Connect with us

Technology

Cboe AUSTRALIA QUOTES iSHARES BY BLACKROCK ETFS, THE FIRST ASSET MANAGER TO LIST PRODUCT ON Cboe’s GLOBAL NETWORK OF EXCHANGES

Published

on

Five new ETFs, quoted for trading on Cboe Australia, are part of iShares by BlackRock’s Factor ETF suiteBlackRock becomes first asset manager to quote ETFs across Cboe’s entire global network of exchangesLaunch is major milestone in Cboe Australia’s mission to drive competition in the Australian financial market and expand the investable universe for investors across it’s a global listings network

SYDNEY, Feb. 16, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Cboe Global Markets, Inc. (Cboe: CBOE), the world’s leading derivatives and securities exchange network, today announced that Cboe Australia will commence trading in five new uniquely quoted Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) from iShares by BlackRock. With these new quoted ETFs, BlackRock becomes the first global asset manager to uniquely quote its iShares ETFs on each of Cboe’s global exchanges in the U.S., Canada, Australia, the UK and the European Union. Three of the funds will commence trading on Cboe Australia from today, 16 February 2024, while two Australian hedged versions of the funds will launch next week, Friday 22 February.

“These new ETFs from iShares by BlackRock on Cboe Australia are a major milestone and a significant step forward to deliver on Cboe’s global listings vision. Cboe is the only exchange network in the world facilitating access to global capital and secondary liquidity by offering a seamless path for asset managers to quote across our five listings exchanges,” said Dave Howson, Executive Vice President, Global President, Cboe Global Markets.

Emma Quinn, President, Cboe Australia, continued: “We’re driving competition in markets like Australia, and expanding the investment universe for local investors, which we believe will provide cost efficiencies and improved investor outcomes. By combining the ability to deliver innovative products across our global network, with our leading-edge technology and best in class client service, we aim to change the face of the ETF marketplace both here in Australia and globally.”

Quinn continued: “We are delighted to work with BlackRock in Australia for the first time and put their products on The Exchange for the World Stage. This has been a tremendous effort by the teams locally. At Cboe Australia we pride ourselves on having a global reach, with local expertise and this global relationship is a good example of that in practice.”

Chantal Giles, Head of Wealth, BlackRock Australasia said, “ETFs play an important role in democratising investing for all types of Australian investors, enabling them to access more parts of the global market in a low-cost and efficient way. Our decision to list on Cboe demonstrates our commitment to support the growth of the Australian ETF ecosystem.”

The new iShares by BlackRock Factor ETFs quoted for trading on Cboe Australia include:

iShares MSCI World ex Australia Momentum ETF (Ticker: IMTM), which tracks the MSCI World ex Australia Momentum Index that identifies large- and mid-cap developed global companies that have performed strongly over the last 6-12 months on a risk-adjusted basis.iShares MSCI World ex Australia Quality ETF (Ticker: IQLT), which tracks the MSCI World ex Australia Quality Sector Capped Select Index that identifies large- and mid-cap developed global companies that have healthy balance sheets, strong profit margins and a track record of consistent year-on-year earnings growth.iShares MSCI World ex Australia Value ETF (Ticker: IVLU), which tracks the MSCI World ex Australia Enhanced Value Index that identifies undervalued large- and mid-cap developed global companies based on fundamentalsAnd the Australian hedged versions of IVLU and IQLT: the iShares MSCI World ex Australia Quality (AUD Hedged) ETF (Ticker: IHQL) and iShares MSCI World ex Australia Value (AUD Hedged) ETF (Ticker: IVHG), designed to reduce the volatility of foreign currency movements.

Cboe is the second largest ETF listing venue in the U.S. with more than 680 ETF listings. Cboe Europe is the first Pan-European listing venue for ETFs, and currently offers more than 180 listings. Cboe Canada is home to more than 260 listings including public companies, ETFs and Canadian Depositary Receipts (CDRs). There are more than 20 ETFs and 1,100 other investment products quoted on Cboe Australia, which also captures up to 40 percent of the Australian ETF daily trading volume. Additional information can be found at Cboe Australia.

