Modern Money SmartPod
Modern Money SmartPod
Road Trip: SGX's Bill Gulya Shares Big Futures News from Boca
It's Day One at the International Futures Industry Conference and Bill Gulya, Managing Director and Head of the Americas at Singapore Exchange (SGX), kicked things off by joining this podcast to discuss a couple of announcements from SGX that are making their way into the headlines.
SGX has a reputation for making big news each year at #FIABoca and this year the exchange operator did not disappoint. After starting the day with an announcement about launching open-ended Bitcoin futures contracts, SGX followed up with news that it would be partnering with exchange operator B3 to launch futures contracts for the Brazilian real later this year.
Bill outlined what those initiatives mean in the wider landscape for crypto and currency futures and also shared his insights about the increase in trading activity SGX is seeing that is linked to US tariff announcements and other geopolitical ructions.
And of course, it wouldn't be Boca50 if we didn't discuss this year's musical entertainment: Cheap Trick. Bill shared his own anecdote about grooving to Cheap Trick as a middle schooler. It's a funny and all-too-relatable story.
(Note: This transcript was created using artificial intelligence. It ahs not been edited verbatim.)
Sean McMahon 0:00
Sean, Hello everyone, and welcome to the Modern Money Smart pod. I'm your host, Sean McMahon, and it's that time of the year where we're on a road trip. We're here at the International futures Industry Conference in Boca, Raton, Florida. And to kick things off this week, I'm joined by Bill Gulya, the Managing Director and Head of Americas for Singapore Exchange. Bill, how you doing today?
Bill Gulya 0:26
Oh, great Sean, it's it's an exciting time to be here in Boca. We've got a lot of visitors from around the world here. This this conference truly brings a great cross section of participants in the financial markets for an exciting three days of active dialog and conversation.
Sean McMahon 0:42
Yeah, you nailed it. This week is always a busy week, and things are just getting started here. So what are you looking forward to the most?
Bill Gulya 0:48
So there a myriad of topics that I think are very critical to our business, as well as some new and exciting developments. The one exciting thing from from our perspective, is within the crypto world, the SGX announced just this morning, a launch of perpetual futures in both Bitcoin and Ethereum. That's something that we hope to have live in trading toward the end of this year, there's a panel dedicated toward a crypto discussion, and I think, having come here for all the years that we have to see this convergence between the traditional finance world and the defi world. It's starting as we know that these markets have been volatile. We've seen, we've seen the crypto winter come and go, but certainly with a supportive administration. We're we're hopeful that this product launch will be one that is quite successful. We are using this time this week, in part, to talk to some of our key partners about the product development. This will be an institutional product, meaning it won't be available for retail, but we are, we are certainly excited about what's to come in this space.
Sean McMahon 1:54
Yeah, you and the team at SGX are always really good about making news here at boca. Any other announcements in the offing?
Bill Gulya 2:01
Yes. So the other product that is interesting, which complements our vast growing fixed income and foreign exchange suite, is that we are going to partner with the b3 on a Brazilian real US dollar contract that will trade on the SGX as we know Sean, the SGX has always prided itself on being a gateway to a global marketplace. And certainly our tagline, you know, which is Asia, simplified, certainly fits into that. But I would offer to add Brazil with our partners at the b3 this is an important market for us from a client development perspective, that regulatory winds of change have been favorable for the local fund managers to invest internationally. And we know that the connections between Latin America and Asia are quite critical, and to see the opening up of financial markets is one that's exciting and one that we're hoping to continue to promote.
Sean McMahon 2:55
Yeah. Now you mentioned that SGX kind of sits at a unique position in the world. You know, the gateway to seeing what's going on around the world. It's more than just Asia simplified. Really. You kind of can see China's their interaction with us, markets and things like that. So these are volatile times. There's a lot of things shaken. What are you seeing?
