providers and HuntersLooking for work? Looking to hire someone? MarketsWiki serves both sides of that equation. If you are a manager with a job opening to fill, you can post the details for the opening on our Job Postings page. Also, we just created (in November) a new feature so that people can identify themselves on their biography pages as looking for work. Take a look at the Job Seekers category to see who's hunting -- you might find the right person just by looking here! If you're one of those people looking for work, and if you have a biography page here in MarketsWiki, tag yourself as being in the job market! You can do it yourself if you have wiki editing access; take a look at our handy help guide: Using the Job Seeker Template. If you don't have a page yet, or don't want to edit the page yourself, just get in touch and we'll help you get set up! There's no cost to either employer or job hunter; our goal is simply to help the community stay connected.
Event Spotlight
  4th Annual FIA/OIC New York Equity Options ConferenceWhen: Sept. 22-23, 2009 Newsletters
The John Lothian Newsletter is a daily email intelligence briefing edited by John J. Lothian dedicated to promoting a greater understanding of the futures and securities industries, and the capital and derivatives markets, through the dissemination of information and commentary. The John Lothian Newsletter was launched during the summer or 2000 and was offered for free for its first 3 years. In 2003, the newsletter switched to a voluntary pay format. Readers are asked to pay for the newsletter if they find it valuable. An annual subscription for the John Lothian Newsletter in 2008 is $115. Enterprise rates are available for organizations with 5 or more readers.
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John Lothian Newsletter - Metals Edition is a FREE daily email newsletter providing traders, investors and other market participants with a comprehensive aggregation of news and commentary about the metals markets. It will officially launch on June 1, 2009.
John J. Lothian & Company, Inc. has suspended publication of Frontier Markets Newsletter (FMN) as of the beginning of 2009 pending a reworking of the format.
| HeadlinesNYSE’s Liffe Puts Credit-Default Clearing Project Under Review  By Nandini Sukumar Trading Technologies CEO Responds to Article in Local Business Journal  From Harris Brumfield, CEO, Trading Technologies: CHICAGO, July 1, 2009 — Recently Crain's Chicago Business ran an article about the upcoming launch of the ELX Futures exchange and Trading Technologies (TT). The article centers on the notion that "bad blood" between Howard Lutnick (the CEO of BGC Partners) and me is the reason why TT currently has no near-term plans to connect to ELX. Please allow me to address this point... (more) Geneva Trading Appoints John Barun as Managing Director and Chief Information Officer  Geneva Trading USA, LLC, a global, multi-asset class proprietary trading company, named John Barun as managing director and chief information officer. In this newly created position Barun will be a member of Geneva’s strategic planning committee and will be responsible for developing and executing the firm’s global IT strategy. He will report to Mary McDonnell, president and CEO...Barun most recently served as president and CEO of Capital Markets Consulting, a technology consulting company servicing the financial industry. (more) Treasury to name up to 9 managers for toxic-asset plan: source  NEW YORK - The Treasury Department is expected to name as many as nine fund managers to operate the long-awaited Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP) to cleanse banks of toxic assets, a person familiar with the plan said on Wednesday. (more) Whistleblower rewards urged CDS clearing plans not 'bulletproof' Bank pushed to step up QE  By David Oakley and Michael Mackenzie CME Revs Up for Surge in Carbon Credit Trading  By Penny Crosman LSE Cuts Fees, Changes Structure to Fight Competition 2 Midsize Japanese Banks Plan to Merge Official Calls for British Banks to Shrink Best in Class: US Bancorp an Overlooked Gem Small Broker Looks to Go Big Time with ICAP Investment  James Ramage - Traders Magazine Metropolitan Bank getting $78M in TARP money Rogue trader' costs PVM $10m Upcoming EventsHave an event you'd like to list? Put a new section in the Upcoming Events page and we'll put it here on the front page too! CTA EXPO 2009 4th Annual FIA/OIC New York Equity Options Conference 25th Annual FIA Futures & Options Expo 5th Annual FIA Asia Derivatives Conference MarketsWiki Spotlight(Statistics snapshot as of July 02, 2009. Average visitor statistics are based on site traffic in the last month.)
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Sponsorship, Subscriptions, Editing MarketsWiki is a companion to the John Lothian Newsletter (JLN), Jim Kharouf's Environmental Markets Newsletter (EMN) and the Rob Luke edited Frontier Markets Newsletter (FMN). JLN, EMN and FMN are daily email overviews of the news, opinions and happenings in the financial markets, environmental markets and emerging markets. To preserve the integrity of the information here, editing and contribution is limited to paid subscribers of either newsletter (though anyone can read the contents on this site). The subscriptions help pay for our team of professional journalists and technical support consultants, and the limited access ensures that we're not fending off and repairing vandalism and disinformation in our articles. We are actively seeking sponsors and content contributors to keep this project growing rapidly! If you'd like information about sponsoring the project, please contact us at info@johnlothian.com for details. If you'd like to subscribe to the newsletters, either to become a contributor or simply to stay informed in the rapidly changing financial world, visit our signup page. And finally, if you're already a paid newsletter subscriber and want access to the wiki, send an email request to Jon Matte, and he'll get you set up with a user id and a startup guide.
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