About Cboe Australia
Cboe Australia is a regulated stock exchange committed to transforming, improving and growing Australia’s securities and derivatives markets. Cboe Australia has experienced strong and sustained growth and has achieved significant milestones including gaining over 20 percent market share, a daily record of $5.98 billion traded value in equity trading and up to 40 percent of the Australian ETF market (trading and reporting). The Cboe Australia investment products platform offers a range of unique products exclusively traded on Cboe Australia, including Funds (ETFs and Quoted Managed Funds), and Cboe Warrants. For more information, visit www.cboe.com.au.

Media Contacts

 Analyst Contact

 Cboe U.S.

Angela Tu

Cboe Australia

Stephanie Duncan

Cboe U.S.

Kenneth Hill, CFA

+1 646-856-8734

+61 421-172-820

+1 312-786-7559

atu@cboe.com 

sduncan@cboe.com 

khill@cboe.com 

CBOE-C
CBOE-OE

Cboe®, and Cboe Global Markets® are registered trademarks of Cboe Exchange, Inc. All other trademarks and service marks are the property of their respective owners. 

Cboe Global Markets, Inc. and its affiliates do not recommend or make any representation as to possible benefits from any securities, futures or investments, or third-party products or services. Cboe Global Markets, Inc. is not affiliated with iShares, MSCI, or BlackRock. Investors should undertake their own due diligence regarding their securities, futures and investment practices. This press release speaks only as of this date. Cboe disclaims any duty to update the information herein.

Nothing in this announcement should be considered a solicitation to buy or an offer to sell any securities or futures in any jurisdiction where the offer or solicitation would be unlawful under the laws of such jurisdiction. Nothing contained in this communication constitutes tax, legal or investment advice. Investors must consult their tax adviser or legal counsel for advice and information concerning their particular situation.

Cboe Global Markets, Inc. and its affiliates, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, make no warranty, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, any warranties as of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, completeness or timeliness, the results to be obtained by recipients of the products and services described herein, or as to the ability of the indices named in this press release to track the performance of the general market or any segment thereof, and shall not in any way be liable for any inaccuracies or errors. Cboe Global Markets, Inc. and its affiliates have not calculated, composed or determined the constituents or weightings of the securities that comprise the indices named in this press release and shall not in any way be liable for any inaccuracies or errors.

Cautionary Statements Regarding Forward-Looking Information
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. You can identify these statements by forward-looking words such as “may,” “might,” “should,” “expect,” “plan,” “anticipate,” “believe,” “estimate,” “predict,” “potential” or “continue,” and the negative of these terms and other comparable terminology. All statements that reflect our expectations, assumptions or projections about the future other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements, which are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and assumptions about us, may include projections of our future financial performance based on our growth strategies and anticipated trends in our business. These statements are only predictions based on our current expectations and projections about future events. There are important factors that could cause our actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements to differ materially from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements.

We operate in a very competitive and rapidly changing environment. New risks and uncertainties emerge from time to time, and it is not possible to predict all risks and uncertainties, nor can we assess the impact of all factors on our business or the extent to which any factor, or combination of factors, may cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in any forward-looking statements.

