Week InReview

MiFID II: What if the only emails I'm allowed 
to receive are the ones I pay for?

"Solicitations from traders looking to pick up business from the buy side will drop significantly as the regulations stipulate that all research must be paid for. Money managers are even taking steps to block emails from those firms that have been dropped from their broker lists."

Friday | Dec 29, 2017
Let's recap
In case you missed it . . .
Fannie-Freddie overhaul: Waiting for Godot
They've lost in court. They've been rebuffed by government agencies. Now, the fates of hedge funds and other investors in mortgage-finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could lie with an old adversary: the U.S. Congress (Jan 4)

Regulatory wrangling: The year ahead
It's not advisors' first rodeo, but they face a long list of pending chores along with spillovers from 2017 (Jan 2)

Time for SEC to take fiduciary baton from DOL
The SEC likely will adopt the DOL's definition of fiduciary, and put a rule in place by the end of 2019 (Jan 2)

Wild swings in money-market rates highlight limits of regulation
New rules designed to make the financial system safer have created permanent cracks in plumbing of markets (Jan 2)

What to watch on the fiduciary front in 2018
As consumers and some firms embrace conflict-free advice, state and federal regulators review best-interest rules (Jan 29)
The Cyber Cafe
Cybersecurity news every Friday
Wall Street aims to thwart a hacking nightmare
U.S. financial firms plan to expand a secretive project protecting bank accounts against crippling cyber attacks so that it will also guard trillions of dollars in investment funds.

2018 prediction: The endangered hyperlink
Attacks targeting the fundamental infrastructure of the internet have risen at an alarming rate and now every business needs to take protective measures.
- ZDNet

Hacker lexicon: What is sinkholing?
When you have tons of leftovers you put them in Tupperware. When you have an excess of phone calls, you send them to voicemail. And when you have a deluge of junk from a botnet attacking your network, you put all that malicious traffic into a sinkhole.
Wired
Binge reading disorder
Hand-curated, chosen with love.
Making China great again
As the U.S. president surrenders America's global commitments, Xi Jinping is learning to pick up the pieces.

The most important skill in the age of artificial intelligence (AI)
As Walt Disney said, "if you can dream it, you can do it." AI cannot do that, rather what it can do is repetitive tasks at an extremely efficient rate. So in the age of AI human creativity will have more premium than ever before.
- Forbes

State of the art: Expect 2018 to be more sane? Sorry, it's not going to happen
You're fooling yourself if you think 2018 is going to be any different, sanity- or anxiety-wise, from the roller coaster of the year just concluded.