Bill Gulya 3:12
Indeed. So as we've reported, we've seen record volume growth. But what I think is most interesting Sean, in the context of what's gone on over the past three to six months is the growth in what we call the T plus one session. So this is the session that we consider us daylight or after Asia has closed, the Asia night session, most of our futures contracts trade 22 and a half hours a day, five days a week. And as you can guess, as an Asian based exchange, a preponderance of our volume would happen during the Asia daylight. Well, given some of the changes that we've seen within the administration and within geopolitics, certainly the volatility that we're seeing in the US is also translating to global markets. As we know we're one of our most liquid products. Is within China, in the equity space and within the China currency space, and within India, the rupee and the nifty both trade in partnership with our exchange and with gift. And what we are seeing is a meaningful spike. We've actually had days where more volume in our products has been traded during the US time zone versus the Asia time zone. So very exciting times. It truly shows the global connectivity in markets and how the need to have trading of product around the Sun is critical for our ecosystem. It's critical for our clients to be able to manage and hedge your exposures when there are meaningful updates going on in the world.
Sean McMahon 4:37
Yeah, and you mentioned that trading around the sun, you know? And it feels like we're living in a time where that's never been more important. You know, based on the news that's happening within the day, within the hour, and that's always been the case, but because of the geopolitical things going on, how quickly the Trump administration can make announcements? Can you ever remember a time that's been this fast moving?
Bill Gulya 4:57
Well, we could talk about Trump's first presidency. But, but I think more broadly, when, you know, I joined this industry in 1998 you know, we had just gone through the Russia crisis. We were heading into the long term capital crisis, certainly throughout the the first.com bust into the GFC. The need for institutions to be able to to hedge their exposures, to manage risk. 24/7 is no greater than right now. So while we've seen air pockets of volatility around various events, clearly right now, we're in a very active news cycle where change is being initiated quite quickly. And so yes, it seems like now there are a lot more tape bombs than than what we're used to. It's putting some pressure on our on our peers on the buy side, who are who are actively watching the tape, looking for those, those red bars with with meaningful highlights from a press conference or anything related to that. So the good news is, you know, the SGX and many of our peers are in a position to help support this ecosystem, given the volatility that we're experiencing.
Sean McMahon 6:07
As a member of the media bill, I gotta tell you, I wish there was always a press conference ahead of these big announcements, but as we all know, it's sometimes it comes a little quicker than that on social media. So we've already talked about what's going on around the world, what you're seeing from Singapore. Let's bring things back to Boca. Is there anything on the agenda this week besides the cryptocurrency panel you already talked about, what are some of the other things that caught your eye?
Bill Gulya 6:29
Yes, for sure. So the exchange leaders panel, I think, is always the highlight to see the CEOs of several of our largest exchanges in the world come together to discuss what's on their minds. We all know that while there are some competitive forces, there is a lot of collaboration that goes on, which includes us with partnerships with various exchanges. With our announcement of the launch of the BRL, the SGX will now have connectivity to the three largest derivative exchanges in the world, which is the NSE, the CME, and now the b3 so there is a lot of collaboration. There are a lot of meetings happening here this week, which is the ultimate tie in to how we can continue to work together as an industry group on promoting products and ultimately helping the clients that are here be able to run their businesses, and ultimately, we're all investors, some way, somehow, so to be able to continue to have good risk adjusted returns and access to markets where the investment theses are quite strong.
Sean McMahon 7:35
All right. Now, the previous episode of this podcast, I had some fun with Walt luken because we were talking about this year's entertainment, which is going to be a concert by cheap trick. Are you a Cheap Trick fan?
Bill Gulya 7:45
I would have constituted myself as a fan, but I would say I'm old enough to know their music. I vividly remember slow dancing when I was in seventh grade at the gym at Our Lady of Fatima school to the song the flame. And we all know I want you to want me. The interesting thing being the head of a US business for an Asian based exchange, when I was talking to some of my colleagues right before they were flying over to Boca, many of them asked who Cheap Trick was. And so for the older crowd, once I went into a couple of their songs, they immediately identified that that was Cheap Trick. And let's face it, for the younger crowd, they've quite frankly, never heard of them. So So yeah, it'll be good fun nonetheless.
Sean McMahon 8:29
Yeah, it should be a great evening. This is always a wonderful week here in Boca, and I know it's a busy week, so Bill, I appreciate you taking your time to chat with me.
Bill Gulya 8:40
Thank you, Sean, for having me.
Sean McMahon 8:44
Well, that's our show for today, but before I get out of here, one last reminder, be sure to watch for more episodes of this podcast as we bring you all the news and headlines from the 50th annual International Futures Industry Conference in Boca.