Some factors that could cause actual results to differ include: the loss of our right to exclusively list and trade certain index options and futures products; economic, political and market conditions; compliance with legal and regulatory obligations; price competition and consolidation in our industry; decreases in trading or clearing volumes, market data fees or a shift in the mix of products traded on our exchanges; legislative or regulatory changes or changes in tax regimes; our ability to protect our systems and communication networks from security vulnerabilities and breaches; our ability to attract and retain skilled management and other personnel, including compensation inflation; increasing competition by foreign and domestic entities; our dependence on and exposure to risk from third parties; global expansion of operations; factors that impact the quality and integrity of our indices; our ability to manage our growth and strategic acquisitions or alliances effectively; our ability to operate our business without violating the intellectual property rights of others and the costs associated with protecting our intellectual property rights; our ability to minimize the risks, including our credit, counterparty, investment, and default risks, associated with operating a European clearinghouse; our ability to accommodate trading and clearing volume and transaction traffic, including significant increases, without failure or degradation of performance of our systems; misconduct by those who use our markets or our products or for whom we clear transactions; challenges to our use of open source software code; our ability to meet our compliance obligations, including managing potential conflicts between our regulatory responsibilities and our for-profit status; our ability to maintain BIDS Trading as an independently managed and operated trading venue, separate from and not integrated with our registered national securities exchanges; damage to our reputation; the ability of our compliance and risk management methods to effectively monitor and manage our risks; restrictions imposed by our debt obligations and our ability to make payments on or refinance our debt obligations; our ability to maintain an investment grade credit rating; impairment of our goodwill, long-lived assets, investments or intangible assets; the impacts of pandemics; the accuracy of our estimates and expectations; litigation risks and other liabilities; and operating a digital asset business and clearinghouse, including the expected benefits of our Cboe Digital acquisition, cybercrime, changes in digital asset regulation, losses due to digital asset custody, and fluctuations in digital asset prices. More detailed information about factors that may affect our actual results to differ may be found in our filings with the SEC, including in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022 and other filings made from time to time with the SEC.

We do not undertake, and we expressly disclaim, any duty to update any forward-looking statement whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by law. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date hereof.

Logo – https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/622233/Cboe_GM_New_Logo.jpg

View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/cboe-australia-quotes-ishares-by-blackrock-etfs-the-first-asset-manager-to-list-product-on-cboes-global-network-of-exchanges-302063630.html

SOURCE Cboe Global Markets, Inc.

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Technology

U.S. Quartz Workers: Strong Safeguard Remedies Needed to Save 100,000 American Manufacturing Jobs

Published

on

By

WASHINGTON, July 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The Quartz Manufacturers Alliance for America (QMAA) released a powerful video featuring quartz manufacturing workers from across the country calling for free and fair trade policies to save 100,000 American jobs. QMAA, a coalition of leading U.S.-based quartz slab manufacturers, are calling for strong safeguard remedies after the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) found a huge flood of foreign imports had caused tremendous injury to the domestic quartz industry.

QMAA members are urging the Trump Administration to build on the ITC’s strong recommendation and address this major flood of quartz imports with a Tariff of 50% and a Reshoring Import Cap of 141 million square feet on imported quartz surface products. This will ensure a reshoring of the good-paying U.S. quartz manufacturing jobs stolen by companies who cheat U.S. trade law, distort competition and are decimating U.S. quartz manufacturing. Together, these trade remedies will provide the relief necessary to save the 100,000 jobs supported by the U.S. quartz industry.

The video features workers from LX Hausys, Guidoni USA and Cambria Company and is available here:
Save 100,000 American Quartz Jobs

Quotes from QMAA Quartz Manufacturing Workers
“This facility used to be a Husqvarna plant. Husqvarna closed down due to cheap foreign imports. There were over 1,000 people working here and all of a sudden…I’m worried I may see the same thing take place again.”
-Raymond Mack, Production Operator, Guidoni USA, Helena-McRae, GA

“Foreign countries, mainly China, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, have been circumventing and cheating the American market. We believe in the industry. We believe in the American working power. We just want to level the playing field, make it fair for everyone and everyone will benefit.”
– Daniel Vas de Melo SA, Business Development Manager, Guidoni USA, McRae-Helena, GA

“In order for us to continue to compete, we need a strong Tariff and Import Cap on imported quartz surfaces. That will ensure we can play on an even playing field. That’s all we’re asking for. I would hate to see cheap, imported quartz have a negative impact on families such as mine and the other families that we employ here.”
– Mike Morici, Vice President – LX Hausys, Adairsville, GA

“The surge of foreign imports has shocked the U.S. economy, and the market for surfaces. It’s taken prices down to unsustainably low levels for any domestic supplier. The result of that is we’re not producing as much as we should, we can’t hire as many people as we would like to, and we can’t grow our business in the way that we and our peers in the U.S. want to grow.”
– Andrew Eich, President and Chief Operating Officer, Cambria

