Download PDF USA Following signs of a more hawkish central bank policy, bond markets in the US sold off substantially over the course of the week. On Tuesday, Charles Evans, the Chicago Fed’s president defined a year-end range for the policy rate between 2.25 and 2.5 per cent as realistic, Read more…
Download PDF Introduction The US airline industry, following two years of devastation and billions of dollars of losses due to the pandemic, appears to be springing back to life. Passenger numbers are returning to pre-pandemic levels and firms are starting to become profitable once again. More interestingly, airlines appear to Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Bolt Financial Inc., a leading payments-focused technology company, announced the acquisition of the crypto-services startup Wyre in a cash and stock deal. Announced on April 7th, 2022, the deal is expected to close later in 2022. It is valued at around $1.5 billion, and, according to research Read more…
Download PDF Introduction The power and utilities industry refers to a category of companies that focus on providing services to satisfy basic needs. The five main businesses classified as utilities are electric power, natural gas, water supply, steam supply and sewage removal. The sector is mainly known for its stability Read more…
Download PDF Abstract While the literature investigating risk premia driving the cross section of stock returns is extensive, fewer studies analyze corporate bond returns. We set out to understand which factors and firm characteristics command a premium in terms of expected returns on corporate bonds, both in the investment grade Read more…
Download PDF Introduction The Industrials sector has certainly been one of the backbones of the world economy. It is composed of three industry groups: Capital Goods, Commercial & Professional Services, and Transportation. As of now, Industrials is the sixth largest of the 11 GICS sectors in the U.S. market and Read more…
Download PDF Latest trends in Equity Capital Markets In 2021, Equity capital markets showed an outstanding recovery from 2020, with the S&P 500 closing at historic highs throughout the year. The first half of the year saw a substantial improvement in investor confidence with the passage of the American Rescue Read more…
Download PDF Introduction On March 29, 2022, UnitedHealth Group Inc. announced it would acquire LHC Group Inc. for $5.4bn. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2022, pending shareholders’ approvals and regulatory approvals. This deal comes immediately after UnitedHealth’s $13bn acquisition of Change Healthcare which the Read more…
Download PDF Introduction “For it is, so to speak, a game of Snap, of Old Maid, a pastime in which he is victor who says Snap neither too soon nor too late, who passes the Old Maid to his neighbour before the game is over, who secures a chair for Read more…
Download PDF Sentiment in global financial markets was once again largely affected by the developments of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and by the Federal Reserve policy. USA The declarations of Fed Governor Lael Brainard on Tuesday and the release of minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee of mid-March on Read more…
Download PDF The world in the 21st century is increasingly growing more independent from cash transactions thanks to an incredibly dynamic payment industry, marked in recent years by rapid developments. The 1950s marked the invention and of the first credit card in the United States, in part fueled by war-recovery Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Rising energy costs threatened to undermine economies just recovering from a two-year pandemic well before Russian tanks moved into Ukraine. As a result of Putin’s aggression, that threat may now come to fruition. Fueling the global economy, fossil fuels such as crude oil, diesel, and natural gas Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Economics and the world economy are peculiar for being so unpredictable. The constant involvement of human beings leads them far from being an exact science. Correspondingly, financial markets are even more uncertain, constantly driven by human behaviour. For this reason, the idea that one very simple predictor Read more…
Download PDF The Low-Beta Anomaly The Low-Beta Anomaly is a well-documented stock market anomaly in which low beta stocks outperform high beta stocks. This goes against what basic financial intuition and theory would suggest; most notably it stands in direct opposition to the Capital Asset Pricing Model which stipulates that Read more…
Download PDF Introduction Berkshire Hathaway has agreed to buy insurance company Alleghany Inc in a deal worth $11.6bn. The purchase, once completed, would be one of the five biggest acquisitions in Berkshire’s records and will put some of the firm’s $146.7bn of cash and cash equivalents to work after a Read more…