Download PDF US On Thursday, and parts of Friday, US markets were closed due to Thanksgiving. This was the driving force behind the lack of liquidity and uneventfulness of the week in both the primary and secondary markets. The Nasdaq and the Russell 3000 Growth index were the only indices Read more…
Download PDF Introduction In 2010, it was a head-scratcher as to why FIFA would pick Qatar as the 2022 World Cup host. A single football stadium, scorching heat, and a national team ranked 96th in the FIFA world ranking. FIFA’s own technical committee rated it the worst of all bids Read more…
Download PDF Introduction On November 11th, crypto trading startup FTX filed for bankruptcy protection in the US just three days after admitting to being unable to meet $5bn in customer withdrawals. Sam Bankman-Fried, a 30-year-old trader and founder of the crypto exchange, resorted to filing in a Delaware federal court Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Formally, a Commodity Trading Advisor (CTA) is defined as an individual or firm registered with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) which gives “advice” on futures, options, and the actual trading of managed futures. CTAs are responsible for advising managed accounts and pooled investment vehicles, such as Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Correlation is a pervasive concept in financial markets. It is studied by investors looking for the most reliable way to hedge their exposure while financial products that offer a directional correlation exposure also became substantially more liquid in recent years. Moreover, the substantial mispricing of correlation risk Read more…
Download PDF Introduction The second biggest cosmetics company by revenue in the world, Estée Lauder [NYSE: EL] has announced on November 15 that it has signed an agreement to buy the fashion house Tom Ford brand for $2.8bn making it the largest acquisition within the luxury world this year. The Read more…
Download PDF What are the Basel Agreements? Financial risks have long been observed and studied, but it was only in 1974, with the failure of West Germany’s Bankhaus Herstatt, that central bankers became aware of and decided to act on settlement risk. For these very purposes, the Bank of International Read more…
Download PDF Introduction On November 10th 2022, Origin Energy Ltd. [ASX : ORG], received and backed an $11.8bn takeover bid from a consortium led by Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management [NYSE : BAM] and private equity firm EIG Global Energy Partners. The business is to be split up, with Brookfield acquiring Read more…
Download PDF Introduction On October 31st, Thermo Fisher Scientific [TMO: NYSE], one of the global leaders in the supply of scientific instrumentation, announced that it had entered a definitive agreement to acquire The Binding Site Group, a Birmingham-based specialty diagnostics firm. European private equity firms Nordic Capital and Five Arrow Read more…
Download PDF Introduction The perfect storm of harsh macroeconomic conditions and geopolitical uncertainty has taken its toll on the markets. 2022 saw widespread selloffs across all asset classes and is considered to be one of the worst years on record for investors. Although the equity markets have fared worse through Read more…
Download PDF Introduction On October 27th, Elon Musk – the richest person in the world with a net wort of almost $200bn – finalized the acquisition of the social media company Twitter, Inc, for a total enterprise value of approximately $44bn. Musk is the co-founder and CEO of Tesla [TSLA Read more…
Download PDF US On Monday, equities finished a little lower after the rally caused by the weaker-than-expected inflation reading last week. Interest rates moved lower with the 10-year U.S. Treasury yield down from 4.15% to below 3.9%. Markets overall moved sideways in expectation of more consumer data coming out during Read more…
Download PDF Introduction On November 1 Johnson & Johnson, an American multinational which develops medical devices and is ranked 36 in the fortune 500 companies with yearly sales of $98.3bn, announced its proposal to acquire AbioMmed [ABMD: NASDAQ], a cardiovascular technology group. The acquisition, worth $16.6bn, will make Johnson & Read more…
Download PDF US On Monday Meta announced that it planned to lay off thousands of people as early as Wednesday. Despite this, its stock price jumped by 3%. Apple stock, on the other hand, fell by 1% because of warnings that it might produce three million fewer iPhone 14 than Read more…
Download PDF Introduction In 2022, rates traders have had to navigate a landscape of deteriorating liquidity in sovereign debt markets. Over the past few years, there have been multiple episodes of severe illiquidity in US Treasuries and related markets. Firstly, US repo rates spiked in September 2019, with intraday secured Read more…