“As these foreign imports flood the market, we lose the ability to create and sustain jobs that ensure good paying conditions for manufacturing workers. There will be over 100,000 jobs that have the strong potential to go away.”
– Jack Sundry, SVP Core and Lexus – Cambria, Southern Minnesota

Background
In September 2025, QMAA filed a Global Safeguard petition with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) under Section 201 of the U.S. Trade Act of 1974. The ITC’s thorough investigation found serious injury to the domestic industry caused by a massive import surge designed to undercut American businesses. Quartz imports have surged by 78.3% within the past five years, leading to a nearly 20% decline in domestic production, factory closures and major job reductions.

A final safeguard decision from the United States Trade Representative is expected by Aug. 1, 2026.

About the Quartz Manufacturing Alliance for America:
QMAA is a coalition of U.S.-based, American quartz slab manufacturing factories, united with other industry leaders to support and strengthen the American quartz industry. QMAA is committed to ensuring a free and fair, competitive marketplace born of free enterprise that provides the opportunity to compete on a level playing field for American quartz slab manufacturing factories and their valued workers. We also believe this effort will have a positive impact throughout the entire quartz surfacing industry, including to the strong benefit of American stone fabrication shops and upstream suppliers of quartz minerals and resin. Learn more at: https://www.qmaa.org/

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/us-quartz-workers-strong-safeguard-remedies-needed-to-save-100-000-american-manufacturing-jobs-302833444.html

SOURCE Quartz Manufacturing Alliance of America

Continue Reading

Technology

Databricks and Microsoft expand partnership to help enterprises bring business context to enterprise AI

Published

on

By

Databricks and Microsoft extend strategic partnership through the 2030s to scale enterprise AIDatabricks deepens its bet on Azure, growing its use of Azure Databricks to run its own core business operations and analytics, while both companies advance native integration across the Microsoft stack, including Databricks Genie and Microsoft 365Databricks increases its use of Microsoft Azure Cobalt to improve performance and efficiency

REDMOND, Wash. and SAN FRANCISCO, July 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Microsoft Corp. and Databricks on Wednesday announced an expansion of their decade-long strategic partnership, extending into the 2030s. Databricks will deepen its use of Azure Databricks to run core business operations and build its unified lakehouse, while leveraging Azure Cobalt, Microsoft’s next-generation Arm-based infrastructure, to improve performance and efficiency. Microsoft will also continue integrating Databricks Data and AI platform across its products, bringing capabilities like Genie, Databricks’ AI co-worker, directly into customer workflows. Together, the companies are helping enterprises build AI grounded in their own business context with the cost efficiency, control and choice needed to scale successfully.

Enterprises want AI that understands their customers, products, operations, metrics and business processes, all while running securely where work happens. Yet, most still struggle to connect AI to trusted business knowledge, govern models and agents consistently, and control costs. Microsoft and Databricks are helping customers close that gap: 

“For nearly a decade, Databricks and Microsoft have helped enterprises innovate with data and AI,” said Ali Ghodsi, Co‑Founder and CEO of Databricks. “Today, our partnership is stronger than ever. With Databricks Genie and Unity AI Gateway deeply integrated across Microsoft’s products, we’re helping enterprises unify their data and ground AI in business knowledge. This lets customers get the full benefits of agents and models while controlling costs and ensuring governance.”

“The next generation of AI will be defined by how effectively organizations turn their unique knowledge into intelligence,” said Judson Althoff, CEO, Microsoft Commercial Business. “Microsoft and Databricks are helping customers connect data, AI and business context to accelerate decision-making and drive measurable impact. With Databricks deepening its investment in Azure Databricks and Azure Cobalt-powered infrastructure, customers will benefit from greater performance, efficiency and scale for their most demanding workloads. Databricks’ decision to run its own core business operations on Azure Databricks also gives customers confidence in a platform proven at enterprise scale.”

Databricks runs core business operations on Azure Databricks 

As part of this latest deal, Databricks deepens its commitment to Azure, running its own core business operations and analytics on Azure Databricks, using the very platform it delivers to customers at scale.

