I think this is real news, from Yahoo Finance:

LONDON, July 10, 2012 /PRNewswire/ — Dutch Space Tourism company, Space Expedition Corporation (SXC) and world-renowned financial markets trader Anton Kreil are about to make a giant financial leap and go one step beyond.

In an interview in the latest edition of the London-based publication Square Mile Magazine, Kreil has announced that he will be attempting to become the first person in history to make a financial markets transaction in Space, when he hops aboard the XCOR Lynx MKII shuttle with SXC in 2014.

There’s a lot we need to work on in our economy…shifting job growth into a higher gear, poverty (don’t forget this today), housing, sovereign debt, etc.  But–and I feel a little stodgy and un-innovative admitting it–the inability to make financial trades in space is pretty far down on my list.

On the other hand, this raises the possibility of some useful new trading rules.  Like, maybe an effective Volcker rule would be: it’s OK for insured banks to make proprietary trades, but only if they make them from outer space.

OTE’ers: I’m off for a working vacation this week, with emphasis on the latter.  So, light posting.  Please try to fix all this stuff by the time I get back.