STA Blog

What should have been an in-person meeting for our usual January panel discussion on the outlook for financial markets had, unfortunately, to be held via video-link. Opening the proceedings on Tuesday the 11th January 2022 was Eddie Tofpik MSTA, newly elected chairperson to our society, who introduced Sally Jones, CEO of The Broker Club. This is because the two organisations signed a Memorandum of Understanding to co-operate on several issues. Click here to watch video.

Formed in 2017, The Broker Club is an active community for all brokers operating within Financial/Capital Markets. It supports firms – and the wider industry – through information sharing, education and topical debate, with a particular focus on market regulation and compliance as well as technology and markets innovation.

Formalities over, we dived directly into the main course: ‘The Outlook for Crypto in 2022’. Moderated by Gavin Wells, it proved to be a slick, perfectly timed, thorough and realistic overview of this relatively new segment of investment products. It was a bravura performance from all three speakers – this from a technophobe and crypto-sceptic!

Nick Philpott kicked off first. A career veteran at Standard Chartered Bank, he produced the clearest and most thorough overview of the ‘‘internet-based and purely digital’’ market I have ever been lucky enough to witness. His wry sense of humour went a long way too, for example: ‘’block chains are not anonymous, but pseudonymous’’.

Following on was Charlie Morris, CIO of Byte Tree Asset Management, whose focus was on the technical outlook for Bitcoin on behalf of the STA. Unsurprisingly great charts – using a logarithmic scale – reminding us that all other crypto currencies are highly correlated with Bitcoin – which has the longest history.

Concluding this three-party event, hosted by the STA with ACI UK Financial Markets Association (with whom we already have a Memorandum of Understanding) and The Broker Club, was Geoffrey Kendrick, Head of EM FX Research West and Crypto Research, Standard Chartered Bank. An FX trader at heart, he reminded us that these instruments are highly correlated though some are expected to clearly outperform others.

All in all an excellent and instructive discussion, but because it was held under Chatham House rules it was neither video-recorded nor can I go into details of what the speakers said; only the few could view. Maybe consider becoming an STA member from £75 per annum!