Advancing performance with Azure Cobalt

Databricks will also expand its use of Azure Cobalt, Microsoft’s next-generation Arm-based infrastructure, to improve performance and efficiency for agentic and data-intensive workloads. Databricks currently uses Cobalt 100 and plans to adopt Cobalt 200, which delivers up to 50% better performance and includes memory encryption enabled by default.

Deep integrations for Databricks Genie and Unity AI Gateway with Microsoft product stack

By combining the Databricks Data + AI Platform with Azure’s global scale, customers can accelerate AI transformation while maintaining control and reliability. As a native Azure service, Azure Databricks makes its AI capabilities available directly within customers’ existing Microsoft environment, grounding and operating agents on enterprise data with Genie and Genie Ontology, and governing models, agents and cost through Unity AI Gateway. Deeply integrated across the Microsoft ecosystem spanning Microsoft Entra, Azure Data Lake Storage, Azure security, Microsoft OneLake, Power BI, Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Foundry, Power Platform, Microsoft 365, Teams and Copilot, these capabilities bring governed, real-time data and AI into business workflows, giving organizations the context, control, choice and cost efficiency needed to drive impact.

Continued investment is evident from our recent announcements with Databricks at Data + AI Summit in June.

Customer impact with Azure Databricks

The deepened collaboration strengthens support for joint customers running data, analytics and AI workloads on Azure Databricks, delivering improved performance, security, AI governance and enterprise readiness. Thousands of customers, including Banco Bradesco, the Cincinnati Reds, Electrolux, SMBC and Unilever, already use Azure Databricks to run critical workloads and scale AI with confidence.

Read more on the proven business value of the Databricks and Microsoft partnership on the Microsoft Azure blog.

About Databricks

Databricks is the Data and AI company. More than 20,000 organizations worldwide — including AT&T, Bayer, BMW Group, HSBC, T-Mobile, Unilever, and 70% of the Fortune 500 — rely on Databricks Data + AI Platform to build and scale data and AI apps, analytics and agents. Headquartered in San Francisco with 30+ offices around the globe, Databricks offers a unified platform that includes Genie, Lakebase, Agent Bricks, Lakeflow, Lakehouse, and Unity Catalog. To learn more, follow Databricks on LinkedIn, X, YouTube, and Instagram.

About Microsoft

Microsoft (Nasdaq “MSFT” @microsoft) creates platforms and tools powered by AI to deliver innovative solutions that meet the evolving needs of our customers. The technology company is committed to making AI available broadly and doing so responsibly, with a mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

 

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/databricks-and-microsoft-expand-partnership-to-help-enterprises-bring-business-context-to-enterprise-ai-302832954.html

SOURCE Microsoft Corp.

Continue Reading

Technology

Harness and Kong Expand Strategic Partnership to Deliver Comprehensive API and AI Security

Published

on

By

Joint solution extends proven API gateway security to the AI era — with automated AI discovery and runtime AI protection

SAN FRANCISCO, July 23, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Harness, the AI Software Delivery Platform™ company, and Kong Inc., a leading developer of API and AI connectivity technologies, today announced an expansion of their strategic partnership to address the growing security challenges posed by AI-driven architectures, autonomous agents, and Model Context Protocol (MCP) deployments.

According to The State of AI-Native Application Security 2025 report, as enterprises race to deploy AI at scale, 62% have no visibility into where LLMs are in use across their environment, and 74% say AI sprawl will outpace API sprawl when it comes to risk — making embedded, infrastructure-level security more critical than ever. And companies are now deploying agents into their operations at an exponentially increasing rate, making it a necessity to protect the agents themselves and the systems interacting with those agents.

The two companies are extending their joint solution from Kong API Gateway to also include Kong AI Gateway, bringing Harness’s AI security intelligence directly into the AI infrastructure layer and enabling enterprises to discover, monitor, and protect every agent, AI asset, LLM-powered service, and MCP-connected workflow that traverses it.

