FINANCIAL ASSETS AND MARKETS

GROUP PROJECT AND PRESENTATION

ASSESSMENT 3

ASSIGNMENT DUE DATE: Week 14

Literature Review

REQUIRED:
Refer to the material on Literature Review added to BBlearn under Week 14
to prepare a brief literature review and comment on ONE of the following
themes/topics.
1. Nasdaq Buys Deutsche Boerse Options Market for $1.1 Billion: Nasdaq Inc.
agreed to buy Deutsche Boerse AGs International Securities Exchange for
$1.1 billion, catapulting it to the top of the U.S. options market. The
transaction could also help Deutsche Boerse fund another acquisition. The
Frankfurt-based company is in merger talks with London Stock Exchange
Group Plc. Deutsche Boerse has been trying to sell ISE, which it bought for
$2.8 billion in 2007, since at least 2014.

ISE runs three options markets, and so does Nasdaq. Together, those six
exchanges handled 38 percent of U.S. volume in February, which exceeds the
current leader CBOE Holdings Inc.s 27 percent, according to data compiled
by Options Clearing Corp. However, CBOE arguably retains the jewels of
options trading: exclusive rights to contracts on the Standard & Poors 500
Index and the VIX, a CBOE product that tracks investor fear.

2. Goldman Says U.S. Mortgage Settlement to Cost $5.1 Billion: Goldman Sachs
Group Inc. said it agreed to settle a U.S. probe into its handling of mortgagebacked securities for about $5.1 billion, cutting fourth-quarter profit by about
$1.5 billion and closing out a year of record legal and litigation costs. The
proposed deal, which the bank announced in a statement Thursday, would be
the latest multibillion-dollar settlement resulting from the governments push
to hold Wall Street firms to account for creating and selling subprime
mortgage bonds that helped spur the 2008 financial crisis. Authorities have
already penalized the three biggest U.S. banks -- JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank
of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. -- more than $37 billion in the form of

cash and consumer relief. In those cases, the government said the banks
misrepresented to investors the quality of mortgage loans they securitized
into risky bonds.

3. Dubai Financial Services Authority hands biggest fine in 10 years to Deutsche

Bank
The Dubai Financial Services Authority has imposed the biggest fine in its 10year history on Deutsche Bank, the German financial group. The US$8.4
million fine is for breaches of the DFSAs rules regarding the banks private
banking business in Dubai. The fine is the result of a long-running dispute
between the DFSA and Deutsche relating to events beginning in 2011.
The regulator said the fine had been imposed for serious contraventions
relating to the banks internal governance, client take-on and anti-money
laundering processes.
Those contraventions include misleading the DFSA, failures in Deutsche
Banks internal governance and systems and controls and in its client take-on
and anti-money laundering processes, the DFSA said in a statement.

4. Understanding the Libor Scandal : Authors: James McBride, Online Writer/Editor,

Economics, Christopher Alessi, and Mohammed Aly Sergie
Beginning in 2012, an international investigation into the London Interbank
Offered Rate, or Libor, revealed a widespread plot by multiple banks-most
notably Deutsche Bank, Barclays, UBS, Rabobank, and the Royal Bank of
Scotland-to manipulate these interest rates for profit starting as far back as
2003. In 2015, investigations continued to implicate major institutions,
exposing them to civil lawsuits and shaking trust in the global financial
system.
Regulators in the United States, the UK, and the European Union have fined
banks more than $9 billion for rigging Libor, which underpins over $300
trillion worth of loans worldwide. While several bankers and traders have also
been brought up on criminal charges, these cases have been slow to go to
trial. The scandal has sparked calls for deeper reform of the entire Libor rate-

setting system, as well as harsher penalties for offending individuals and

institutions, but so far change remains piecemeal.

5. The future with LNG: Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is the same natural gas
we use in our homes and industries. It has been converted to liquid form by
cooling it to -162C/-260F.
The benefit of natural gas in its liquid form is that it is condensed, taking up
600 times less space. This makes it more efficient to store and transport over
long distances. LNG is transported on ships for delivery to customers
worldwide and will ultimately be converted back into natural gas.
LNG is odorless, non-toxic and non-corrosive. Natural gas is the
cleanest burning fossil fuel and therefore the environmentally preferred
choice.

Guidelines to implement the project:

Each group member should find 3 academic journal articles related to
your research question
Read the abstracts for all 3 sources
Choose the source which is relevant to your group project
Prepare the WRITTEN report for the PROJECT (60% of total mark):
Refer to the Rubric attached under Week 14 for guidance. The report
should consist of 8, A4-pages (excluding the title page, graphs and
tables, and the reference list).
Prepare a POWERPOINT presentation (20% of total mark) for 20
minutes (maximum 12 15 slides)
Class presentation (20% of total mark): prepare for individual oral
defense