A Proven Foundation: Harness and Kong API Gateway

Harness and Kong have been jointly trusted by enterprises to deliver best-in-class API security for years. The existing Harness and Kong API Gateway integration provides:

Comprehensive API traffic visibility and behavioral analysis across all Kong-managed servicesReal-time detection and blocking of API threats, including OWASP API Security Top 10 risks, credential stuffing attacks, and business logic abuseContinuous sensitive data tracking to identify PII exposure and regulatory riskZero-friction deployment alongside existing Kong configurations

This new offering of the AI Gateway solution applies the same level of security depth to AI infrastructure, ensuring that security teams are not left behind as their organizations adopt AI and agentic operations.

“Our partnership with Harness has given joint customers production-grade API security that works with the way they build, not against it,” said Ken Kim, Senior Vice President, Business Development at Kong Inc. “Extending to include Kong AI Gateway is a natural next step. The same enterprises are now moving AI into production through our gateway and need the same depth of visibility and control they’ve come to rely on for their APIs for all AI traffic types including LLM, MCP, and A2A. That’s exactly what this delivers and is crucial for organizations scaling in the agentic era.”

The New Frontier: Kong AI Gateway and Harness AI Security

As enterprises accelerate AI adoption, the attack surface has fundamentally shifted. AI agents, LLM-powered microservices, and MCP-enabled integrations introduce new vectors that traditional security tools were not designed to address. Unlike traditional software, AI agents are non-deterministic — the same agent can behave differently on consecutive runs, making it impossible to secure them the way you’d secure a static API. The new Harness and Kong AI Gateway integration directly tackles these challenges across two critical domains: AI discovery and AI protection.

AI Discovery
Harness automatically inventories every AI asset, API, MCP server, tool, prompt, and resource routed through Kong AI Gateway — providing security teams with a continuously updated catalog of their AI attack surface. No manual documentation. No blind spots.

AI Protection
Harness applies behavioral analysis and anomaly detection to AI traffic in real time, identifying prompt injection attacks, data exfiltration through AI responses, jailbreaking, malicious code in prompts, and other AI-specific threats. Enterprises gain the same depth of observability and protection for their agents and AI workloads that they already rely on for traditional APIs, with full prompt and response details available for incident investigation and inline policy enforcement through Kong AI Gateway.

“Shadow AI has become the defining security blind spot for enterprises today. Traditional tools were built for static code and predictable systems, not for adaptive AI models, agent-to-agent communication, and MCP-connected workflows that evolve continuously,” said Rahul Sood, GM of Application Security at Harness. “This integration of Harness AI Security with Kong puts security intelligence directly into the connectivity layer where AI traffic flows. Joint customers now have the visibility and control they need to move fast without losing sight of what’s happening across their AI infrastructure.”

Availability

The Harness and Kong API Gateway integration is generally available today for all joint customers. The Kong AI Gateway integration, including AI Discovery and AI Protection, is also generally available now. Joint customers can contact their account team or request a demo.

About Harness
Harness is the AI Software Delivery Platform™ company, enabling engineering teams to build, test, and deliver software faster and more securely. Powered by Harness AI and the Software Delivery Knowledge Graph, the platform brings intelligent automation to every stage of the software delivery lifecycle after code — removing toil and freeing developers from manual, repetitive work. Companies like United Airlines, Morningstar, and Choice Hotels use Harness to accelerate releases by up to 75%, cut cloud costs by 60%, and achieve 10x efficiency across DevOps. Based in San Francisco, Harness is backed by Goldman Sachs, Menlo Ventures, IVP, Unusual Ventures, and Citi Ventures.

About Kong

Kong Inc., a leading developer of API and AI connectivity technologies, is building the connectivity layer of AI. Trusted by the Fortune 500® and AI-native startups alike, Kong’s unified API and AI platform enables organizations to secure, manage, accelerate, govern, and monetize the flow of intelligence across APIs and AI traffic — on any model, any cloud. For more information, visit www.konghq.com.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/harness-and-kong-expand-strategic-partnership-to-deliver-comprehensive-api-and-ai-security-302833414.html

SOURCE Harness

Continue Reading

Trending